Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

I heard about a new service today called Catalog Choice; it sounds like they do a similar thing as GreenDimes, which is another service to stop junk mail and catalogs. It’s an interesting problem, in a way: two companies doing about the same thing, one for a small fee, the other for free. Which one is better? (more…)

I went to Home Depot today for dimmable CFLs, a water heater blanket, a low-flow shower head, leaf bags and a few other things. After walking around aimlessly, I found the water heater blankets (out of stock), the CFL display (which was LAME!) and shower heads, all but one of which was the opposite of low-flow (several low flow models were out of stock). Oh, and no more leaf bags. Grumble. (more…)

The E-Z Pass electronic toll collection tag saved gasoline on our trip home this Thanksgiving. That’s my claim, and I’m sticking to it. The first way E-Z Pass saves gas is that you don’t have to bring your car to a complete stop and then accelerate back to highway speed. But based on my prior Thanksgiving driving trips I think there is a potentially much larger savings. (more…)

If you are on the road this Thanksgiving, consider this fact from the US Department of Energy: “Idling gets you 0 miles per gallon“. In fact, idling for more than 10 seconds uses more gas than turning the car off then on as needed. So if you are waiting in long lines of traffic approaching tolls, or waiting in line for fast-food, consider turning off the engine. Be safe, and don’t gun the engine (more…)

We’re looking for a good low-flow shower head. I have found some good options and am looking for suggestions. But in my hunt, I found one of the more egregious examples of green-washing I have seen recently. I found a shower head whose feature is that it turns off automatically when the water is warm. Hmm, I thought, how could that save water?

In my search, I came across the “Evolve” shower head. This shower head doesn’t actually use less water when you’re in the shower. Instead, this company has made the alarming (although probably true) assumption that the following series of events takes place:

1. Turn on water
2. Wait for it to warm up
3. Walk around the house doing other things
4. Get in the warm shower
5. Take a shower as normal

They had me up until step 3. (more…)

I just spent an hour raking leaves from our front lawn. My daughter came out and helped. She jumped in a few leaf piles. Now she’s out riding her bike. We could have hired a landscaping contractor (so: consider how this little trade-off reflects not just our energy problems, but a rather large social issue).

Here are some benefits: (more…)

CARMA is a new website (Nov 2007) that includes a searchable database of the CO₂ emissions of 50,000 power plants around the world, letting you see where the cleanest energy is coming from…and who the worst offenders are. I checked my zip code and found that Boston is far from exemplary. On the contrary…

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A while back, I was dismayed by the incredibly lame increases in light “truck” corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards put forward by the Bush administration’s Environmental Plundering Agency (EPA). Later, Environmental Defense helped win a victory in California courts. Today, another big victory, this time lead by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC).

Today, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the Bush administration’s weak fuel economy standard for sport-utility vehicles and other light-duty trucks. The court upbraided the administration for setting zero value on reducing the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming when setting fuel economy standards. The court also faulted the administration for leaving a gaping loophole that has allowed auto manufacturers to classify passenger cars as trucks subject to weaker fuel economy standards.

Go NRDC and all the others that made this happen. In your face, EPA!

In the last 35 years we have put more CO₂ into the atmosphere than we have in … all of the preceding history of the world. We must not just stop, but reverse this trend quickly. The single fastest, most effective, most dramatic change we can make to reverse global warming is to not use energy we don’t need to use. We can see why by finding some truth in a common lie told by our trusted financial advisers. (more…)

A few weeks back I wrote about Carter’s idea to make a Wind Turbine costume and hand out free compact fluorescent bulbs for Halloween. It was a great, great success. First, the picture:

and a few more in the album. Carter built it with some help from me, he and his friend Nicky gave out free CFLs (which is harder than it might seem), and we all learned just how much work there is to be done. (Update: 10/2008 — better options for CFLs now available)

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