Global Warming: What We Can Do
For my third blog post, I decided to find a list of things that regular people can help stop Global Warming and add my own thoughts to each section and say how I completed or did not complete each section. I created my list from several diffrent sites, including the David Suzuki Foundation (here) and the Scientific American (here)
Use efficient lighting
Use efficient lighting
CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) use four times less energy, and they last eight times longer. But special lights aren't the only things that are important for using efficient lighting. You can save so much power just by turning off the lights when you leave a room. I try to do this whenever I go somewhere, but one of the difficulties with sharing a room with someone else, is that most likely the moment I leave, someone goes in there and turns it back on.
Drive Less
Most humans have two appendages called legs which are used for walking. Sure they are also used for turning the pedals on a bike, or pushing the gas and brake pedals. I have no idea how much carbon I have saved from going into the atmosphere just by walking to school and back almost every day.
Use water carefully
Don't waste water. Some of the small ways to do this are things like taking shorter showers, not leaving the water running when you are rinsing soap off dishes (unless you are one of the lucky people that have a dishwasher), and insert something else here.
Use less plastic
Take a cloth bag with you when shopping. Avoid products with a lot of packaging. Although plastic grocery bags have some uses, I don't think they are worth the trouble. Not just to mention the amount of time, energy and resources that goes into making them, but just the number of plastic bags that turn up in rivers and oceans and are slowly killing plants and animals wherever they go.
Use renewable energy
In this day and age, we have so many different options for renewable energy. From solar power, to water power to air power, there are so many different options that we have. (Although heat wise, I don't think anything beat a wood fired stove and a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate). Another source on renewable energy that is free at the fingers of 7.7 billion people. It is the energy that can be used to move the the bike, or crank up the hand-powered flashlight.
Plant more trees
A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Trees have the ability to turn the carbon dioxide that we exhale back into oxygen. It is a very interesting process and one that humans should be paying more attention to since it could save our lives one day. One thing I learned recently was that we destroy about 55600 trees a minute, which is about 15,000,000,000 trees lost per year.
Turn off electronic devices
By turning off energy using devices when you aren't using them, you are saving several thousand kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions a year. In our great age of technology, we can acomplish this at the flick of a switch.
Reuse & recycle
Recycling and re-using products like paper, cans, and bottles will help protect the environment by keeping those products out of a landfill and in circulation, thus saving the energy, resources and time that it would take to replace them.
Drive Less
Most humans have two appendages called legs which are used for walking. Sure they are also used for turning the pedals on a bike, or pushing the gas and brake pedals. I have no idea how much carbon I have saved from going into the atmosphere just by walking to school and back almost every day.
Use water carefully
Don't waste water. Some of the small ways to do this are things like taking shorter showers, not leaving the water running when you are rinsing soap off dishes (unless you are one of the lucky people that have a dishwasher), and insert something else here.
Use less plastic
Take a cloth bag with you when shopping. Avoid products with a lot of packaging. Although plastic grocery bags have some uses, I don't think they are worth the trouble. Not just to mention the amount of time, energy and resources that goes into making them, but just the number of plastic bags that turn up in rivers and oceans and are slowly killing plants and animals wherever they go.
Use renewable energy
In this day and age, we have so many different options for renewable energy. From solar power, to water power to air power, there are so many different options that we have. (Although heat wise, I don't think anything beat a wood fired stove and a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate). Another source on renewable energy that is free at the fingers of 7.7 billion people. It is the energy that can be used to move the the bike, or crank up the hand-powered flashlight.
Plant more trees
A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Trees have the ability to turn the carbon dioxide that we exhale back into oxygen. It is a very interesting process and one that humans should be paying more attention to since it could save our lives one day. One thing I learned recently was that we destroy about 55600 trees a minute, which is about 15,000,000,000 trees lost per year.
Turn off electronic devices
By turning off energy using devices when you aren't using them, you are saving several thousand kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions a year. In our great age of technology, we can acomplish this at the flick of a switch.
Reuse & recycle
Recycling and re-using products like paper, cans, and bottles will help protect the environment by keeping those products out of a landfill and in circulation, thus saving the energy, resources and time that it would take to replace them.
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