Take Action
Don’t think you are just one person. Look at what a person can do:
One person (Gandhi) committed to non-violence freed an entire nation. One person sailed across an ocean (Columbus) and discovered a whole new world.
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One person can start with himself reducing his carbon footprint and later persuade other people to do the same.
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One person convincing a local business to join the climate change organization could bring back forests to entire communities around the world.
- Turn down the heat and air conditioning when you aren't home— Turing off the air-con for 3 hours when you do not use it will cut CO2 emission by 2.2 kg.
- Choose energy efficient appliances— for example, making the switch to compact florescent bulbs— they last ten times longer than traditional bulbs and replacing one incandescent light bulb means 450 kg less CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere in a year or 1.23 kg per day.
- Take public transportation— take a public bus, subway or train instead of driving. Since you don't have to keep your eyes on the road, you can read, talk with friends or listen to music while you travel. Give public transit a try for one trip a week to start. You may be surprised by how convenient reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be. à Doing this can prevent 4.2 kg of carbon emission every day.
- Find a carpool buddy at least once a week à Going to school with your friend can cut down 2.1 carbon emission.
- Pump up your tires to reduce resistance— driving with under-inflated tires will waste more fuel. Over a year, this could be like wasting an entire tank of gas—equivalent to 106 kg of carbon emission or 0.29 kg per day.
- Go ride a bike -- or take a walk— Not only is riding a bike or walking a climate-friendly way to commute, it's good for your health, too.—just one gallon of gas will emit 8.8 kg of CO2. If you bike or walk a short distance, it can help a lot!
- Use the sleep settings and the power switch for computers and monitors— The single most powerful climate change tool on these machines is the OFF switch. Forget what you've heard about how powering up equipment repeatedly wears it out. That's old information, dating back decades. Also, make sure the hibernation and sleep settings are enabled— if you don’t leave the computer on while you’re sleeping for 8 hours, you will save the world from .27 kg of carbon!
- Recycle
Recycling just 5 aluminum cans prevents 1 kg of carbon emission.
Recycling just 10 plastic bottles prevents 1 kg of carbon emission.
Recycling just 10 glass bottles prevents 1 kg of carbon emission.
Recycling 1 ream of paper prevents 1.6 kg of carbon emission.
- Plant trees— trees absorb carbon dioxide and make the Earth GREENER. 10 trees can neutralize a person’s entire carbon foot print for the entire year.
- Don’t print unnecessarily or print on both sides— a ton of printing paper comes from about 24 trees. So a ream of paper needs 6% of a tree. This may seem to be a very little quantity but think of how much paper we consume in a year. Global paper consumption in 2005 was 350 MILLION tons! How many trees is that!?
- Constructing a new house? Build an energy efficient one!— An energy efficient home can save up to three forth of the money an average house spends on heating, cooling, and lighting.
- Use a power strip— Office equipment from faxes to toaster ovens draw energy just by being plugged in. Save energy by plugging all office equipment into a power strip. When you leave the office, just flip the off switch on the power strip.
- Spread the Word— Get your friends and family excited about solving the climate crisis. This way, you will prevent the existence of uncountable black balloons!
- Read green facts on moodle!— learn a lot more about this!
Take Action: Information from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html)
and
Repower America Organization
(http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/action/)
