Mixx 96.1FM Green Minutes

Green Minutes - what you can do to prevent climate change!

Mixx 96.1’s "Green Minutes” are tips you can use to personally prevent climate change and help our planet! Tips use information provided in a cool book called You Can Prevent Global Warming (and Save Money!) by Jeffrey Langholz, PhD and Kelly Turner. Ask your local bookstore for a copy.

Electronics: Many of your household appliances are using energy even when they are not turned on. For instance, approximately 1/4 of the energy consumed by your TV each year is used when it is turned off. Any piece of office equipment that has a remote control, battery charger, internal memory, AC adapter plug, instant-on feature, permanent display (such as a clock), or sensor (such as a security alarm), will use electricity even when it is switched off. An easy way to fix this for equipment such as TVs, VCRs, computers, and stereo systems is to plug them all into a power strip ($6 investment), then turn it off when you are not using the equipment. That will also protect your equipment from a power surge. If 100,000 people plugged in their VCR's or DVDs only when watching a movie, they would prevent 5,000 tons of CO2 from being emitted every year!

Have you heard about "phantom loads"? This is the electricity that is used by electrical appliances even when they are turned "off." A significant proportion of the electricity that you pay for each year is being hogged by appliances that are off! Newer appliances tend to be more efficient, and particularly ones that have the Energy Star Logo. Battery-operated appliances aren't necessarily better, as disposable batteries contain toxic chemicals that are hard to get rid of. Manufacturing a disposable battery uses 50 times more energy than it will provide when it is used, and the energy that comes from it is approximately 1,000 times more expensive than the electricity from your outlet!

Driving: The way you drive affects your fuel efficiency tremendously. The more smoothly you drive, the less gas you use. Braking or accelerating rapidly at highway speeds can decrease fuel efficiency by 30%. Letting your car idle for just 20 seconds produces more CO2 than turning your car off and then on again, and is harder on your car. And slow down - fuel efficiency plummets above 60 mph! If the whole country went back to driving at 55 mph we could save the amount of oil that we import from the Persian Gulf each year. "Drive 55, keep the Earth alive!"

Planes: Planes are the single biggest way that we contribute to climate change. A single round-trip flight from Seattle to New York spews out 6,450 pounds of CO2 per passenger. That is as much CO2 emissions as you save in an entire year by upgrading to a new gas-electric hybrid! Airplane travel is responsible for 8% of the world's global-warming emissions, and we Americans are the biggest users. If you can, catch a bus or a train. Even taking your car is much more fuel efficient! Hopefully in the future we will have more efficient high-speed trains available to us.

Landscaping: You can reduce your use of irrigation water significantly - and even reduce your household cooling and heating needs - with thoughtful landscaping. Tall, leafy deciduous trees can shade your house and garden in the hot summer months and, when they drop their leaves in the winter, light and heat will be allowed in. Native gardens with layered vegetation including tall trees, short trees and shrubs, and ground cover prevent evaporation and erosion and also provide homes and food for small mammals and birds. You can help provide a better planet for more than just the human species!

Heating: Heating our homes in the U.S. produces 310 million tons of CO2 per year. Here's how you can help, and stay warm at the same time. Use your programmable thermostat, and buy one if you don't have one. They can save you up to 30% annually by automatically decreasing the temperature while you are asleep or gone at work. They can be programmed for every day of the week. DOE recommends 68 degrees or lower when you are at home during the day, and 60 degrees or lower when you are gone or sleeping. If you are gone more than three days during the winter, decrease it to 55 degrees. When you are choosing your thermostat, look for the Energy Star logo, and don't install it near a hot lamp or a cold window - watch the savings roll in!

Insulating: More on staying warm. When it's cold outside, take the time to walk through your house and attic and check your windows and doors - and wherever pipes, ducts, or wiring come into your walls - for cold air leaking in (and warm air leaking out!). Weather stripping, caulk, and foam sealants can be amazing. While you're at it, get a professional to give your furnace a tune-up once every year or two, and remember to change your filters once a month during the winter. You can reduce your costs by greater than 10%, a real savings!

Heating and cooling ... your home represents approximately 50% of your annual energy bill, so anything you can do to lower energy consumption in this area is important. In particular, preventing the escape of heated or cooled air through poorly insulated attics, ceilings, walls, floors, and ducts can improve the efficiency of your system significantly. Read up on insulation on the internet or go to your local home improvement store for help. Insulating a 600 square foot attic to an R value of 38 can save you $225 annually including the cost of the insulation. In addition, improving your home insulation will make your home more comfortable in both winter and summer!

Because heating and cooling your home is up to 50% of your annual energy bill, making sure that heated or cooled air is not leaking out is very important. In addition to assessing your insulation, take a little time to check your house for leaks wherever pipes, vents, or electrical wires come through walls, around all windows and doors, and around fireplace flues. Don't forget to check for gaps in your foundation going into your crawl space, as they can be an access point for small animals, too! Now ask your friendly home improvement store for tips on sealing those leaks with weather stripping, foam sealents, gaskets, etc., and get to it!

The average U.S. home has 180 feet of ducts that transport heated and cooled air throughout the house. You don't think of them much because they are hidden in the walls, crawl space, or attic. If your ducts were installed poorly and have gaps at the seams, you may be heating and cooling areas you don't care about! Duct leaks cost Americans up to 10.2 billion dollars per year. There are some interesting and new high-tech ways to seal your ducts, and it may be worth your while to have a professional assess and seal your ducts for you. If you are willing to do it yourself, you may be able to save up to $100 annually, and prevent 2,250 pounds of CO2 production! (Tip: despite its name, don't use duct tape, as this is just a temporary fix and will dry and pull away!)

Lawns: 70% of our good drinking water is used to water lawns in the summer. You can reduce your water bill and save time in mowing by letting your lawn "go to sleep" over the summer. It will perk back up with the rains in the fall. If you don't like the way that looks, consider changing some of your unused grassy areas to gardens using native and drought-resistant plants. The birds and the bees will love you!

Travel Mugs: There are coffee/hot drink cups you can purchase that will fit in your car's cupholder and be used for years. They are insulated so that your coffee will stay hot longer and you won't burn your hands. Why not take one with you to your latté stand in the morning, and use it for the office coffee, too? You'll save lots of disposable cups over the lifetime of your mug. The water you use washing it is nothing compared to the energy used creating and disposing of all those cups!

Packaging: Pay attention to packaging. Fully a third of all the trash thrown away in the u.s. Is packaging materials - 532 pounds of it per person per year. Some of it is recycleable, some is not. Try to buy things in recycleable or reusable containers, or if possible, without packaging. Do you really need the plastic bags that come with every little purchase? Just say "no bag, please" and carry it away in your purse or tote!

Lighting: Compact fluorescent light bulbs last for up to 10 years and use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs. Although they cost more initially, you will save money over time. If every household in the U.S. replaced its next burned out lightbulb with a compact fluorescent, we would prevent more than 13 billion pounds of CO2 from being emitted, equivalent to taking 1.2 million cars off the road for an entire year. Give compact fluorescent lightbulbs a try!

Fluorescents: Fluorescent lightbulbs are extremely efficient. Use them in areas where you tend to have the lights on for long periods of time. If you have incandescent bulbs on a dimmer, use it, as it will make bulbs last longer and use less energy. Even if you dim your lights to 90% of their full power, they will last significantly longer. Remember to turn off your lights when you leave a room. Turning them off and on again when needed does not wear the bulb out, or use more energy - either for incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Open your curtains and use sunlight when available! Every little thing you do helps!

Refrigeration: One of the biggest household energy users is your refrigerator. If you have an old refrigerator that you use sporadically or only for drinks, but keep plugged in year round, it could be costing you more than a hundred dollars and giving off up to a ton of carbon dioxide a year. Recycle it, and if you still need one, get a newer, more energy-efficient model. Look at your refrigerator's thermostat. It should be between 37 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That is plenty cold to prevent bacterial growth. Your freezer should be at 0 to 5 degrees. If it's colder, you are wasting that energy.

Drying clothes: A huge source of CO2 production is the clothes dryer. If you can avoid using it by drying your clothes on a line or rack, inside or outside, you will save money, make your clothes last longer, prevent shrinkage, and prevent CO2 production! If you have a large family and not enough time to put your clothes on a line, always dry a full load, don't mix heavy and very lightweight cottons, use a moisture sensor so as not to over dry, and clean the lint trap before each load.

Hot water: One of the biggest sources of energy waste is hot water use. The first thing that you can do to prevent wasting energy is to lower the thermostat on your water heater to 120 degrees. This is plenty hot for any household purpose. Make sure your water heater and its connections are insulated. If you are building a new house or remodeling, look into on-demand water heaters - which heat only what you need when you need it - solar water heaters, which are used throughout Europe, or geothermal heat-pump water heaters. Although they are all more expensive initially, over time they should make up for their costs in energy savings, and help our planet at the same time!

Washing: Do you really need to do your laundry on the hot setting? 80% of the electricity your washing machine uses is for heating the water. Cold water detergents are available - and work very well. You will also prevent shrinkage and your clothes will last longer. Showering and bathing is an even bigger hot water hog. An older showerhead can use 4 to 6 gallons per minute, whereas the newer and more efficient low-flow showerheads use one to 2.5 gallons per minute. By aerating the water they achieve almost the same water pressure, using a lot less water. Change your showerhead today – it’s cheap and easy!

Bottled water: Before you buy your next bottle of water, think about this: up to 40% of bottled water is simply bottled tap water. We have remarkably safe tap water in the U.S. Why should we pay someone to bottle it for us, then transport it, when we could get it for free from our tap? If you need to take water in the car, just re-use your last bottle. Bottles last a long time. In fact, they fill our landfills, and, even if you recycle them, that takes energy too! If you want filtered water, use a replaceable filter in a sports bottle, or put a filter on your sink faucet! You'll save hundreds of dollars a year!

Fuel efficiency: Your car emits as much CO2 per year as your house with all its appliances. The most significant way for you to help prevent climate change is to improve your vehicle's fuel efficiency. Keep your car tuned and your tires properly inflated - you'll use less gas. Letting your car idle for more than 20 seconds uses more gas than turning it off and on again. Reduce your fuel consumption by driving 55 miles per hour on the freeway, and avoid braking and accelerating. If you can afford it, get a car that gets better gas mileage! You may be able to make your monthly payment in savings on gas!

Beef: You may be aware that beef causes lots of greenhouse gas emissions, but do you know why? One of the reasons is that cows have four stomachs and produce prodigious amounts of methane when they burp! Methane is 23 times worse than CO2 at causing global warming. Of all the methane produced, 24% of it is from cattle burps and manure. If you buy one less pound of beef a week, in one year you will save 109 dollars, 364 pounds of grain, 130,000 gallons of water, and decrease CO2 production by 546 pounds!

Cooling: Cooling your home can be expensive. There are ways that you can make your air conditioner more efficient! Have a certified service person clean your air conditioner coils every year, replace disposable filters, and clean reusable ones. If there is a room you don't use, close the vents and doors. You can save $18 and 348 pounds of CO2 by simply not cooling one room for the summer! Instead of your air conditioner, or in conjunction with your air conditioner, use fans and dehumidifiers - they make the perceived temperature cooler and more tolerable. You can raise the set temperature and still be comfortable. If one quarter of the people who use air conditioners used theirs 25% less, it would prevent three million tons of CO2 from being emitted each year!

Food: The food in an average meal travels more than 1000 miles before it reaches you. Try to eat as much locally grown food as possible, and you will prevent thousands of pounds of CO2 production, support your local economy, promote Washington State’s small farms, and get better-tasting and fresher foods! Think about joining one of the many CSAs (consumer supported agriculture) in the area. Ask about these at your farmer's market. They cost less, and provide you with fresh, inexpensive, seasonal food that is organic and good for you. For more information on CSAs see: