How To Reduce Your Greenhouse Gas Emissions (at home)

How To Reduce Your Greenhouse Gas Emissions (at home)

House

1. Plant a Tree. Well-placed landscaping cuts energy costs in summer and winter. Whilst alive, the tree will store carbon dioxide that would otherwise be in the atmosphere. Trees that are placed so that they will provide shade for your house will also help it stay cool in the summer. Better yet, make it a fruit or a nut tree. Planting perennials that yield food, including berry bushes and garden vegetables and herbs, will help you eat locally while 'fixing' more carbon in the soil. Introducing these plants in public places, by the sides of roads and in parks, is another way to benefit the community and the climate. When planting outside your home, limit yourself to native species.
2. Repaint your house with latex paint instead of oil-based. Latex paint releases significantly fewer harmful fumes while drying and smells a lot better.
3. Buy energy efficient appliances with the "Energy Star" label.
4. Make sure the dishwasher and washing machine are full before running them to save energy and money. If you don't have an Energy Star certified dishwasher, it uses less water (and no energy) to do dishes by hand.
5. Call your local utility and sign up for renewable energy. If they don’t offer it, ask them why not.
6. Get a home energy audit. Many utilities offer free audits, which may reveal simple ways to cut emissions.
7. Weatherize your home; caulk and weather-strip your doorways and windows. Add insulation, especially to the roof, it cuts drastically heating and cooling expenses. Change your windows for double glazing. Add outside shades to use in summer. Not only will all this save energy, it will save you money too!
8. Move your thermostat two degrees cooler in winter and two degrees warmer in the summer.
9. Unplug your cell phone charger, TV and other electronics from the wall when you are not using them. Did you know that even when turned "off" your cell phone chargers, DVD players, computers, and cameras still use small amounts of energy? The process can be made easier if you have everything plugged into a surge protector with its own switch.
10. Make sure to turn off lights and other energy-sucking devices when they aren’t being used. This also applies to schools because most schools do not turn off their lights when not in use. If 10,000 schools turned off all their lights for just one minute, they would save more than $81,000. If those same schools turned off their lights every time they went to recess, they would save more than $4.9 million!
11. Replace any incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones. Fluorescent light bulbs are more expensive, but replacing just one incandescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide. Fluorescent lamps are more efficient than incandescent light bulbs of an equivalent brightness. This is because more of the consumed energy is converted to usable light and less is converted to heat, allowing fluorescent lamps to run cooler. An incandescent lamp may convert only 10% of its power input to visible light releasing 90% heat. A fluorescent lamp producing as much useful visible light energy may require only 1/3 to 1/4 as much electricity input and converts 90% of the power input to visible light releasing only 10% heat. Typically a fluorescent lamp will last between 10 and 20 times as long as an equivalent incandescent lamp. Basically, a fluorescent light bulb would reduce your energy consumption AND your electric bill!
12. If you're leaving your computer for a while, put it on stand-by. You'll be able to restart it quickly, and it'll take less energy than shutting it down and then restarting it.
13. Before turning the heat on, put on thick socks and a sweater.
14. Invest in alternate energy devices for your own home. Windmill kits are inexpensive and a great source of electricity in many areas. Solar energy, especially solar collectors for water heaters, is possible for most homes. Building from adobe in arid climates can dramatically save on energy costs and result in homes that last hundreds of years. Adobe construction also greatly reduces the amount of wood used in home construction. The man behind the Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org) actually sells electricity created at his home back to the electric company, paying for the modifications he made to his home in just a few years.
15. Buy durable goods. The effort to make and transport even small items can add up quickly. As much as possible buy items that will last instead of buying the same item several times in a decade. The larger the item is the more wear and tear on the environment you will save by not producing a brand new one.
16. 90% of hot water heat goes to waste as it leaves dishwashers, clothes washers or the shower. This heat energy can be recovered to lower the energy needed and save on water heating costs. Install a hot water heat recycling unit to significantly reduce either electricity or the fuel burned for domestic water heating.
17. Reduce the usage of refrigerants and air-conditioners whenever possible.

Ariestio, Landscape Architecture (Trisakti University, Jakarta, Indonesia)

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