Mar 30
Dec 19
With the holidays fast approaching, don’t lose sight of your efforts to help the earth. Think about making the switch to LED lights for your house. Try avoiding the wasteful wrapping paper that goes directly into the garbage. How about doing away the stacks of paper greeting cards and move to e-cards or start a blog with pictures and stories that you can share with friends and family.
Running out of ideas? Check out this lengthy list from planetgreen.com.
Sep 29
We’ve all heard it before, turn off your computer when you’re leaving for the night. This simple task can conserve power and save you money. But there are further steps you can take to minimize your energy usage. Click More for details.
May 09
Apr 29
I subscribe to the Green Building Digest and this article has ways to green your house. A great refresher.
Mar 23
Lowfoot(www.lowfoot.com) is a website that will allow you to connect to your smart-meter and track to your energy consumption. The great art of this is if you drop your energy consumption you can claim monetary payouts!
The website actually synchronizes itself with your smart-meter. It will then present the information in an easy to understand fashion. The website will then give you advice on how to reduce your energy consumption based on your consumption habits. Read More »
Feb 02
This extract is from the following link:
“With a fuel-injected car (which means “every car being manufactured today”), in a “normal” climate, there is no reason to warm up a car after starting it. The fuel injection system will compensate for a cold engine. In fact, starting the engine and immediately driving down the road actually helps reduce a car’s emissions. The car’s Catalytic Converter can’t do its job until it gets hot, and it gets hot faster if you are driving the car rather than letting it idle.”
More on Catalytic Converters in winter:
“The catalytic converter – the device that cleans pollutants from the vehicle exhaust – does not function at its peak until it reaches between 750° and 1500° F. The best way to warm the converter is to drive the vehicle. Idling emits more pollution if the catalytic converter is not working properly.
In winter conditions, emissions from idling vehicles are more than double the normal level immediately after a cold start. Warming up the engine means more than just the engine. The tires, transmission, wheel bearings and other moving parts also need to warm for the vehicle to perform well. Most of these parts do not warm until the vehicle is driven.”
Feb 01
Leaving the fridge door open while you decide what to graze on is not sustainable. Tips: Use your phone to take a photo inventory of the fridge contents so you can just grab what you know is in there easily, without wasting all the energy of your fridge trying to cool down your house while you decide what is available to eat.
You can also post your fridge content photos to flicker: http://www.flickr.com/groups/inthefridge/.
Feb 01
- REDUCED HEATING BILL: Does your wife get cold easily during the winter? Pregnancy will fix that right up! Actually had to turn down the thermostat this winter due to the baby “furnace”. Now I’m the one cold…
- ZERO CAR IDLING in the morning: Park in the garage! Ensured doors seal well; car is always at least at 5°C even when -20° outside!
- ZERO-EMISSION WINTER ACTIVITY: grab a shovel and get to it! This winter has been accommodating my winter-sporting needs.
Dec 20
It is that time of the year when we all receive shiny new electronic devices and it is time to retire the old ones. What to do with these?
Check out the “Recycle Your Electronics” Canadian website, where you will find places around your area to recycle, what types are accepted and great insight on why to recycle them.
