February 27, 2009 at 10:04 am (energy, money savings)
Tags: energy, savings, temperature, thermostat
We got a new thermostat this week, finally. Our old one should have been a museum and certainly needed to be changed out long ago. It was the slide kind and was impossible to know what the thing was actually set at. And once it was set you didn’t dare change it because you’d never that temperature back again.
Our new one doesn’t have all the bells and whistles but it is digital with very clear numbers. It’s easy to know what the settings are and what the room temperature currently is.
The total cost was under $30. It took my husband under and hour to change them out and another half hour to read the setting instructions and play with it a little. Not a very big investment, but I am expecting us to save money.
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February 13, 2009 at 12:09 am (money savings)
Tags: energy, food, green, money, recession, waste, water
For all of us green geeks there is a green lining to the recession. It’s not that we would wish anyone bad fortune, but for many years we have been trying to convince others that this country wastes a lot of stuff. Finally, mostly because of the current recession we are being heard and even listened to.
So why now? It’s pretty simple, wasted stuff equals wasted money.
And people in the country waste an incredible amount of resources and stuff every day. Don’t believe me, just check your trash can, closets and cabinets.
It is estimated that 35 to 50 percent of all the food bought is later thrown out. Spoiled food before it was used and uneaten left overs are the two biggest categories of waste.
Look in your closet and drawers, do you wear everything on a regular basis? I know women that buy clothes and never wear them. They give things away with the tags still on them.
What about water and energy. If your home isn’t air tight your wasting energy. How much stuff is plugged in right now that’s not in actual use? You’ve got to know by now that your wasting energy. Water is wasted in alarming amounts. Do you brush your teeth with the water running? If you do your wasting water. And don’t even get me started on lawns, they are one of the biggest wastes suburban America ever came up with.
So yes, green geeks are finally happy that others are at least listening to us and even joining our band wagon. Were not real happy that it took a recession to do it, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
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January 19, 2009 at 11:52 pm (good things, money savings)
Tags: economy, energy, environment, saving money, shopping
After checking out some of my stats, it seems that one on my oldest post is still one of my most popular posts, so I thought I’d do a recap.
Saving green is not only good for the environment but it’s also good for your wallet. I realize that the wallet is probably why people are looking at this post right now. That’s okay and maybe these simple ideas will carry over when the economy does get better.
But for now by changing a few habits and doing a few simple things you really can make a difference to the environment and your wallet.
I’ll do a quick recap of a few ideas and you can read many of my other posts for other ideas.
Get an energy audit for find out how to do your own.
Buy used, everything from books to clothes to furniture to jewelry.
Take your lunch to work in a reusable sack. Don’t forget to take silverware and use reusable containers.
Shop for the best deals on the web before you leave the house. Try to plan your errands so you cut down on driving.
Use regular dishes instead of paper at home.
This list is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of things you can do that will save you money and help the environment.
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December 5, 2008 at 12:33 am (Mother Nature, journey)
Tags: compost, energy, environment, nature, recycle, reusable, thrift
The environment and nature are almost the same thing, but not quite. For anyone with a Christan background think about the trinity. Each part is a whole but all the parts also make a whole. Confused yet?
Anyway, recognizing my connection with nature made me more aware about the environment. Yes I taking better care of my little piece of land but what about else could I do?
Turns out there was a lot I could do, and most of it was painless.
I’ve always composted our grass and leaves. Now I compost a lot of our kitchen waste. Coffee grounds, eggs shells, vegetable scraps, paper towel and stale bread. These are just a few of the things that go into the compost bucket.
I now have canvas shopping bags, all the light bulbs are now CFL’s, we recycle and don’t use things like paper plates anymore. I buy biodegradable soaps and cleaners. I read a lot of labels and consider how something is packaged. I have a reusable lunch bag and a set of regular silverware in my desk at work.
We really watch how we drive and make the most out of those trips. I drive by the grocery store on my way home, now I stop then instead of going back later. I also walk and bike.
Me and my daughter both shop at second hand stores. We also make a lot of our bath products instead of buying them.
We try not to throw anything out. We either try to find a new use for it or find a new home for it. My daughter has a lot of friends that are just starting out. They all love to receive things at no cost.
I’ve researched solar and wind power and will probably be adding solar panels to our home soon. Our next car will at the least be a hybrid if not completely electric. We’re not buying one now because our cars run fine. When your thinking about the environment not throwing away things that work perfectly good is part of the equation. It takes a lot of energy to make new things.
To my surprise, I also noticed that I wasn’t spending near as much money. This is not what I set out to do, but it is a direct result of being more environmentally friendly. So you if you could care less about the environment, then do these things for your bottom line.
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November 20, 2008 at 12:06 pm (Cost of green, energy)
Tags: coal, energy, gas, Mother Nature, oil, solar, wind
God, Mother Nature, President of the Universe, take your pick which one you believe in. Which ever it is they must be laughing at us humans.
Why are they laughing, because we keep picking the dirtiest and most dangerous options for our energy needs. Natural gas and oil, coal, wind and solar. There are other options but these are the “big boys” of energy.
Some greater force buried natural gas, oil and coal deep in the earth. It is dangerous to get to them and more dangerous to work with them, not to mention dirty and well, oily.
Wind and solar energy are certainly above ground. They are both just out there waiting for someone to come along and put them to work. They are not to dangerous, we send out kids out to play in them. They are not dirty at all, we all love the smell of things warmed by the sun.
So yeah, some greater and all knowing force has got to be laughing us.
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November 7, 2008 at 2:17 am (Cost of green)
Tags: coal mining, energy, lost lives, oil industry, Trinidad Colorado
Our recent trip to the old coal mining town of Trinidad Colorado got me thinking about the cost of energy. Not the cost in dollars, but in lives.
The mines in and around Trinidad have been shut down since the mid 1950’s. They didn’t close because hundreds of lives had been lost, they closed because they were no longer profitable to their owners.
There are still coal mines operating in Colorado, across the country and around the world. And there are still lives lost each year.
Lives are also lost each year in the oil industry. There are refinery fires and horrible accidents on the oil rigs. I personally know a little something about oil industry accidents. My grandfather was hit in the head with a bit that weighed about 20 pounds while working on the platform of a rig. One of brother in laws was burned over 80% of his body in a refinery fire.
So yes, in dollars oil and coal maybe cheap, but the cost of lost lives is unbelievably high.
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October 29, 2008 at 1:25 pm (general)
Tags: conservation, energy, lifestyle, save, time change
The clock that is. Unless you’ve been under a rock or out of the country you know that once again almost all of us here in the USA will change our clocks again this weekend.
The questions is, why? Supposeably the answer is to save energy. The problem with that answer is that most of the data the supports the fact that clock changing saves energy is from the mid seventies.
Again unless you’ve been under a rock for the last 30 years, your lifestyle has probably changed since the mid seventies. In fact there is some evidence from the state of Indiana, actually gathered this century, that all is clock changing is actually costing more energy.
And apparently Arizona and Hawaii along with most of the US territories don’t care about energy because they don’t change their clocks, ever.
So is the idea of energy conservation just a ploy for the government to mess with our clocks and sleep schedules twice a year? It could be. I’d at least like to see a new study.
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October 28, 2008 at 1:00 pm (Cost of green)
Tags: energy, green, jobs, water
The cost of “green” will actually be a series of posts. I’m not sure how many there will be yet, because I am still doing research.
There are many simple things that we can do in our individual lives to be a little greener that actually saves us money.
But when we start to talk about big things like energy independence and water issues then yes there will be an up front costs, mostly to build the infrastructure. There will also be hundreds of jobs in all sorts of sectors, both short term and and for years to come.
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October 27, 2008 at 10:59 pm (Mother Nature)
Tags: energy, nature, song birds, high rises
I have never understood why all the lights stay on in those big city downtown high rises. Even if every light was a low watt CFL it seems like a huge waste of energy to me.
I read something the other day that made the wasted energy argument seem trivial.
Those city lights are killing migrating song birds each year. According to the article, the birds navigate by starts at night, and all those lights get them more than a little mixed up. Once that happens they get lost in the “canyons” of high rises and actually fly into the buildings and die.
Some large cities are dimming the lights on their building during high migration times. I just wonder why they can’t dim them all the time. It would save birds and energy.
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October 18, 2008 at 11:56 pm (general)
Tags: alternative energy, city planning, energy, fuel, population control
I’ve been reading “A Citizen’s Guide To Ecology”. This afternoon I got to the section on global warming. The author promised some simple no nonsense solutions that would reduce if not solve the problem.
He wrote about alternative energy, better city planning and insulating homes. There was one suggestion that I don’t remember hearing about before, population control. This made a lot of sense to me. Basicaly the less people on the planet the less fuel and energy used. While this idea makes to complete sense to be and the author I can understand that it would not be widely accepted around the world.
I admit that this idea is one of the least likely to make it into a world treaty on global warming. Just the suggestion would have religions around the world calling foul. Others would have some very valid concerns about mandatory birth caps like China.
I will admit that I am past being able to reproduce. However I helped with global warming about 20 years before I even knew about it. I only had one child.
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