Dr. Skip Online

This is first article in a series about what the average person can do about global climate change.

We’ve been hearing on television news reports and in the papers about what governments are doing to help deal with global warming. These are large national and multi-national projects that address the problem on a very broad scale. But, what can the average person do to help?

If you are like me you sometimes feel that anything you do will have little or no effect compared to those big government projects. If you look at it as just you alone then your efforts have little effect. When you see it as millions people like yourself, if not billions, doing it together then what you are doing can have a major positive effect.

If we look at the little things that we do every day like wash clothes, showering and using electronics there are ways we can use less energy and thereby produce less CO2. Oh, we’ll also save ourselves money in the process.

Though my father has been dead for nearly 20 years I can still hear him saying ˜Turn it off – you think I’m made of money!” The simplest way to save energy is to turn off something if you aren’t using it. This primarily applies to your lighting and electronics. A computer left running all day while you’re at the office will work like a vacuum cleaner sucking dollars out of your wallet and pumping CO2 into the air.

One area in your home where this technique only partially applies is your AC unit. In the summer if you turn it completely off the temperature in your home will rise. It will take more energy to bring it back down to a comfortable level than if you had left the AC on at a higher than your normal level. Example, if you normally have your AC set to 75 degrees turn it to 85 when you leave.

This will use less energy than it you turned it completely off and then back on when you came home. The reason this happens is something called thermal inertia. The easiest way accomplish this is by using a programmable thermostat. Set it once and you don’t have to remember.

When we bathe, wash clothes or dishes we use hot water – most of the time anyway. We seldom think about the equipment used to produce all that hot water. Many of the older hot water heaters were not insulated or insulated poorly. I don’t know exactly when water heaters started to come from the manufacturers with insulation. I might be a good idea to check your make and model numbers against the manufacture’s web site and see.

If it is not insulated you can most likely buy an insulating blanket for yours at most home repair stores – they don’t cost very much. This will help put another dent in your power bill and put less CO2 in the air.

Next time more how to do it ideas for the rest of us.

Think Global – Act Local!