Saving Energy and Saving the Earth

Hello everyone.  

As I have said a few times, when we reduce our energy consumption and become more energy efficient, we save money. Sometimes a lot of money!  And, we help save the Earth. So how exactly does reducing our energy consumption help save the Earth?  After all, the Earth is huge and has been around for billions of years.  How can reducing our energy consumption in our homes help save it?

I will try to explain.

By now everyone has heard of global warming and the greenhouse effect, right?  Global warming refers to the phenomenon of the earth’s atmospheric temperature increasing over time. As the earth becomes warmer, weather patterns change, and become increasingly more erratic. Our summers become hotter, and our winters warmer. This can have very serious consequences on our planet, such as the polar ice caps melting, which leads to our sea levels rising, which leads to coastal communities getting flooded and wiped out.  It is predicted that by the 2040’s, we will have “super” warm summers here in North America, like none we have ever seen before. Temperatures will be over 100 degrees on a regular basis.  So Global Warming is serious business, and something we need to be aware of.

A major contributor to global warming is a concept called the “greenhouse effect”. To understand the greenhouse effect, think of a garden greenhouse as you know it…a simple glass building with a glass roof and glass walls. All the glass allows the suns rays to enter freely without being blocked.  The greenhouse warms up naturally from all the sun’s light and heat, and the glass holds the heat in the building.    

Our homes use various fuels to create heat (oil, natural gas, wood, etc). Our electric companies burn fuels such as oil and coal to generate the electricity that we use in our homes. When these fuels are burned, carbon dioxide is released. The carbon dioxide (CO2) rises up into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it accumulates, with other gases, over time.  These “greenhouse” gases essentially act like the glass roof on a greenhouse – they allow the suns warm rays to enter and hit the earth’s surface, and warms things up.  Then, when some of these sun rays are reflected back towards the sky, and when some of the heat on the earth rises and tries to naturally escape the Earth’s atmosphere, these accumulated “greenhouse” gases act like a barrier, or a blanket, and keep heat here within our atmosphere.  This cycle repeats itself over and over and slowly over time this “trapped” heat causes our temperatures here on Earth to rise.  The more CO2 we release to the atmosphere, the thicker and heavier the “blanket” becomes, and more heat is trapped.

So, when you burn less oil to heat your home, you release less CO2 to the atmosphere (turning down your thermostat will use less oil).  When you use less electricity in your home (turning off lights when you leave the room), the electric company burns less fuel, and less CO2 is released. Releasing less CO2, means less greenhouse gas.  Less greenhouse gas, means less heat is trapped.  This means less damage to the Earth as we know it.  It also means less money spent!

Using less energy = saving money + helping save the Earth.

Think energy savings every day.

Jeff

Energy tip of the week:   Turn the water off when you are brushing your teeth and when you are scrubbing your hands.  During the 20 or 30 or 40 seconds the water is shut off you can save around ¾ of a gallon of our precious resource, water, each time!  And if it is hot water, you will save all that WASTED energy used to heat that water.