How to Take Care of Your Mother: Earth

In today's world everyone is talking about green living. While the emissions from cows do more harm to the environment than all of the people, cars, and factories on earth, we still need to do our part to protect the environment. We need to do everything that we can to insure the best future of our planet for generations to come.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. 
   LED Light Bulbs

   Change your incandescent light bulbs with more energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs. If every home in America replaced just one light bulb with the compact fluorescent light bulb, enough energy would be saved to light more than 3 million homes for a year! Imagine what would happen if we all replaced the five most used light bulbs in our homes with the compact fluorescent light bulbs. While these bulbs do cost more than standard incandescent light bulbs, the energy savings, and reduced impact on the environment are well worth the extra money. Plus, they last longer than standard light bulbs, which in the long run will actually make them cheaper to use. Also, look for the new LED light bulbs. At the moment they are quite expensive, but they are even more energy efficient than the compact fluorescent light bulbs.

2. 

   Turn off the water. Water is a precious necessity of life, and shouldn't be wasted. There are many ways to conserve water. You have to get out of the bad habit of leaving the water running while you are brushing your teeth. You can waste gallons of water every day by not simply turning the water off. Take a shower rather than a bath. While most people already prefer the shower, we all like to sit in a hot bath every now and then. This is fine, just don't do it daily. It takes far more water to fill the bath tub than it does to take a shower. However, don't take hour long showers either. Once you have bathed turn the water off and get out. Don't worry, you can shower again tomorrow. If you wash your own car don't simply leave the water running while you are soaping up the car. Rinse it quickly to wet it, turn the water off, then apply the soap. Once you have the car lathered up, then you can turn the water back on and rinse it. For watering your lawn and garden do it early in the morning or late at night. Don't water in the heat of the day. A lot of the water will be wasted due to evaporation.

3. 
   Energy Star

   Buy energy efficient appliances. When you need new appliances replace your old ones with the most energy efficient ones that you can afford. Look for the energy star label, and the label that shows the energy efficiency of the appliance. Choose the one with the lowest cost to operate. If you are replacing appliances that are still in good working condition you can either donate them or sell them to someone so that they will not go to a landfill. Check your local classifieds if the appliances no longer work. Often you will find ads where people will pay you for your broken appliances. They will in turn fix them and sell them to someone. This will also extend their life, and give someone else many more years of use out of them instead of cluttering the landfill.

4. 
   Slow Down!

   Keep your vehicle well maintained. This has many benefits, for your vehicle and the environment. Check your owner's manual for the scheduled maintenance for your vehicle. Replace worn out tires and keep them properly inflated, replace spark plugs and spark plug wires when recommended, change the oil regularly, change your air filter often, and keep unnecessary items out of your vehicle. That 50 pound box of books in your trunk is not only an eyesore, it is also costing you gas mileage and money. If you are going to buy a new vehicle consider a hybrid. They are much more efficient than vehicles that only use an internal combustion engine. When you are shopping for a vehicle check the drag coefficient for the vehicles that you are interested in. OK, I see the big question mark over your head. This is simply how aerodynamic the vehicle is. You can do a Google search for "(insert the vehicle year/make/model here) drag coefficient". For example, my 1991 Honda Prelude Si has a drag coefficient of 0.34. This is equal to a Ferrari F40. They are both very aerodynamic vehicles, which helps increase gas mileage. At highway speeds around 60% of the power that you are using to maintain speed is used to overcome the drag from the air that you are pushing through. This increases greatly the faster you go. As you can see, the more aerodynamic the vehicle, the more fuel savings you will see. Of course none of this will matter if you don't take your lead foot off of the pedal. The faster you drive, the more fuel you use.

Tips & Warnings

• Reusable bags are great for grocery shopping, and keep the plastic bags out of landfills.
• Buy a BPA Free water bottle and refill it instead of buying bottled water.
• Turn off lights when you are not in the room. Even if you are only leaving the room for a couple minutes, turn the light off to save energy.

Resources

• ehow Going Green Guide

[betterbody]

on 7/11/2009 Great points on taking care of the only EARTH we have!

[bossypants]

on 4/6/2009 What a terrific collection of easy ways to take care of our Mom, Earth! Thanks for the inspiration. Bossypants will lay a nice little hybrid egg, for you!