Creative Solutions to Save the Planet

You may be familiar with Al Gore's suggestions for how to cut back on global warming, but come on, Gore is a Bore. Even if I had the $7.50 to check out the snorefest An Inconvenient Truth I would really just be paying to take a nap in an air-conditioned room and to babe watch for environmentalist man-hotties.
So, I will take this initial post to share some of Al's ideas as well as my own more creative, innovative techniques.

Al Says:
Turn off electronic devices you're not using
Simply turning off your television, DVD player, stereo, and computer when you're not using them will save you thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Unplug electronics from the wall when you're not using them
Even when turned off, things like hairdryers, cell phone chargers and televisions use energy. In fact, the energy used to keep display clocks lit and memory chips working accounts for 5 percent of total domestic energy consumption and spews 18 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year!

Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl)
CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch will save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. If every family in the U.S. made the switch, wed reduce carbon dioxide by more than 90 billion pounds! You can purchase CFLs online from the Energy Federation.

Insulate and weatherize your home
Properly insulating your walls and ceilings can save 25% of your home heating bill and 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Caulking and weather-stripping can save another 1,700 pounds per year. The Consumer Federation of America has more information on how to better insulate your home.

Buy locally grown and produced foods
The average meal in the United States travels 1,200 miles from the farm to your plate. Buying locally will save fuel and keep money in your community.

Buy fresh foods instead of frozen
Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce.

Seek out and support local farmers markets
They reduce the amount of energy required to grow and transport the food to you by one fifth. You can find a farmers market in your area at the USDA website.

Buy organic foods as much as possible
Organic soils capture and store carbon dioxide at much higher levels than soils from conventional farms. If we grew all of our corn and soybeans organically, wed remove 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere!

Avoid heavily packaged products
You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

Eat less meat
Methane is the second most significant greenhouse gas and cows are one of the greatest methane emitters. Their grassy diet and multiple stomachs cause them to produce methane, which they exhale with every breath.

Victoria Says:

Do away with unnecessary electric devices
Think about it, do you really need a coffee maker? Not only is that little water tank breeding ground for bacteria (you would not believe the grime I found floating in my former roommate's Mr. Coffee), it is also a really inefficient way to get your buzz on in the morning. Why not switch to French Press? It's the crack-cocaine of the coffee world. Or Yerba Mate? You can carry around a cool gourd and "bombilla" (fancy ethnic word for straw).

Low Maintenance Buzz

Plus, both Mate and French Press keep your colon clean as a whistle if you catch my whiff (and if you come over after I've had a pot of F.P. it's going to be pretty hard to miss said whiff)

Do you have a dishwasher?
Well, ever since my animal friend Krackers the Dog came to live with me my dishwasher has only been used as storage space for old copies of Adbusters. Didn't you know that dogs have natural bateria fighting chemicals right on there on their little doggy tongues? I just set all my used dishes, pots, pans, and cups on the kitchen floor and Krackers does all the dirty work! Don't have a dog? Come on over and use mine, she loves it! You'll never have to buy a bottle of Dawn again.

Reduce, reduce, reduce
I agree with Gore, we should all cut back on how much we consume overly packaged products. For example, toilet paper. All that plastic holding the 4-24 rolls together-waste! The cardboard rolls themselves- unless you have an adorable hamster or other cutrodentnt friend using them for entertainment purposes-waste! Why not just use your bare hands to scrape the excess crap off your hole? Just wash them afterwards with organic botanical soap and no one will no the difference. Have you been to Rainbow Natural? There must be something in that store with an earthy-reek can combat the stench of your excrement.

Let's think of some more, it's not going to hurt Mother Earth if we increase the amount of brain energy we use!!