Beautiful collection of Earth Day commemorative posters, from the 1970's to date. To make us remember and re-think.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/hfgR5a
Friday, April 22, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Earth Day 2011
We’ve come a long way since the first Earth Day. Over 40 years ago, on April 22, 1970, one in every 10 Americans participated in the first Earth Day, demonstrating their demands for a cleaner, healthier, safer environment. Forty years ago, environmental protection didn’t exist. Companies all across the country were allowed to turn waterways and industrial sites into toxic waste dumps. Ohio’s Cuyahoga River became so fouled with oily pollutants that it caught fire. Yes, a river became a fire hazard.
Earth Day launched a groundswell of environmental awareness. Americans from all walks of life spoke up and our government listened. Before the end of 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was established. Landmark legislation soon followed. The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act have had a sustained, far-reaching positive effect on the quality of our environment.
Today Earth Day is truly a global event. Thanks to the Earth Day Network (http://www.earthday.org/), over a billion people in 192 countries will participate in a wide range of Earth Day activities. It’s fitting for Earth Day to be the biggest civic event on our planet, because we need all the help we can get. The potential for global climate change (a term that didn’t exist back in 1970) to disrupt agricultural production, increase severe storms, raise sea levels and alter ecosystems is truly scary.
Earth Day gives all of us an opportunity to “think globally and act locally,” not just for one day but on an ongoing basis. Although the prospect of “saving the planet” may seem far-fetched, it’s what we all need to be doing in various ways. Earth Day reminds us that regardless of religion, political affiliation or economic status, we’re all hurtling through space on the same orb. We’ve all got a stake in preserving life as we know it. Here are a few ways to celebrate Earth Day 2011 –by increasing your awareness and then acting on it.
Read something by Bill McKibben. Widely recognized as one of our leading environmentalists, McKibben continues to write about a broad range of environmental issues. A new edition of his best-selling book, The End of Nature, has just been published. You can read articles and essays at his website:
http://www.billmckibben.com/articles.html
Learn more about the EPA. The scope and depth of information at the Environmental Protection Agency’s website is truly impressive. Whether you want to learn more about acid rain, lead paint removal, contaminated well water or household hazardous waste, you won’t be disappointed. http://www.epa.gov/
Get your hands dirty. Volunteer opportunities at the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can provide rewarding hands-on exposure to our wealth of protected wilderness areas. There’s a good article about these programs at The Wilderness Society website: http://wilderness.org/content/earth-day-what-are-you-doing-year
Reduce energy use at home. Here in the U.S., buildings are responsible for over 40% of our total energy use. Today we have the technology and products to transform an energy-wasting building into an energy miser. But we’re not putting these resources to use nearly as much as we should. If you haven’t had your home tested and evaluated for energy performance, don’t delay any longer. Find out what upgrades (like insulation, air-sealing, a new water heater, an ENERGY STAR™ dishwasher, etc.) your home needs to reduce energy use, and make a plan to complete as many improvements as you can. The nationwide impact of home energy upgrades is huge –less dependency on fossil fuels, lower carbon emissions, improved air quality and lower utility bills. There’s a wealth of useful information about home energy performance at Dr. Energy Saver (www.drenergysaver.com).
About Tim Snyder: A journalist specializing in sustainability, energy efficiency and home building topics, Snyder is a former executive editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine. He recently produced a green remodeling manual for the EPA and a chapter on “Smart Shelter” for The Whole Green Catalog, published by Rodale Press. Snyder’s advice and commentary can be found on numerous sites including Wisebread, Green-energy-news, MotherEarthNews and Dr.EnergySaver. He also provides training and support for Dr. Energy Saver, a nationwide network of energy auditors who also perform a comprehensive range of prioritized energy-saving improvements.
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Tagged as: earth day, earth day 2011, environment
Monday, February 28, 2011
ENERGY BOOMER: Save Money by Making Your Attic Energy Efficient
Save Money by Making Your Attic Energy Efficient
The following article was guest written by Cynthia Freeney
For some, the attic is just an unused (and unusable) portion of the building. For others, an attic is just a place where ducts, wires and vents can be found. For many, an attic represents valuable storage space and there are even those who convert unused attics into additional living space.
For people who use part or their entire attic, having an attic that overheats in the summer and freezes during winter can be a huge hassle. They are deeply impacted by these temperature changes, and they can feel it.
On the other hand, if you are not using the attic for storage or as a living area, you are still suffering the effects of these dramatic temperature shifts in your attic. You just don’t know it. You might have missed the signs of a problematic attic.
You probably think your energy bills are supposed to be that high, and that the icicles are supposed to be dangling down the edge of your roof because the snow is melting. Aren’t they pretty?
What you do not know is that these are all symptoms of an energy-wasting attic.
During the summer, every time your attic overheats, your house gets hotter, making your air conditioning system work much harder, especially if you have ducts running through the attic.
Likewise, ice damming and icicles are signs of energy waste. This means that heated air that was supposed to keep the living area warm is leaking into the attic, warming the roof and making your furnace work much harder.
Even if you don’t use your attic for storage or as a living area, controlling temperature and moisture in the attic by following these four steps will help you protect your home and save you a lot of money in energy bills.
1 - Air Sealing
The first thing you want to do is to take every necessary step to keep the air that you are paying to cool and heat where it belongs: in the living areas of your home.
Due to a physics phenomena called the “stack effect”, the warmest air in your home tends to rise and leak into the attic and then to the outside.
As it does, new, a similar volume of unconditioned air is sucked in from the outside, through leaks in the lower levels of the building.
Considering that 40% of what you pay in energy bills every month goes toward cooling and heating, can you imagine how much money you could be saving if you could only control or slow down that process?
That being said, the first step to an energy efficient attic is sealing air leaks between the living space and the attic.
2 - Proper Ventilation
After sealing the air leaks, the next step is to make sure your attic is properly vented.
Good attic ventilation is essential not just for energy efficiency, but for moisture control as well.
Due to differences of temperature between the attic and the conditioned area of your house, any moisture present in the air that enters the attic tends to condense all over attic surfaces. The insulation in the attic will then become useless, because damp insulation loses its R-Value. To make matters worse, condensation on wood and gypsum board can cause mold to develop.
Attic ventilation usually consists of a combination of soffit and ridge vents, but additional vents can also be installed in gable ends.
3 - Beef up the Insulation
Many homes in the US, especially in the North and Northeast, including newly built ones, suffer from the same problem: inadequate attic insulation.
The U.S. Department of Energy recommended insulation R-Value for homes in these areas is between 49 and 60, yet many homes have only about 1/3 of that R-Value.
The choice of insulation materials will also have an impact on how well it performs in the attic.
4 – A Silver Lining
You might think that a radiant barrier in the attic makes more sense for homes built in warmer climates than it would in colder areas.
However, don’t rule it out for your home just yet.
A radiant barrier improves cooling efficiency in the summer by reflecting the sun’s heat back to the outside.
It also improves heating efficiency in the winter by reflecting the heat back into the attic and living space.
That is especially desirable if you have ducts or heating and cooling equipment running in the attic. Or if you plan to use your attic for storage.
The most common type of radiant barrier is a thin sheet with reflective finish on both sides. There is also a “bubble-wrap” looking type of radiant barrier and a spray on coating for hard-to-reach surfaces.
An energy efficient attic is one of the main components of a green, energy efficient home, but is also only the first step to achieving the best performance and savings.
A building is a system, much like your body, comprised of smaller systems that work together. A better performing attic will definitely impact positively all of the other systems in your house.
Cynthia Freeney is a social media manager for many companies in the home improvement industry and currently works for Dr. Energy Saver, (http://www.drenergysaver.com) a nationwide franchise of contractors specialized in providing home energy-saving services such as home insulation, installing and upgrading furnaces and water heaters, replacing windows and doors, home energy evaluations (http://www.drenergysaver.com/contact-form.html) and more.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Baby Steps to a Greener Life
I began this blog, with the idea of sharing all the things I've been learning and compiling in my journey to adopt a more sustainable, greener lifestyle. Not just because I want my children and their children to inherit a beautiful planet, with all its beauty and biological diversity intact.
But because I want to live a better life now, and I want the same for everyone. Every living thing in the planet.
The first thing I've learned: that living green is not about undertaking herculean responsibilities, forfeiting comfort and technology and live a prehistoric lifestyle. Not at all.
Small, individual, daily choices will ultimately have the biggest impact in the future of this planet.
To start this blog, I could not have found anything better than this article, which puts in a nutshell much of what we will discuss here, in the form of a set of resolutions for the new year: 10 Resolutions for the Green Revolution.
I have the honor to work next to the author of this article, Tim Snyder, which is also a sort of mentor when it comes to green building and energy conservation.
He also keeps an awesome Home Energy Conservation Blog I recommend you look into.
But because I want to live a better life now, and I want the same for everyone. Every living thing in the planet.
The first thing I've learned: that living green is not about undertaking herculean responsibilities, forfeiting comfort and technology and live a prehistoric lifestyle. Not at all.
Small, individual, daily choices will ultimately have the biggest impact in the future of this planet.
To start this blog, I could not have found anything better than this article, which puts in a nutshell much of what we will discuss here, in the form of a set of resolutions for the new year: 10 Resolutions for the Green Revolution.
I have the honor to work next to the author of this article, Tim Snyder, which is also a sort of mentor when it comes to green building and energy conservation.
He also keeps an awesome Home Energy Conservation Blog I recommend you look into.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/fmdd0h
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