Green Living Tips from Ed Begley Jr.

Ed Begley Jr. was gracious enough to provide us with a few tips for green living:

Sage Green

Adjust your Climate by Two Degrees – Turning you heat down by 2°F in the winter and your air-conditioner up by 2°F in the summer can save the planet from more then one-third of a ton of CO2 emissions per year.

Replace a Lightbulb – If every household in the UK used just one energy-saving lightbulb, it would be enough to shut down a power station. Lighting uses more energy globally then is generated by nuclear or hydro-power. Energy-saving lightbulbs provide the same amount of light as regular (incandescent) bulbs, last up to 10 times longer and uses about 75% less energy. You save $30-$50 of electricity savings over the life of the bulb.

Say Yes to Short Showers – Global warming promises to worsen water shortages around the world. A quick shower uses one-third the water of a bath. Cutting your shower time by one minute can save more then 500 gallons of water each year.

Forest Green

Shop Locally – On average, each item in your local supermarket has traveled at least 1,000 miles to get to you. Buying locally produced food reduces the amount of energy used for transportation.

Go Public – One bus can carry the same number of people as 50 cars. Subways and trains hold even more. For every mile you travel, public transportation uses around half the fuel of a private car.

Green your Ride – Allowing your car to idle for 10 seconds uses more gasoline then turning the car off, then on again. At highway speeds, open windows increase drag and cost you fuel. Cool off by popping open the car’s vents. Keeping your tires properly inflated will save you about one tank of gas per year. Check the tire pressure monthly, using the same gauge every time. The average tire loses about one pound per square inch every month. Under inflated tires don’t roll as efficiently and wear out faster.

Hunter Green

Ride a Bike – Bike or walk to work, to school, to the store – doing so just once a week will give the planet a much-needed break from the CO2 emissions of your car. 2.3 billion gallons of gas are idled away each year by Americans while stuck in traffic. Half an hour of bicycling daily can increase your life expectancy by up to four years. One million commuters waster about 47 million hours per year because of traffic congestion.

Grow Your Own Tomato – One million homegrown tomatoes will make about 400,000 servings of marinara sauce. Tomatoes can fruit almost anywhere: 6-inch windowsill pot, a roof garden or a plot of land. Store-bought tomatoes travel approximately 1,500 food miles to reach you. Bread for sturdiness and yield, tomato crops are picked green, turned red by ethylene gas and refrigerated for shipping. In the US, 81% of tomato varieties have been lost in the past century.

Eat Green – One million cows burp about 220 tons of methane per day. 940 calories are in one 12-ounce porterhouse steak, 32,900 calories of fossil energy are required to raise one 12-ounce steak. One pound of meat required eight times as much energy to produce as one pound of veggie protein such as tofu.
Harvest the Sun – If one million homes switched to solar power, we could reduce CO2 emissions by 4.3 million tons per year.