Why? Because it will save a minimum of twelve hundred pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
- Take care of the simple chore of caulking and weather- stripping your exterior doors and windows. Why? Because not only will you be more comfortable all year long, but you’ll also eliminate seventeen hundred pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
- Plant a tree, or have one planted by an organization like Tree-People, in honor of a lost loved one. Why? Because you’ll be adding more oxygen to the atmosphere and saving an amazing two thousand pounds of carbon dioxide.
Those simple adjustments alone add up to a saving of nine thousand five hundred pounds of carbon dioxide per person per year. If you need a little more motivation to be convinced, they’ll also save you about two thousand dollars every year.
And a few more suggestions for today or the near future, since they’re not necessarily as simple (or affordable) as the above list:
- As you replace old appliances, buy new ones that bear an “Energy Star” label, designed to save both carbon dioxide emissions and money.
- Making sure the walls and ceilings of your home are well-insulated can save a minimum of two thousand pounds of carbon dioxide, not to mention hundreds of dollars every year.
- Changing single-pane windows to double-pane windows conserves energy, saves a fortune in power bills, and eliminates an amazing ten thousand pounds of carbon dioxide.
- Switching from your current showerhead to a low-flow showerhead will save approximately 350 pounds of carbon dioxide and an average of around two hundred dollars per year.
- When it’s time for a new car, remember that a hybrid will save almost seventeen thousand pounds of carbon dioxide and $3,800 per Even a more fuel-efficient car will save thousands and thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide and thousands of dollars at the same time.
By the way, since the paper industry is the third-largest contributor to global warming factors, seek out toilet paper, facial tissues, and paper towels and coffee filters that are made from recycled paper; recycle magazines, newspapers, and paper grocery bags; give your dry cleaner a garment bag to use for your dry cleaning to encourage them to get rid of all that annoying extra paper and plastic, and never drop off dry cleaning without returning those equally annoying wire hangers.
And on the subject of “annoying,” I’m sure it would horrify all of us to see how many landfills are piled with Styrofoam cups, since about twenty-five billion of them are thrown away every year. Plastic bags from the market are a little more recycleable than Styrofoam but not much. Paper or glass cups and mugs make drinks taste better than Styrofoam does, don’t you think? As for all the debris left over from trips to the store, washable canvas shopping bags eliminate that so conveniently.
Again, I wouldn’t carry on for quite so long on this subject if it weren’t literally a matter of life and death, of whether or not we’ll ever live on this earth again once we’ve gone Home. We caused these problems, and it’s our job to clean them up. And while we’re at it, let’s pray every single day that it’s not already too late.
Our Health at the End of Days
We obviously can’t be healthy in an atmosphere that isn’t. So when I say that illness is what’s going to ultimately end our lives on Earth, please understand that I’m not really making a distinction between the fatal diseases in our future and the disastrous environment we’re in the process of creating.
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