Everyone stop exhaling, Please.
Yes, if we all stopped exhaling, it would reduce the level of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Fortunately, putting the brakes on the global climate crisis won't require that level of self-sacrifice. In fact, helping to save the planet has never been so painless.
Newsweek offers a special series on the environment, in the lead-up to Earth Day, and buried in there are some good, common sense nuggets that we can apply in Illinois:
Switch all stop lights from incandescent to LED. "One of the easiest measures is one of the most effective. That's converting stoplights from incandescent bulbs to LEDs...the conversion demands a major investment upfront...But since LEDs use 80 percent less energy than standard lights - and last six to ten times longer - they pay for themselves in several years...The Big Apple - which has replaced 80,000 incandescent bulbs in 12,000 intersections - will realize savings of $6.3 million a year once the initial investment of $28 million is paid off." (Did you hear that, Mayor Daley?)
Switch your household from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescents. "If every household in America switched out one compact fluorescent bulb, it would reduce energy consumption as much as taking a million cars off the road." There are only 4.7 million households in Illinois, but luckily for us, compact fluorescents are sold in five-packs. If everyone in Illinois buys a pack, it will be the equivalent of taking 200,000 cars off the road. You can join global efforts and pledge to switch your bulbs through Project Switch here.
Bonus! Last time I checked, the Citizen's Utility Board was distributing compact fluorescent bulbs for free.
Unplug your chargers. I know this sounds crazy, but when your cell phone charger, I-Pod charger, laptop charger, or whatever-charger are plugged in, they continue to draw electricity and just bleed it out into the ozone, even when not charging anything. The average household draws 10 watts an hour through their chargers, which adds 87.6 Kilowatt hours per year to your electric bill. Illinoisans are spending a combined $70 million a year and burning an unnecessary 412 million Kilowatt hours of electricity just to leave their chargers plugged in all of the time.
