August 6, 2009

Top 10 Laziest Ways to Fight Global Warming


If you have seen the documentary movie entitled “An Inconvenient Truth,” you might have been convinced that our world nowadays is truly doomed if we continue abusing our resources what we have today .Our Earth does not deserve all the pains it suffers from right now. The consequences are horrifically not convenient but there are expedient ways to avoid them from happening .Be aware. Make a move. It’s time to take care of our environment.


Top 10 Laziest Ways to Fight Global Warming
by: yoshke


10. BUY IN BULK
Buying in bulk is not just practical but also eco-friendly. Items are much cheaper when purchased in bulk and it is a nice way of doing the environment a favor. You’re not just spending less money. You are also expending less energy. If you have so many items stocked at you home, you don’t need to make so many trips to the store; thus, saving gas or fare. You also save energy because of the reduced packaging. Do you have any idea how much plastic you’d save by choosing a six-in-one pack of toilet paper over six separate rolls? You also don’t need to worry about running out of toilet paper while doing your thing inside the bathroom because hey, you purchased lots of them.

9. EAT LESS MEAT
Yes, you’re tired of hearing this from your doctor who has been crazy worried about your ailing heart. But if you don’t care much about your health, then care about the environment. Aside from the health risks that red meat poses, more energy is required in producing and transporting meat. Did you know that much of our forests have been cleared just to turn them into grazing lands for livestocks? Fruits and vegetables require 95% less energy than meat so why not start a diet rich in fruits and vegetables? After all, they are healthier.

8. OPEN YOUR WINDOWS
Many of use are so used to air-conditioners that even when it is warm inside but cold outside, we still opt to use them instead of just opening the window. If you are living on the higher floors of your apartment building, you may give your air-con a rest and take advantage of the free cold air outside. If it’s not enough for you, then turn on the fan hanging comfortably upon your ceiling. You have no idea how circulated air does wonders for regulating the temperature in the room without cranking down the thermostat further. Besides, if you find it hard to sleep at night, you’ll be surprised by how the whirring sound could help you sleep.

7. PLANT A TREE
Oh yes, it takes too much effort digging a hole on the ground and burying the roots of a cute, little mahogany plant in your garden. However, are you not tired of drawing your venetian blinds throughout the day? You don’t to worry about dealing with those nasty blinds every now and then if you just plant a tree where the sun hits directly. By doing this, you can cool your home without relying too much on your air-conditioner. It will dramatically reduce your power costs. Now you see what a humble tree can do? Plant a tree now.

6. GO LITTLE
The smaller the vehicle you drive, the less you make global warming worse. That’s why instead of bigger SUVs, drive smaller cars. Furthermore, don’t forget to keep your car tuned up and all its tires properly inflated. This will not just save you much on fuel costs but also help in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. A single tune-up could boost your miles per gallon up to 40%. You might also want to get a new filter. It could get you 10% more mpg. And if you’re not using the roof rack, take it off to save more.

5. AVOID PLASTICS
Plastic is ugly. If you are the type who always uses wrinkly and pathetic plastic cups just because you feel lazy to wash your glasses, stop it. What you don’t realize is that disposing countless plastic cups take more time than washing glasses or mugs. Aside from that, mugs and glasses are far sexier than plastic cups. They can also make you look more professional. Know that every year around 24,000 tonnes of polystyrene (which is non-biodegradable) end up in a landfill.

4. PRINT BACK-TO-BACK
Do you realize how much paper you waste every time you print out each page of an unimportant document on a separate sheet of paper? Each year, an estimated 150 trees are wasted by overprinting documents. Isn’t it sad to know that some trees sacrificed their lives for rubbish? Admit it, you don’t even use the back page of the drafts you print out. That’s why if the document you’d print is just something you’d throw away after reading, then you better set your printer to duplex and use both sides of the paper. You’ll be helping the environment and saving money. But wait, there’s a bonus! You’ll also get to see the paper do a cartwheel in your printer as it prints the other side. Paper acrobatics, huh?

3. WALK
In the United Kingdom alone, 10 million car seats are left empty each day. Imagine if vacant car seats were prohibited, there would be far fewer vehicles on the road which means less traffic, less petrol and less pollution. That would truly help the environment. But of course, we all know that forbidding people to leave car seats empty is an absurd idea. The point is, you don’t need to use your car every single time you’d go out of the house. Take public transit, bike or walk if you’re not chasing time. If people made it a habit to leave their cars at home for at least two days a week, we would have been reducing our carbon dioxide emissions by at least 1,600 pounds a year.

2. TELEPORT
Or at least, telecommute. If you don’t need to meet up with your boss to give him an update of how well you do or how much you suck at work, then just telecommute. The telephone and the Internet were not invented for nothing. You don’t need to have superhuman abilities to break the distance-time relationship. If your house is 47 lightyears away from your workplace, why don’t you just find a place to stay nearby? This way, you won’t have to worry about getting late and waking up early just to arrive at the office at the last minute. If you live closer to work, you’ll be doing yourself, the society and the environment a huge favor. Again, less cars on the road means less pollution.

1. SPREAD THE WORD
How hard can it be to tell people how easy it is to care for Mother Nature? Share everything you have learned from this article with your family, friends and colleagues. Tell your office management that the company can also go green while improving their image along the way. Words can do wonders. Sometimes, all we need to do is spread the word and everything else will follow. Fighting global warming has to be a collective action. Anyway, no matter how lazy you might be, it surely wouldn’t hurt to convince the people around you to care for the world they live in.