If you're not, you should be

Shamelss family props being given:
my sister's food blog is hilarious.
http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/food/archives/2007/09/pizza_psycholog.php

RECYCLED PAPER TO BOOST OUR CONFIDENCE

I am a horrible and lazy Pod Leader. I have temporarily let all manner of distractions keep me from my Very Important Job, being your Fearless, Organized, Dedicated Pod Leader. I have many excuses, but thankfully, none of them are good ones. And, luckily, many of you have been very supportive, encouraging me to continue, letting me know you have missed our little Pod. Your interest has buoyed me, and made me realize that we have already changed a few things, and we can continue changing a few things. And that is how we will change lots of things.

Even if sometimes, we don't feel like doing anything at all (see above picture).

Firm but gentle effort. One foot in front of the other. Patience with Ourselves and Others. These are some principles this pod is founded on, and they bear repeating.

Today, in honor of those three principles, I offer a lightly-tossed, easy-to-catch softball: Recycled Paper.

According to the kinds of websites that report on these things, regular ol' paper causes all kinds of problems. The average American uses an astonishing 730 pounds of paper product a year and the paper industry is the third greatest contributor to global warming emissions.

But guess what, you will save 5lbs. of carbon dioxide per ream of 100% post-consumer-recycled paper you use.

That is why our TO DO for this 10do10 missive is: MAKE SURE YOUR PRINTER PAPER IS 100% POST-CONSUMER RECYCLED. You will be rewarded with even more of the universe's warm love (and points on the 10do10 spreadsheet) if you also switch your office, coworkers, your friends, and your family members to 100% PCR paper.

Now, there are some complexities to the situation--those inclined to know the specifics should look here for further explanation or to find a place for bulk orders. Let me know, in fact, if you would like to find the best, cheapest paper for your office or organization, and I will help facilitate. But in the meantime, get yourself to Staples and buy a ream of 100% post-consumer recycled multi-use paper. (Don't be tricked into buying the 30% recycled version--you want 100%, because that's the kind of person you are.)

Once you have done that, email me and let me know and I will make a note of it on my handy spread sheet.

Also, feel free to experiment with other recycled paper products--stationery, toilet paper, paper towels-- easy to do, many of you are probably doing it already!

Thank you for forgiving me for being out of it. Thank you for renewing your efforts. Thank you for being a member of this pod.

BACK IN ACTION!

LAURA WOLF has bought a Prius!
that means, that as of today, our pod has:

Changed 34 lightbulbs
Signed up for 10 green energy plans
Bought 2 hybrid cars
Started 1 pod in Pennsylvania
Reduced the temperature on 4 hot water heaters
and
Installed 1 tankless hot water heater!

Fantastic! And now, I have returned from my various trips, and am ready to once again pick up the mantle of Pod Leader and fearlessly lead through more energy saving/environment-protecting activities.

THIS WEEK: we tackle Vampire Energy Suckers!

For those that need scientific proof: check out this article at science daily.

What's the gist?: The typical American home has 20 electrical appliances that continue to suck electricity even when they're off. These so-called "vampire" appliances cost consumers $3 billion a year -- or about $200 per household. We're using the equivalent of seven electrical generating plants just to supply the electricity needed to support these vampire appliances when they're turned off!

WHICH OF OUR APPLIANCES DO WE NEED TO WORRY ABOUT?
Anything with a remote control, clock, or wall pack, (like your cell phone charger)
Main culprits: TVs, VCRs, DVD players, stereo systems, computer printers, computers

SOLUTION: Do like Pod Member ARI HANDEL and get yourself one of those surge protecting power strips, plug in the offending devices, and turn the whole thing off when they are not in use. The Handel-Wiseman family uses one for all their chargeables--they put them on at night and turn it off in the morning. This also works well for entertainment systems or for a computer and its associated printers, scanners and other peripheral devices.

NOW ANOTHER THING: Your computer should be turned off at night. I know what they have told us, leave it, it uses more energy to turn it back on etc etc--NOT TRUE. Who are these liars? If the smart people at Harvard are turning off their computers, then so can we. READ THIS, YE WITH COMPUTER QUESTIONS.

AND, SPEAKING OF COMPUTERS: $1 billion a year is wasted on electricity for computers that are turned on when they shouldn't be! Screensavers do not save energy! RIGHT NOW, DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, go to your computers preferences, disable the screensaver, and instead opt to put your computer to sleep when you are not using it. Mine is set to put the computer to sleep after 10 minutes, and the display to sleep after five. This may turn out to be too irritating, in which case I will adjust it a little. Please let me know how it goes for you or if you have problems!

Bulbs and Hot Water Heaters

Can you believe that we are still talking about bulbs? Who knew that there would be so many things to say?

Turns out there are four main points that this Pod Leader feels compelled to (re)communicate:

1. Order the WARM ones. They are the ones most like the incandescent bulbs we are used to. Now I have said it three times and I shan't say it again.

2. Be careful how you clean them up if they break. They contain small amounts of mercury, and so you should use a wet cloth to pick up the bulb, then throw both the cloth and the bulb away. Disposing of unbroken bulbs should be done with care also. You may be able to take them back to the store where you bought them, or find a place near you to recycle them--but generally speaking its currently pretty difficult to find the correct way to dispose of these suckers--hopefully that will change soon and in the meantime you should have a pretty long life with your new bulbs.

3. You CANNOT currently use CFLs in dimmer switches, although the technology will be here soon. Putting them on dimmers now could be a fire hazard, so please don't do it.

4. You can buy all manner of specialty bulbs including ones that fit in funny shaped chandeliers, etc.

NOW ONTO THIS WEEK's TASK:

Most people's hot water heaters are set at 140 degrees, but usually 120 degrees is just fine. I switched mine over three weeks ago and have not noticed a difference. For every ten degrees you lower your hot water heater, you can save between 3-5% of your total energy costs. Reducing your water temperature to 120ºF also slows mineral buildup and corrosion in your water heater and pipes. This helps your water heater last longer and operate at its maximum efficiency.

Consult your water heater owner's manual for instructions on how to operate the thermostat. You can find a thermostat dial for a gas storage water heater near the bottom of the tank on the gas valve. Electric water heaters, on the other hand, may have thermostats positioned behind screw-on plates or panels. As a safety precaution, shut off the electricity to the water heater before removing/opening the panels. Keep in mind that an electric water heater may have two thermostats—one each for the upper and lower heating elements.

Here is one of those funny little statistics: If every household in America turned its water heater thermostat down 20 degrees, we could prevent more than 45 million tons of annual CO2 emissions - the same amount emitted by the entire nations of Kuwait or Libya. Who comes up with these things?

A SAD AND PAINFUL CAVEAT: If you have a dishwasher without a booster heater, it may require a water temperature within a range of 130ºF to 140ºF for optimum cleaning. Ack. Check inside your dishwasher or in your manual to see what its optimal temperature is.

ALSO: Please report back to me Ye of Apartments and Co-ops, and let me know what your landlord/irritating co-op board has to say about the whole thing. This is a good time to point out that not everyone will be able to do everything suggested by the pod, but if we can all do what we can we will still accomplish a lot. But here's an idea: if you can't change your own hot water heater, call your parents or some other respectable person that lives in a house and ask them to do it--then report back to me and I will put a smiley face next to your name in my little book.

HEY LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE:

7 confirmed new consumers of their power company's Renewable Energy
26 newly installed compact fluorescent lightbulbs
1 confirmed hybrid car, maybe as many as 3 sometime soon
1 pod in Pennsylvania, with Pod Leader, eagerly awaiting instructions
1 fifth grade class in Pennsylvania, with Pod Leader, eagerly awaiting instructions

I am keeping a spreadsheet, so please do write with details of what you are doing!

COURAGE!

Bulbs--very glamorous

New Pod Zero member Ari Handel asks the following question: "Mostly we use this track lighting that takes these tiny little bulbs. They're sorta triangular shaped with a flatish bulb. You know that kind? Are those super energy burners or are they ok?"

Here is what your fearless Pod Leader has uncovered: The way to tell how much energy a lightbulb uses is to check the wattage--a typical incandescent bulb uses between 40-100 Watts, while a typical compact fluorescent uses between 10-40 Watts. I never know how they come up with these kinds of statistics but at any rate, "they" say that replacing a single incandescent bulb with a CFL will keep a half-ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the life of the bulb. I have found the folks at Service Lighting,1-800-624-4488 to be very helpful in terms of figuring out what kinds of bulbs you need--the woman I spoke to most recently said they make the CFLs in just about every shape.

That said, Ari, maybe your light bulbs are LEDs, which are also extremely energy efficient, and wouldn't require replacing. There is an excellent review of all types of energy saving lightbulbs at EARTHEASY.COM.

Eartheasy makes several important points--one is, again, order the WARM bulbs if you don't want to feel oppressed by the hideousness of the cool ones, and two is that CFL bulbs contain small amounts of mercury. The mercury poses no threat while in the bulb, but if YOU BREAK ONE, BE CAREFUL NOT TO INHALE THE MERCURY - immediately use a wet rag to clean it up and put all of the pieces, and the rag, into a plastic bag. (Although household CFL bulbs may legally be disposed of with regular trash (in the US), they are categorized as household hazardous waste. As long as the waste is sent to a modern municipal landfill, the hazard to the environment is limited. However, CFL's should not be sent to an incinerator, which would disperse the mercury into the atmosphere. (The best solution is to save spent CFL's for a community household hazardous waste collection, which would then send the bulbs to facilities capable of treating, recovering or recycling them. We'll work on figuring out where to do this East Coast/West Coast style. If anyone finds out anything about this, please post a comment)

ONE MORE THING, my googling this morning has turned up the following resource for determining just how much energy your products are using. Nerds who are interested should go visit Mr. Electricity.

Week One--baby steps

So it seems from email responses that many people are extremely interested in participating, some people are not so interested in participating, and at least one person does not actually believe in global warming. Lucky duck.

If you are reading this, I assume that you are at least somewhat interested in participating, so thank you, you are being very nice. A number of you actually volunteered to be Pod Leaders, great news, but first lets do a little beta test--Run our one little pod (Pod Zero? Home Pod? Best and First Pod?) for a few weeks and see how we do. My intention is to come up with a list of positive changes we can all fairly easily commit to, guide us through making those changes at the rate of one or two a week, and record the results, all the while discussing with First and Best Pod Members how they might see this continuing to take shape.

To that end, I am declaring the week of August 6-12 the week of Changing Over to Green Power and also Switching to New Lightbulbs. Many of you have already done these two things, very good, let me know that you already have and I will include it in my status report.

Here's the deal:

ACTION NUMBER ONE
(You can do it without leaving your computer)

If you live in New York City or Los Angeles, or any other place really, you can very easily upgrade, at the cost of a few extra dollars a month, to renewable energy that comes from regional wind and low-impact hydro power sources.

Read more about it and switch yourself over at the following links:

Click here if you live in New York City

And here if you are in Los Angeles.


ACTION NUMBER TWO

Get yourself some of those Compact Fluorescent Bulbs and switch out the other (bad) ones. For every 3 frequently used light bulbs you switch, you'll save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $60 per year. Its easy to get those lightbulbs--you can go to the store or order them online. Make sure you order the "warm" ones or you will be pissed like me and have to return them to the store because they are so hideous.

ACTION NUMBER THREE
Email me with questions, problems, etc. Laura Wolf, you mention needing a ladder, does anyone have a ladder thay can loan Laura Wolf?

ACTION FOUR
Email me when you have done these two action items.

I will keep track of responses, send out a gentle reminder at the end of next week, as well as a status report and a new set of action items.

Also, just for my internal records, how many members of this pod own or plan to own a hybrid car some time in the near future?

Here Goes

Today I sent out an email to about 15 of my friends to see what they think about starting this group "10 do 10."

The idea is inspired by the checklist on www.stopglobalwarming.org
for how to take action against massive and catastrophic climate change, and I wrote my friends to see if they were interested and/or had ideas/resources to share.

Basically I was thinking about it the other day and I realized that I have known about various small lifestyle changes I could make to help save energy and reduce carbon emissions, but for whatever reason, I have not gotten around to actually DOING very many of them. Simple things like replacing the light bulbs in the house with compact fluorescents, checking the hot water heater and making sure that it is set at 120 degrees, unplugging unused appliances, etc. --shame on me, but I imagine that there are a number of semi-lazy-ish (or rather, let's call them very busy) people out there who are very concerned about global warming but who have yet to actually make all the possible concrete changes in their lives. This idea is designed to facilitate:

Its a simple little thing really--10 people join an "Energy Pod," facilitated by what I am calling a "Pod-Leader", and all of them agree to do what they can to make small lifestyle tweaks that will help combat global warming. The Pod Leader, through non-annoying email messages, friendly, non-nagging phone calls, high-tech blog postings, raffles, etc (raffles?) then helps everyone follow through on their commitment. And by sharing with each other the changes that pod members are making, hopefully everyone will start to have a real sense of what can be accomplished by small groups. Perhaps, Pod Members will be inspired to become Pod Leaders, and, just like Amway, we start to rule the world.

(For the list offered by the stop global warming website of possible lifestyle adjustments--click

here

For now I am just beginning to think about the best way to organize--I think that the simpler the better--but it would be nice to have a website where others could join the movement if they'd like. Don't you reckon?

Anyway, so here is the blog about the beginnings of this project. I'll post people's comments/ideas/issues and we'll see what happens.

--sL