Saving the Environment, One Swirly Bulb at a Time

Despite the recent media barrage, and the newfound celebrity hype of being eco-friendly, many people have yet to form an opinion on global warming. Most everyone has heard of it, but there are plenty of people that either don’t believe it, or feel that there’s really nothing they can do about it, so why worry.

In a conversation with a friend’s dad, the topic of climate change and CO2 emissions came up. This man had all but written off the idea as a liberal hoax, or some overblown unfounded idea to get people to buy those expensive swirly light bulbs. It wasn’t me who convinced him otherwise, and it wasn’t Al Gore. It was a national geographic documentary on TV that just happened to capture his attention at the right moment. He saw this documentary, saw the stranded polar bear and the ice caps melting, and as many decent Americans would, he thought what can I do about it? The realization just had to set in that all the hype is based on indisputable scientific evidence.

I had an answer for his question. Saving energy is a subject in which I am passionate, and one that will likely save you money. The easiest thing you can do is to change out all of your incandescent light bulbs for the new energy efficient fluorescents (Yeah, the swirly ones). They are being phased out in Australia; their government saw the value here… They end up costing you about $2.50 per bulb if bought in at least packs of three. It is better to replace these right away, just throw away the old bulbs working or not working. Even with cheap energy prices here in the south, the electricity savings over the life of the bulb will cover the cost of both bulbs (I did the math). There are plenty of other things you can do as well, including additional insulation, new windows, window tinting, efficient water heating, more efficient A/C and heating, or even just planting a well placed tree. All the information you need can be found by giving your household and energy audit. http://hes.lbl.gov you can also visit this site Energy Saving Ideas. The best thing is, these projects will save you money and you can feel good for helping the environment.

Individuals aren’t the only ones that realize the cost savings of an energy audit. Many top name corporations are tackling this in order to save money and get the added benefit of eco-friendly bragging rights. For the corporate side there is a comprehensive guide. Getting Ahead of the Curve: Corporate Strategies That Address Climate Change. My interest here was the case studies at the end of this guide. There are case studies on Alcoa, Shell and Whirlpool (among others) and they are worth a quick read (just to scan through them). There are still plenty of companies that could benefit from this, I just hope more of them take time to consider this information. Being efficient is profitable, think about it.

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This came straight out of John Carey's article in Business Week

The white house and opponents of some of these energy saving measures have been known to claim that CO2 reductions would be costly and detrimental to the economy. A new analysis from Vattenfall and McKinsey Consulting published different results. "The cost is so low, the world would hardly notice," says Vattenfall CEO Lars Josefsson, an adviser to the German government.

The world must slash CO2 emissions by 27 billion tons by 2030 to keep overall warming to 2C, Vattenfall says. Five billion can come from steps like more insulation, higher mileage vehicles, and better lighting. The rest can come from cellulosic ethanol, solar and wind power, carbon capture at coal plants, and other approaches - all at a cost of $53 per ton of CO2. The bill in 2030 would be about 0.6% of global GDP. "For the first time, we know what to do," says Josefsson.