Save and Conserve

whirlpool, the appliance manufacturer, has a home makeover contest you can enter until august 4th. details from the site:

Many people don't realize what a big difference a few small changes can make. That's why Whirlpool brand is searching nationwide for ten energy-inefficient homes. We'll determine which products will make the winning homes more energy and water efficient—from ENERGY STAR® qualified appliances to home sealing needs—providing a blueprint for more efficient living.

never thought i'd say this, but i wish i had an energy inefficient home right now. if you think your house is an energy hog, go enter the contest.

Posted by tom c. at 4:21 PM | Permalink

10. don't leave the tv on when you leave the house or go to a different room. i visited a friend's house this weekend. aside from the ridiculous fact that they have a tv in nearly every room, i kept finding various tvs left on - even when nobody was in the room.

9. don't go all high school and peel out when the light turns green. not only does it make you look like an a-hole, it's a waste of gas and tire rubber. relax a little behind the wheel

8. don't forget to draw your shades or blinds at home when it's really hot out. simply darkening the house can help keep the space cooler. that, in turn, will mean you need less a/c or whatever else you use to cool down.

7. don't underestimate the cooling power of some well placed fans. we've got a window unit a/c in our bedroom, but i think we've used it twice this summer. instead, we found that a box fan in the other window nearest the bed does a great job of keeping us cool. in fact, we usually wake at around 5am to turn it off, cause we're freezing our asses off by then.

6. don't drive when you can walk. pretty basic notion. go ahead, lace up the sneaks and smell the flowers. walking to the corner store or to a friend's place is really a nice change of pace. highly recommended.

5. don't neglect the little things on your car. inflate the tires to the proper pressure level. replace the air filter. these help conserve gas usage.

4. don't speed. i've been able to squeeze much much more out of my car this summer by driving around 60 mph on the highway. really, you need to experiment with lowering your speed. you will simply be amazed how much you can squeeze out of a full tank of gas at 60 mph.

3. don't leave electric appliances plugged in. if you have non-essential appliances plugged in but turned off, they could still be sucking down electricity. unplug the blender, toaster, microwave, etc when not in use

2. don't be caught unprepared for a power outage. buy some candles & make sure flashlights have fresh batteries. blackouts will become the norm in high demand seasons (summer especially)

1. don't forget conservation is something that can make a difference for your check book and for the world and it's one of the things you control. take back power!

Posted by tom c. at 4:37 PM | Permalink

in an earlier post i riffed about a scenario in which american leaders are peak oil-aware and, as such, might be trying to slow the global economy so the chinas of the world don't sink america's ship.

interesting to consider, but has to be wrong, right?

unless the top leaders of public government are brainwashed or robotic, i don't think such a scenario holds water in light of george bush & tony blair's G8 conversation. unaware that they were being recorded, it's safe to assume both guys were caught in their natural state ... speaking their minds off-the-cuff, if you will.

needless to say, off-the-cuff bush is 100% cringe-worthy. he may have sounded like a diplomatic lightweight ... or he may have sounded like a playground bully pushing blair around. but in this glimpse behind the curtain, he certainly didn't sound like the man with the plan.

my expectation from a "real" conversation was that we'd hear some juicy stuff. get some real insight. instead, we see how uninterested bush really is by all of this stuff. it reminds me of his detachment during the katrina episode. there was no anti-black conspiracy there ... the guy just doesn't care.

or maybe he is that dumb and powerless and there is a group calling the real shots. if that's the case, they couldn't have found a better man than george bush to convince everyone that our leaders are intellectually incapable of leading cabals & conspiracies. what we learned from the open mic convo was that private bush is much the same as public bush.

Posted by tom c. at 3:16 PM | Permalink

did anyone catch the nytimes sunday mag article about china's booming car culture? the velocity at which china is becoming a mini-me of the US is startling. and, in this case, i don't think the US is liable to look at china with doe eyes and state: "you complete me!"

per the article, china has 233% more passenger cars on the road in 2006 than it did in 2000. that's gotta be kicking out a nice plume of co2. although the lines al showed us in an inconvenient truth were literally climbing off the charts, i wouldn't be surprised to see them go much much higher in light of what's happening in china right now. china now has the second highest number of highway miles in the world. second to you know who and growing fast.

this is the ironic thing about the rise of the global economy. we got our 10 years of cheap products and labor out of the deal ... but you have to wonder at what price. globalism has led to a "they've gone plaid" chinese metamorphisis . it really can't get any faster, can it? oh it probably can and will ...

if co2 really is behind global warming, it's difficult to see how we're going to right the ship. it will be difficult to turn this massive boat around with any kind of speed. like the titanic, we're steering through difficult waters too quickly. we need to slow this thing down somehow

Posted by tom c. at 3:22 PM | Permalink