In the face of global warming, rising energy costs, and hoping to save a little money, I've taken a few steps to decrease my energy consumption.

To put some of these energy cuts in perspective, consider this:

The energy to burn one 100 watt lightbulb for 10 hours requires one pound of coal.

One pound of coal produces about two pounds of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas.

Burning coal also sends some pretty nasty pollution into the air:

• radioactive isotopes
• mercury
• arsenic
• lead
• nitrogen oxides
• and sulfur dioxide - among other things.
  

Here are the things I did. Some of them are obvious, and some of them take a little more effort than others. Work with what you have.

Compact Flourescent Light Bulbs (CFL's) These are a little more expensive, so at first I didn't buy so many and replaced only the lights I use the most. CFL's last longer than incandescents and cut power use up to 75%, so they are a good investment. I've fantasized about buying white LED lights. These are much more expensive (at least 30 dollars), and they are not so easy to find (try the internet) but they can last 10 times longer than CFLs and use as little as 1 watt.

Clothesline! As soon as I moved in to my current house, I put up a clothesline in the yard. I have the luxury of a breezeway, so I installed a nonobtrusive little indoor clothesline for the winter months. I also have a folding clothes rack to hang some clothes on. This could be handy if I still lived in an apartment, but I'd need three to dry one load of clothes. Click here for some other options. In the winter, the dryer helps keep the house warm, so drying clothes is less of a burden than it is in the summer.

Heating and Cooling I am lucky to have shade trees already planted around my house. These keep the house cool in the summer and cut down quite a bit on the AC. Consider planting some near your house. See here for more info. In the winter, turn down the thermostat and wear a sweater. You can also use the sun - see below.

You can use your ceiling fans to cut energy costs, but this will depend on your house. Many ceiling fans are not all that efficient. Where I live, natural gas prices go up every winter, so it is worth the extra electricity used to save on gas.

Pay attention to which way your fans blades are turning. In the winter, you want them to push air up to the ceiling - this will bounce the warm air off the ceiling and down into the room. In the summer, you want them to blow downward, to cool the air by circulating it. There should be a switch on the fan to change the direction.

Water A good bit of your energy costs go to heating your water. Wash your clothes in cold water - you won't notice any difference - and take a shorter shower. With a little planning, you can be in and out of the shower in less than two minutes. I also bought a water saving shower head for less than 10 dollars.

Use the Sun! During the day, I sit by the window to read and turn off all the lights. Also, be aware of the heat that the sun produces. Letting sunlight in can heat your house substantially, so be aware of where the sun is at different times of day and close or open the blinds accordingly depending on whether you want heat or cool.

Standby power Turn off the VCR, DVD, and other appliances that have a standby. Any electronic device that uses a remote control has a standby setting. When you turn the power off, the device still pulls some power so that it will be ready for the signal from the remote. Simply turn off your power strip when you are not using the stereo, dvd, etc. and you can cut your power consumption way down. It helps if you move the power strip to a place where you have easy access.

Radio Instead of our big stereo, I use a small, cheap radio to listen to radio news. It uses a fraction of the wattage as the stereo.

Computer Set the computer to hibernate and turn it off regularly when you don't use it. I've seen many different perspectives on how often you should turn your computer on and off. Make your own decsion, but definitely turn it off if you won't be using it for 24 hours, and turn off your monitor whenever you walk away from the computer.

Transportation Walk, bike, or take the bus. This is a great moneysaver if you have a good bus system. If you take the bus, you aren't driving, so you can read or do other things - you can actually add time to your day this way! If you're really dedicated, you might want to find a job closer to home, or move closer to work. Or maybe you can find a way to work from home!

Mindfulness! Much of the above requires that you constantly think about your power consumption. My family instilled some good habits in me. Thanks to my dad's constant reminders, I always turn the light off when I leave a room (even at work, where the lights are supposed to stay on). Still, I find it hard to always be aware of my energy consumption.

One way I did this was by constantly researching the environmental damage caused by the ways we generate power. This has a payoff for me, as I am an environmental activist and writer, but it also helped me stay aware of the costs of leaving the TV on for too long.

I also performed a sort of thought experiment. I researched the costs and performance of a solar energy system, and imagined what it would be like to have all of our electrical needs met by a solar panel. I figured, with the sunlight in my part of the country, that 2000 dollars would buy a system that could power one 100 watt bulb for 6 hours each day. Then I lived as if that this 600 watt/hour solar panel was my only source of power. Of course, there's also the refrigerator, TV, and furnace to consider, so I had to be really skimpy with my electricity. After pretending like this for a while, I had ingrained a few habits, like turning off the TV and radio if I wasn't listening, or only burning one light at a time.Hopefully, in the future there will be plentiful, non polluting energy and we won't have to be so skimpy.