Your Questions About Save Energy Save Earth

adminsta answers:

It isn’t exactly rocket science, but it is just as complicated. Electricity is constantly being used. Some is even still going through cords even though the appliances are off. I got this from a website somewhere on ways to go green;

Unplug your power. Ten percent of the electricity used in your home is burned by communication devices and appliances when they are turned off! If every U.S. Household just unplugged their computers and cell phone chargers when they were not being used, collectively we’d save over $100 million — enough to provide free health care to every low-income child under the age of five in the state of California.

adminsta answers:

There are plenty of people who eat raw meat. It is not going to kill you. I would advise against ground meats they have the highest chance of contracting the E. Coli bacteria.
Go for it … Any and everything you can do to save the planet makes a difference nature warrior….
B

adminsta answers:

I know it sounds hard, but, take shorter showers, use water saving showerheads and turn the water off or down when you don’t absolutely need it (shaving and such). Make a compost…all it takes is occasional watering and turning. All you have to do is take your compostable stuff (fruits, veggies, lawn debris) and heap it over a pile of dirt. Get your parents to get florescent lightbulbs. Learn to cook and eat locally. If your parents aren’t into that, help them shop and take them to farmers markets…buy fresh eggs, veggies, other stuff…
I applaud your interest…its important!

adminsta answers:

Oil is being depleted. But the concept of peak oil suggests we may be reaching a point were less and less will be produced. It is not about to run out. Coal reserves in the US are estimated at several hundred years. Gas reserves in the US are also now estimated at several hundred years with new techniques and finds. All these resources are fixed. They are also like solar storage as the original source of power for all of them was the sun.

They also pollute the atmosphere when they are burned. So to keep the solar battery charged, to keep the chemicals locked up that would otherwise pollute our environment can’t we get energy from the sun directly? Sure. But the concentration of energy in fuels has lead to the concentration of economic and political power as well. The concentration of economic and political power can be a tremendous force for good, but it is a force and it tends to be otherwise as self interest has less and less to check abuses.

It is possible that the pursuit of solar energy directly and not in its concentrated forms will lead to a more diffuse holding of economic and political power and in this way “save the Earth” and preserve the storage of chemicals in fossil fuels that are currently being used if not “depleted.”

adminsta answers:

Realistically we can never solve it with population levels where they are and industrialisation growing as it is.
IF and that’s a bigger word than it looks, if we can start being less greedy and limit our offspring, stop chasing fantasies and slow down our use of energy from the levels we are using it now, then maybe we can resolve some of our problem.
From the first time humans cut down a tree to clear land for farming we entered a cycle of destruction which changed the planet and whether this is for the worst or whether this can be seen as part of our evolution as a species and the resultant evolution of other species as they adapt or die from these changes is the real dilemma.

Is it really worth getting too worried about, just try and leave as small a footprint on this planet as you can. I doubt we will screw it up totally even if humans were to die off and most of the species habiting the planet today.

There are hundreds of ways to save energy but the majority mean giving up a few things so start there and see where it takes you.

adminsta answers:

The Earth Hour site doesn’t go very far to tell this because they stress the act as symbolic and advocacy, but a couple other sources tell various tidbits. One site says Toronto saved over 2 million kilowatts-hour while another site says northern Illinois saved 100,000 kilowatts-hour. For comparison the world supposedly used 14 billion kilowatt-hours per year, so you can see it’s not going to avert global warming or anything, but it is something.

I saw this issue of power plant shutting down in another question, and I brought to their attention that according to that second source, the area’s electric consumption only decreased by 1% – so I’d need to see some proof or official declaration that any power plants were shutting down before I take that as more than a joke.