Make Your Home Green!!

This weeks research topic is how to make your home green.  A green home can be defined as a home that uses less energy and creates less waste.  There are a great number of possibilities to make your home green, and I am going to explore just a few.  One step you could take would be to have an expert come and evaluate your home.  They would be able to recommend to you the most cost effective and efficient upgrades for your house.  A very simple, yet very overlooked energy saver is a compact fluorescent light bulb.  These light bulbs have a much longer life than incandescent light bulbs, and use a lot less electricity as well.  It is estimated that a compact fluorescent lamp can save around $50 over its life compared to an incandescent light bulb.  Another thing to think about is making sure your home is well insulated.  This can greatly reduce the costs of heating/cooling your home.  Buying energy star appliances can also save energy and money.  These appliances are deemed energy star efficient on the basis that they: contribute to significant energy savings nationwide, save money in the long run, and that their performance can be tested.  Green homes not only save the environment, they can save you a lot of money, so GO GREEN!!!

Transportation

To start things off, I would like to welcome you all to my new blog, GO GREEN!!!  This is a research blog that will investigate the many ways to help preserve our beautiful planet for future generations to enjoy.  My first topic will be transportation.  I will introduce to you the many ways that are available to get around in an environmental friendly manner.  I'll start out with the obvious; biking, walking, rollerblading, etc.  Not only are these methods healthy for the environment, they are healthy for your body as well.  One more obvious option is carpooling.  This will save you money, time (carpool lane), and wear on your vehicle.  On top of that, you'll cut down on harmful emissions.  One program, called NuRide, even rewards people for taking "greener" trips.  They estimate that there are an average 1.1 billion trips per day, and 78% of those are single drivers.  They also estimate that 50% of urban air pollution and 30% of greenhouse gas emission results from driving.  Since March 2004 NuRide users have prevented about 51,526 tons of emissions and saved 5,242,874 gallons of gas.  More information is available at www.nuride.com.  Public transit is another easy alternative to driving.  Metro Transit is the public transit organization in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.  They offer public busses and light rail.  They use hybrid busses and new generation cleaner fuels.  If none of these methods are applicable or convenient for you, hybrids cars are extremely efficient.  Put very simply, a hybrid car has a gasoline engine and an electric motor.  The gasoline engine provides most of the power while the electric motor provides an extra kick for accelerating or when extra power is needed.  The battery is recharged by the gas engine so it never needs to be plugged in.  It is evident that there are many ways of traveling without polluting the environment, so GO GREEN!!!