Your car's carbon footprint=Big Foot?

You recycle. You conserve water. You adjust your thermostat. You get in your car and go to work. There are five main areas where you can lower your car's carbon footprint: Shopping, errands, work, maintenance and driving. It starts with you.

If the number one way to reduce your impact on global warming was to drive less, how many excuses could you supply why you cannot drive less? How about some practical tips to help you not only drive less, but reduce your emissions when you have to drive?

Even if you cannot afford to trade your car for a more efficient, electric or hybrid model, you can do a lot to reduce the impact your vehicle has on the environment.

Shopping

1. Shop for frozen and dry groceries and household supplies once per month. Limit shopping for perishables to once per week, and then only on your way home from somewhere else. Save gas and money by planning ahead.

2. Shop for clothing, shoes, items for children, gifts and other items quarterly or bimonthly. These non-essentials should be planned to avoid prolonged or frequent driving.

3. Shop locally. This is more than going to the neighborhood market. Buy items produced locally as well. You have direct control over pollution caused by transporting goods over very long distances to get to you.

Errands

1. Go to the bank, post office, doctor's office and pharmacy on the same day. By plotting your itinerary to include at least three stops, you save gasoline, money and time while reducing your carbon emissions by as much as 70%.

2. Go with a friend. While not as efficient as carpooling, you can choose who has the most efficient vehicle and completely eliminate the emissions from the other. Best practice is to go everywhere with at least two other people.

3. Go on time. Schedule your errands so you will not rush. This leads to more considerate driving, better braking and less stress.

Work

1. Telecommute. Many companies offer choices in telecommuting. More offices are closing an additional day each week to save on overhead. Work from home one day, or more, per week.

2. Carpool. It is cool to carpool. Schedule meetings during your commute. Again, choose the most efficient car to get you and your colleagues to work on time.

3. Transfer. If you are commuting more than fifteen miles to work, consider a position closer to your home. When possible, work within walking distance of your home.

4. Move. If you are commuting more than fifty miles to work, you are losing money, time and breathable air. If you cannot move, transfer to a position closer to home.

5. Detour. If your commute is spent sitting in traffic, find a new route to work. If there is only one way, change your work hours to avoid standstills.

Grab ten more tips on how to reduce your car's impact on global warming.

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Still looking for proof?

Ten convincing signs show global warming is affecting today's Earth. The "gloom and doom" is not something of concern for great-grandchildren as yet unborn. These major changes are the proverbial "tip of the iceberg".

10. Increased allergies. Lifestyle change and pollution leave more people vulnerable to seasonal allergies and asthma. Global warming temperature rises in combination with higher carbon dioxide levels trigger plants to bloom earlier. This increase in the amount of pollen, and its lingering longer in the air, aggravates allergies.

9. Wildlife migration. Beginning in the early 1900s, species have begun to move to higher elevations seeking their premium habitat. Global warming trends have sent chipmunks, mice and squirrels to higher elevations. Polar bears are moving closer and closer to the poles as their ice shelves melt due to the global increase in temperature.

8. Blooming Arctic? Ice, which normally holds tightly to Arctic plants, is melting earlier. Eager plants are enjoying longer growing seasons. Chlorophyll levels in today's Arctic are far higher than that of ancient Arctic soils.

7. Draining the lakes. Permafrost is frozen ground that makes the floor supporting Arctic lakes. As global temperatures rise, the permafrost melts. The lake water seeps through the ground, effectively draining the lake. Ecosystems based on the 125 already drained lakes are disappearing along with the water.

6. Sinks and slides As permafrost melts at higher altitudes, the ground shrinks unevenly based on its elemental make up. This leads to sink holes and damage to human structures, such as rail tracks, houses and roads. On the side of mountains, melted permafrost becomes rock and mud slides.

5. Evolution. With spring beginning earlier, hibernating animals face extinction faster than those who can reset their biological clocks. Migrating animals can move earlier, eat more food and reproduce earlier. Sleepy heads may miss out on the early food and their adolescents may not be mature enough to move come the cold of winter.

4. Speeding tickets? Carbon dioxide gives off heat when molecules collide in dense air near the Earth. Increased carbon dioxide molecules from emissions in the upper atmosphere, where the satellites live, radiate this heat away because they cannot collide as often because they force air lower into the atmosphere. This creates a cooling effect and erases the air's drag effect on the satellites. Less drag means the satellites speed up.

3. Taller mountains. Glaciers on the tops of mountains, like the Alps and the Himalayas, are heavy and push the mountains down. Global warming is melting these glaciers. Without the excess baggage, the mountains are growing faster, and the soil is springing back.

2. Lost wonders. Global warming's extreme weather and floods have already damaged some of the world's oldest artifacts that have stood the test of time, until recently. Ancient temples and settlements cannot survive these new changes. The original architects never could have planned for these changes in water levels and temperatures. 600 year old Sukhothai, the once capital of a Thai kingdom, has already fallen prey to a global warming flood.

1. Wildfire. Earlier snowmelt and warmer temperatures mean that drier areas, like the western United States, stay drier for longer. This long dry period increases the chances that a forest fire will break out and burn for longer.

These are only ten ways that global warming is effecting the Earth today. Without change in the current carbon dioxide emissions, these patterns will not only continue, but also intensify.

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Pollution Prevention: Individual Effort

We've all heard about global warming and climate change and the Kyoto Accord, but have you seriously considered how your pollution is affecting the Earth? Over the next week, we will focus on some serious issues and some very simple steps each one of us can take to preserve the planet for our great-grandchildren and beyond.

What is the role of pollution prevention in addressing climate change?

CO2 and water vapor are the largest contributors to the greenhouse effect that regulates the Earth's temperature. The atmospheric blanket around the Earth absorbs the radiant energy released after absorption of the sun's rays. Pollution of the atmosphere directly impacts the temperature control of Earth.

Increased CO2 emissions create an extra layer of blanketing in the atmosphere. This extra warming leads to climate change in the forms of warmer oceans, melting ice caps and glaciers, more pronounced flooding and droughts, agricultural shifts in fertility, human migration and increased global temperature.

Human industrialization over the last 200 years has increased the CO2 in the atmosphere to 30% above the natural level of increase that should have occurred after the last ice age. The planet cannot compensate for this large a fluctuation in its natural chemistry.

The natural evolution of Earth would see increased growth of forests after volcanic activity, sinking and rising of islands and a gradual encroachment of the oceans onto the major land masses over the course of five to ten centuries. With the human acceleration of the warming process, these events are due to occur in a smaller time window.

At current levels of consumption and pollution this window will shrink to less than two hundred years. Pollution prevention is necessary to slow this progression to nominally increased levels rather than the drastically increased current level.

Over 50% of CO2 emissions are resultant from transportation and domestic energy use. Great strides toward industrial reduction of CO2 emissions are laudable, but only a small portion of the effort that needs to be implemented. Individual efforts to conserve energy and reduce transportation dependency are of paramount importance.

In the absence of such pollution reduction, the planetary temperature will continue to rise. As the oceans warm, they will expand further, engulfing low lying, industrializing nations and island communities. The change in the water to land mass ratio will affect the amount of water vapor in the air through accelerated evaporation of the oceans.

Droughts and floods will be more pronounced in areas prone to such weather conditions. This dual effect will compromise the fertility of agricultural land. Further, refugees from such areas will displace land currently regulated to agriculture and reduce current forestation levels for the development of housing.

Finite growth patterns mean that the forests cannot rebuild within the time frame necessary to perform their role in the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere. Alternative solutions, such as the use of recycled steel, for housing construction must be employed to combat the decimation of the forests.

Deforestation will reduce the CO2 removed from the atmosphere. This completed cycle from increasing CO2 to reducing CO2 consumption will change the face of the Earth irrevocably. The hostile environment created will not be conducive to human existence and will hasten the next ice age.

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How safe is an efficient car?

Wanted: A safe, American-built vehicle with excellent fuel efficiency in 2015.

While this does not sound like a tall request, American automakers have been joined by Oriental and European giants, like Toyota and Volkswagen, in proclaiming they cannot make such a vehicle with a consumer-friendly price tag.

Mandated fuel economy

Proposed Federal fuel economy regulations aims to speed up the schedule for producing fuel efficient cars to combat oil consumption and carbon emissions. Manufacturers are on a slower paced plan.

Since 1975, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program have increased fuel economy in manufacturers' fleets to 27.5 miles per gallon (MPG). Current CAFE regulations are codified in United States Code Title 49, Sub. VI, Part C, Ch. 329. CAFE sets the fuel economy for each year, which increases annually 3.3 per cent.

The proposed amendment would increase that rate to 4.5 per cent. Passenger car and light truck MPG would be 31.6 by 2015.

Safety factor

Manufacturers are balking at the price tag for producing cars with this fuel efficiency. In order to preserve jobs and make a profit, they will need to price these cars above the reach of the average consumer.

No manufacturer has publicly commented it would sacrifice safety for fuel economy, although environmental impact statements (EIS) of current models profess body weight as the biggest deterrent to fuel economy.

Since 1950, manufacturers have striven to improve crashworthiness, the vehicle's ability to survive a crash with its occupants alive or unharmed. Internal safety advances include seat belts and air bags. While those do not impact fuel economy, advanced roll cages, the car's skeleton, are the heaviest components in the car. External advances included bumper systems and crumple zones. These have varied effects on the weight of the vehicle.

Uncrashworthy cars are a liability for owner and manufacturer. When cars do not survive crashes, occupants sue the owners of other vehicles and the auto maker who produced the unsafe car.

Practical fuel economy

Technological advances in fuel economy are the first attack in producing more fuel efficient cars. Manufacturers declare this avenue as exhausted: The engine cannot be more economical.

Aerodynamics are next. Vehicles have smoother lines to resist air drag. Consumers have rejected the most fuel efficient designs as undesirable, even though the cars are economical to drive and safer than most other designs.

There is an undeniable link between weight and crashworthiness. Will fuel economy standards lead to less crashworthy cars?

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What was your resolution?

March has just begun, and already the majority of Americans cannot remember what they resolved to do this year...except to save more money. When thinking about saving green, going green (more specifically: Blue) is a terrific way to help you keep more money in your pocket. Would you like to save up to 25% of your water bill? Make some resolutions you can keep!

New Year's resolutions are easy to keep when you go green with some of these easy to implement environmental ideas.

Catch a bucket Place a bucket where it can catch rainwater. Use this to water your plants or wash your car instead of the hose. Recycled water is great-pour fish bowl water on your plants. Bathe the dog in the yard. Rinse dishes in 1/2 sink full of soapy water, then place in dishwasher. Use the water to wash the sink.

Sort it out Sorting your trash reaps big environmental rewards. Here are just a few statistics to help you keep the resolution:
* Composting vegetable waste makes natural fertilizer- reusing, reducing and recycling in one pile. This is better for the environment than a garbage disposal and requires no water.

* Sort all plastic out. Bottles, packing plastic and shopping bags are all recyclable and reduce production energy up to 67% and air pollution emissions more than 25%. Recycling one plastic bottle conserves enough energy to fuel a 60 watt light bulb for almost six hours.

* Crush those cans.
~~~Steel is the number one recycled material in the United States. Of the 100,000,000 steel and tin cans used in America everyday, enough cans are thrown away to build all of the cars in America.

~~~Make aluminum a contender: Recycling of one ton of cans will conserve 12,725 kilowatt hours, equal to the amount of the electricity used in the average American home in 10 years. This energy is the equivalent to 2,350 gallons of gasoline, or enough to drive a new car 82,250 miles. Recycling one saves enough gasoline to fill it half full.

* Read the paper online. Of the 62,000,000 newspapers printed today, 44,000,000 will be thrown away- 30,000,000 trees. Recycling one ton of paper conserves 4,077 kilowatt hours of energy or enough to heat and cool an average American home for 6 months.

* See through the waste. Recycling one glass bottle will light a 100 watt light bulb for 4 hours.

Turn it off Sleep mode requires energy. Turn off the computer, DVD, shredder, satellite converter, TiVo, lights, television, every appliance.

Down the drain
* Turn off the water while you brush your teeth (save more water than some humans get in a whole day), install low-flow shower heads, turn off the hose at the faucet. Turn off the water while you shampoo and condition- that's 50 gallons a week. Take a short shower- 5 minutes less will save about 1,000 gallons a year.

* Front loading washing machines: If you cannot afford one, wash only full loads of clothes. If you cannot do that, use the correct water height and the coldest water temperature. Line dry- uses less electricity and naturally humidifies the air.

Read on to find a way to burn some calories and save more water!

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