The Big Picture!!

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Over the past several months I have been trying to write about the many environmental issues that I think everyone on this planet should be aware of.  I have to tell you though, that until I started this blog, and I started to research these topics/issues, I had no clue that most of these "issues" even existed.  But the truth is, they do exist.  From the large amounts of waste each household and business is producing, to the amount of energy we are consuming, to climate change.  Each one of these issues is important in its own way, to help ensure that our children and grandchildren get the chance to enjoy this great planet that we live on, the way we have.

While globally, all of these issues are "hot topics", I think that the most important environmental issue in California today is our energy consumption.

According to the California Energy Commissions "2011 Integrated Energy Policy Report" http://www.energy.ca.gov/2011publications/CEC-100-2011-001/CEC-100-2011-001-CMF.pdf,

Californians consumed about 272,300 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity in 2010.  This is up from 250,241GWh in 2001 http://www.energy.ca.gov/2005publications/CEC-100-2005-007/CEC-100-2005-007-CMF.PDF.  This number is projected to reach between 313,493GWh and 332,514GWh by 2022, a growth rate of between 1.18% and 1.68%.

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I decided to look into energy consumption on a closer level and here is what I found.  http://www.ecdms.energy.ca.gov/elecbycounty.aspx  The total residential electricity consumption in Riverside County in 2006 was 6852.51kWh (kilowatt hours).  In 2010, the total residential usage was 6271.39kWh.

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This news is great.  It means that Riverside County has actually made progress in reducing energy consumption in residential households.

But we can't stop now.  We already saw what the projections are for 2022, so we need to continue to make changes to reverse these projections.

On an individual level, I have a lot of work to do (well actually, me AND my family).  I went to our Edison account https://www.sce.com/SMA/ESCAA/UsageMonthlyTrend.aspx and found out our energy consumption over the last 12 months.  Each month is up and down, however there are no significant signs of improvement.  As a matter of fact, our usage in May 2011 was 612kWh and our usage for May 2012 (as of yesterday 5/28/12) is already 829kWh, and there is still 3 days left in the month.

https://www.sce.com/SMA/ESCAA/UsageMonthlyTrend.aspx

This is unacceptable, and I am making this commitment, right now and every day forward, to decrease my families energy consumption, and do our fair share of improving this planet.

So what has been the most interesting thing I have learned these last few months since I started writing this blog?

I would have to say that finding out what my Ecological Footprint is was probably most important.  It really gave me a clear picture of the issues that I need to work on.  It's really easy for people to say You need to recycle more", or "You drive too much", but lets face it, everyone is different and has different habits.  What might be true for you is not necessarily true for me.

Knowing what your Ecological Footprint is, helps give you a starting point, and from there you can improve your footprint.

I am going to re-calculate my Ecological Footprint on February 20, 2013 (exactly 1 year from my first footprint) to see if I am going in the right direction or if I need to re-think my plan of action.

TRASH, TRASH, TRASH!

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Recently, it seems like my household is creating more and more trash.  I'm pretty sure that I have to say
"Can you empty the trash?" at least four times a week.  So, I asked myself this question "How much waste are we creating in our household?"  I mean it really can't be that much right? We only have four people living in our home.

But how can I really know how much waste we are producing?  I decided to keep a log of everything we throw in the trash over a 3 day period.  WOW! Was this an eye opener.

I enlisted the help of my husband and kids, and here is what we threw out:

Friday, May 18th - Sunday, May 20th

Trash:

• 2 - empty 12 pack boxes of Diet Coke
• 1 - empty plastic gallon milk jug
• 1 - empty pizza box
• 20 - cans of Diet Coke
• 1 - empty egg carton
• 2 - empty cans of corn
• 2 - empty boxes of macaroni and cheese
• 1 - empty cereal box
• Several paper towels
• 2 - Swiffer wet mop cloths
• 22 - pieces of junk mail (ads)
• 1 - bouquet of dead flowers
• 3 - empty cans of cat food
• 10 - paper plates
• 2 - empty toilet paper rolls

This created ~3 10lb bags of trash.  If we keep this up, that's 1 bag a day, 7 bags a week, 365 bags a year.  All of this trash filling up the landfills.

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So after seeing all the things that we throw away, and realizing that we didn't even recycle, we decided to do some research to find ways we could reduce our waste and help the environment at the same time.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

Almost every website I went to said these same three words.

I found several good ideas from many websites including: http://greenbitch.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/3r-reduce-reuse-recycle/ and http://www.epa.gov/waste/wycd/homeandgarden.htm.

Reduce:

• Buy less & use less
• Buy recycled or recyclable products
• Bring your own reusable shopping bag with you while shopping
• Buy local
• Cut down on canned & frozen foods
• Buy fresh vegetables and meats
• Cook more at home and eat less at fast food places

Reuse:

• Reuse disposable items like plastic cups, plates and cutlery.
• Buy products in refillable containers, like soap and coffee
• Refill empty water bottles instead of buying new ones

Recycle:

• Soda cans
• Soda boxes
• Glass bottles
• Plastic milk containers & water bottles
• Use food scraps as a compost in your yard

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Now here is the challenge.
Can we use any of the ideas I listed above to help reduce the waste we create in our home?

Again, I enlisted the help of my family and for 3 more days we kept track of our waste.  This time, however, we included recycling.

Monday, May 21st - Wednesday, May 23rd

Trash:

• 6 egg shells
• 1 empty container of ice cream
• 1 10lb empty bag of dog food
• 1 empty bread bag
• miscellaneous take out food trash

Recycled:

• 22 cans of Diet Coke
• 1 empty gallon milk jug
• 7 plastic grocery bags
• 3 daily news papers
• 12 pieces of junk mail
• 3 empty cans of green beans

We used 1 10 gallon trash bag (2 less than the previous 3 days)

While we didn't make all of the changes I previously listed (3 days is not a lot of time) our biggest impact was implementing a recycling program.  This is something that we are definitely going to continue in our household, especially since the kids realized that they could make some easy money if they keep it up.

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I will update you in a few months to see how much progress we have made, and to share any new ideas that we have come up with, to help reduce our waste even more.

What will you do to help reduce the waste you produce?

Is It Getting Hot In Here?

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I don't know about you, but almost every day I look in the newspaper or log onto the internet, I see a story about climate change.  Sometimes the stories/articles are talking about the things we as humans are doing to contribute to climate change, and sometimes they are talking about new resources available to us, to help slow down these changes. Either way, both types of stories/articles say the same thing "Climate change is happening right now".

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According to the EPA website http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html, climate change is affecting people and the environment everyday.  But what is climate change?  Well the EPA defines climate change as "any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer)". 

I wanted to see if there has been any significant change in the city of Riverside climate in the last decade, however I could only find archives dating back to 2006, so I decided to compare the last 6 years.  According to the web site http://weathercurrents.com/riverside/Archive2011.do, there has not been a significant change in weather in Riverside over the last 6 years.  I made this chart with the information given on the web site and as you can see, the average temperatures have actually dropped:

Year	Average High Temp	Average Low Temp	Days Over 100 °F	Precipitation
2006	79.4 °F	55.3 °F	22	5.26"
2011	77.8 °F	53.8 °F	7	6.93"

Riverside is just one of many cities across the U.S. though so just because we haven't seen much of a change here, does not mean it isn't happening.

According to the website http://news.discovery.com/earth/warmest-decade-climate.html, temperatures trended upward by about 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit per decade over the past 30 years, and the average global temperatures have increased a total of about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.

This might not seem like a lot, but think about this, "World powers agreed at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009, to seek to prevent average temperatures from rising beyond 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels in order to halt the most devastating effects of global warming" http://news.discovery.com/earth/warmest-decade-climate.html

 So are we humans responsible for these climate changes?  According to the EPA's report on climate change indicators http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/indicators/pdfs/ClimateIndicators_full.pdf, "In the U.S., greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities increased by 14% from 1990 to 2008, with CO2 accounting for most of this increase".  Worldwide numbers show an increase gases from human activities by 26% from 1990 to 2005.

With these numbers alone, I would definitely say that we are responsible for the majority of global warming.

So by now you might be thinking "Why should I worry about climate change?"  "How does it affect me?"

Well, according to the EPA, climate change can affect human health in many ways, either directly or indirectly.  Some of these effects are::

• Direct temperature - more extreme heat waves during the summer and less extreme cold spells during the winter.  This will be especially dangerous for people with heart problems, asthma, the elderly, and very young children.
• Extreme events - more frequent and severe hurricanes and floods
• Climate-sensitive diseases - may increase the risk of some vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, and encephalitis.
• Air quality - can lead to more respiratory disorders, damaged lung tissue, and particulate matter pollution

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/health.html

Believe it or not, even with all of the information available to us, there are still people who do not think climate change is a problem.

The Heartland Institute http://heartland.org/ideas/global-warming-not-crisis, says that "Probably two-thirds of the warming in the 1990's was due to natural causes".  They also believe that climate change and global warming are all part of a political agenda.

The majority of the world believes that global warming is a serious problem (with the exception of the U.S., China, and Russia).

Only 44% in the U.S. believe climate change is a problem compared to 68% in France, 65% in Japan, 61% in Spain, and 60% in Germany.  However in Brazil, 90% of the population say it is a "very serious problem".
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1427/global-warming-major-problem-around-world-americans-less-concerned

My last thought of the night is this: "What will the world be like in 50 years, if we continue on our current path and make no changes to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere?"

I think that the world will definitely be hotter and dryer.  Antarctica will probably be half the size it is now, and Alaska will no longer have all of the glaciers they currently have.  The lakes and rivers will be mostly dried up, and no one will have grass in their yards.

But that's just my opinion!

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A Day in the Dark!

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents kept telling you to "Turn off the lights when you leave the room"?  Well, it turns out that our parents were actually trying to teach us an important lesson about conserving energy.  Let's face it, our society today, especially in the U.S., is so dependent on our energy consuming products that the mere thought of going a day without these items is heartbreaking.

I mean, honestly, how are we supposed to go a day without reading a tweet on our cell phone, or watching our favorite show on the television.  It's unheard of right?

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Well, would you feel the same way if you knew that the average U.S. home uses 30.16 kWh of energy a day?  According to the Southern California Edison website www.sce.com, the average U.S. home uses 30.16 kWh each day.  This is equal to the combined kinetic energy of 108 1-ton vehicles moving at 100mph.  Would you feel different about conserving energy if you knew that using your air conditioner to cool your house uses 16.5 percent of your homes total energy consumption?  It's something to think about huh!

I sat down with my family this weekend and told them that we were going to spend our entire Sunday using the bare minimum of our energy consuming products in our home.  At first everyone was on board with this idea, UNTIL I told them the rules.

No cell phones
No computers
No television
No air conditioner
No driving our cars
Minimal light usage
No kitchen appliances

When the rules were laid out, their tones changed.  Suddenly I had every excuse in the book being thrown my way on why we couldn't do this.  I didn't give in though and we started our Sunday, April 29th, in the dark.

Saturday night, before we went to bed, my younger son Cameron and I unplugged all of the appliances in the kitchen, except for the refrigerator of course.  Our day started off pretty slow.  We all ate cereal and milk for breakfast.  After we ate, we decided that we should do something that would keep our minds off of the items that we CANNOT use.  We went into the backyard and painted the fence.  This is something that we had planned to do in a few weeks anyway so it all worked out.  The painting took a good portion of our morning, and thankfully it wasn't too hot out.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon, I did homework, not using my computer, but reading my textbooks.  Cameron went outside to ride his bike with his friends, and Nick left with his girlfriend.  He said that he wasn't breaking any rules since she was driving her car and he wasn't.

We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and they were pretty good.  Without having any TV to watch or computer use, I had plenty of time to take a nap.  It was wonderful.  I haven't been able to do that in a long time.

Our day concluded with an evening walk around the neighborhood and then for dinner we barbequed hot dogs.  I can't believe that we actually made it through the day without picking up our cell phones or watching the TV.  It wasn't impossible and honestly it wasn't that hard!

I wanted to wait a couple of days before writing this blog, to see if we actually made a difference.  SCE has this feature for their customers on their website www.sce.com, that gives you daily totals of energy usage for your house.  You can even view hourly usage totals if you wish.  It usually takes a couple of days for the website to be updated, that's why I had to wait a little while.

So here are the results!!

www.sce.com

As you can see, we made a significant change from Sunday April 22nd to Sunday April 29th.

I shared this information with my family and we all agreed that we would try to conserve more energy on a daily basis.

The toughest part of this whole experience for all of us was not being able to sue our cell phones or computer.  The easiest part was using less kitchen appliances and making meals that did not require turning on the stove or using the microwave.

My husband has made a promise to contact a few companies to get quotes for installing solar panels on the house.  Hopefully this will help us try to conserve more energy without giving up the things that we love.

Why don't you give it a try!