As many of our regular
readers know I love sharing positive stories and links, and exploring different
ways of proactively participating as a global citizen. Let’s start with a
really interesting link:
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/ - This
outfit is a global non-profit organization that brings together and inspires
millions of individuals to take actions that make the world a better place.
Now, you probably know
that Dave and I had spent about 15 years actively writing, discussing on live
radio and other media outlets, and producing books on this topic. While we’ve
taken a few years off from this activity, we are still here every day on the
blog and on social media working in this field. What we have found is that
there are what seems like an infinite number of things that individuals can do
to make a huge difference in our contribution to climate change and energy
issues.
Let me dig a little deeper
here offering you one simple statistic and a discussion on some things we can
consider doing about it.
Did you know that 97% of
households in the UK own a tea kettle (hot water kettle)? The amount of power
these use requiring so much energy that is the same that would be used to light
all of the street lights for one night in England… yep – for an entire night.
Yet the amount of energy use is really because of how they are used, by
overfilling when they only need a cup for their French press coffee machine, to
make 2 cups of tea... or they just want a ½ of hot water for a recipe. Simply
making sure that we put only the amount of water we need in our kettle or
coffee machine, etc. can help with this problem. Less energy use, less cost to
run, machines will last longer, and less water is wasted. Easy, right?
This underlines that we can,
as global citizens, learn to use our appliances as efficiently as possible.
Such as making sure the dishwasher is as full as possible before you run it.
Running consecutive loads of laundry (using appropriately load-size settings
and choosing cold water) to make use of the warm dryer. Reading the manuals to
learn how to maintain the machines, or getting someone in to do this annually.
Upgrading only to the most energy and water efficient appliances that we can
afford. Recycling (reselling, donating, etc.) those we no longer need.
Ok, so that is just one
little example; one simple tip we can all start to change into a positive habit
in our lives. What if we applied that same idea for the kettle we discussed a
moment ago to how much water we took in our glass, are we really going to drink
that or will there be left over unused water left? If there is, can we reuse it
by feeding a plant or dumping in the pet water dish, adding to the compost
bucket or tossing on the lawn… rather than dumping down the drain?
You see… once you start on
one small point you can expand that thinking to other tiny points in your life
and realize – HEY! There’s a lot we can all do in our every day activities to
play a proactive roll in how we want to see society go in the future.
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