More electrical energy is consumed each day in America than in any other country around the world. Our planet is dealing with really tough issues like pollution and the loss of the ozone layer so it is critical that we do our best to conserve energy and, in turn, save our planet.
I made a trip to California recently and stayed at one of the top Carmel hotels. While there I read an article about one of the Carmel inns that had implemented some new ways to conserve energy. I thought it might be great to share in this article some of the things I learned. We will concentrate on a few things that each of us can do to save electricity and save money in the process. These things are so easy to do that anyone can do them; nevertheless, you will have to take action for it to work and doing so you will help save the Earth.
Merely switching off the lights every time you exit a room in your home is one of the simplest things you can do to not waste electricity. A lot of people will leave lights turned on in a room when they think they are going to come back, perhaps in ten or fifteen minutes. If you do this for just a few times a day, it could add up to at the least 30 minutes of wasted electricity. While 30 minutes doesn’t look like much, don’t forget that millions upon millions of people do this daily. If you total the minutes for the year, that would be roughly 182 hours of electrical energy just for one light in one room for each individual that does this. Let’s assume that we really leave the lights turned on for about 182 hours every single year and let’s multiply that by one million people. That is 182,000,000 hours of energy being consumed a year on only one light.
One other thing that is causing waste is the habit people have of entering a room and switching the lights on. Many of us do this without thinking. I often catch myself doing this also. The trouble is that many times, there is enough light coming into a room. And yet, we come into a reasonably lit room and flip the light switch to on. Plus, most us fail to remember to switch the lights off because there is already lots of natural light coming in we don’t realize the light is still on. You merely have to make the extra effort to not flip the lights on if there is enough natural light coming inside.
One more issue is people leaving appliances like TVs and radios on the entire day, even when they are not using them. A great example is my mom; she’s forever leaving the television turned on in the living room, even though she’s may be in the kitchen preparing a meal or cleaning the rest of the house. You can imagine the amount of electrical energy being wasted. Thus, if you are not watching TV, just flip it off.
These are only a few things that we all can do very easily but can have a huge effect on our attempts to not waste power and to save the Earth. If everyone makes just a little effort to do these very simple things, it can add up to make a big difference.
