It’s a provocative question: Can decades-old war posters inform our thinking about what people can do to fight climate change?

That’s being asked today on the blog Treehugger, which presents a photo gallery made up mostly of World War II-era posters in the U.S. The posters encourage Americans to conserve everything they can to help the Allied war effort against the Axis powers.

What’s striking is that these messages encourage actions that still have value today. Carpooling, driving less, recycling, even taking what modern society has dubbed a staycation – these are all valuable actions that individual people can take, today, to cut back on their carbon footprints.

(Seriously, the guy on that aforementioned staycation looks like he’s having the best time ever. A dog, a fan, a good magazine, and a huge glass of Scotch – what else do you need?)

We’re not saying that there’s a broad, political message to be gleaned here. But these posters are a fascinating reminder that resources are precious – whether your end goal is to win a war or to save the planet.

Want to do your part? Take our climate challenge today.

Despite good intentions, people simply aren’t aware of the best ways to save energy.

That’s according to a new study (hat tip to TechCrunch for the link) that’s making headlines worldwide.

Among the misconceptions people have about energy:

• They think turning out the lights is one of the best ways to save energy (when, actually, switching to a more energy-efficient bulb is much better).
• They think a single-room AC unit is only slightly more efficient than central air conditioning. In fact, central air gobbles up 3.5 times the energy.
• They undervalue the benefit of owning, and using, more efficient products – things like energy-efficient appliances, CFLs, and hybrid cars.

When this story came across our inbox (from about 20 different folks – thanks to everyone!), we weren’t surprised. There’s so much information out there that it’s tough to keep it all straight.

Here are the facts

There are two big reasons to use less energy. It saves money. And most forms of energy burn greenhouse gases that get trapped in the atmosphere, leading to climate change. The less energy we can use, the less pollution we create.

At Team Earth, we have our own list of energy-saving actions, but it’s not just some gimmick. We asked scientists from our own team at Conservation International to join up with scientists from the Rocky Mountain Institute to give you a list of actions that’s both credible and meaningful.

So when you take a Team Earth action, you know you’re actually having an impact. Things like switching to energy-efficient lighting, reducing vehicle use, and installing a smart meter have a meaningful impact.

That’s our goal, anyway, and we hope you find our resources helpful!

To read more about the science behind Team Earth:

http://www.teamearth.com/science/Pages/science.aspx

To join the team:

http://getinvolved.conservation.org/site/PageNavigator/TE_PledgeLessPledgeMore_Survey

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/purplemattfish/| via Creative Commons

Ever been unsure of how to talk to your friends or family about climate change? It can be tough. It’s a complicated topic even among people who understand it – and lots of people don’t understand it!

So we wanted to pass along this piece, from the Guardian newspaper in the U.K., because it offers a useful way of talking about one specific outcome of climate change: a rise in extreme weather.

Basically, the message is this. There have always been weird weather patterns around the world. What climate change does is increase the odds of those events.

What does this mean in practical terms? You can’t point to one event – even an event as devastating as the current flooding in Pakistan or the heat waves in Russia – and say, “Climate change caused this.”

But you can say that such events are part of a larger pattern.

Or as the author of the Guardian piece puts it:

It can still be problematic to blame a specific individual extreme weather event on climate change, because there have always been extremes of weather around the world. However, if the likelihood of a particular extreme weather event has changed it is possible to say something.

We’d add that it isn’t just possible to say something. It’s important to say something. Particularly with a bill to regulate carbon emissions now stalled in one of the world’s largest emitters, the U.S., it’s up to us to take action against climate change – for our economic prosperity, for our health, and for the planet.

Climate change is our challenge. But we have the opportunity to stop it. Our small actions can add up to major change in the world.

Will you join us?

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deniscollette/ | via Creative Commons

And if you’re anything like most folks, you probably want to use less energy. It’s good for the planet, and it can lower your energy bills.

But in the absence of a cool tool that helps you figure out exactly how to fix the problem, it can be tough to get started.

The Pyramid of Conservation is a tool developed for Minnesota Power, a utility company. The idea is that there are lots of small, simple, inexpensive actions you can take to cut your power use – steps you should take before you ever think about big actions like installing a new furnace or new insulation.

Those steps are at the bottom of the pyramid, and they aren’t always sexy. But they’re simple – as simple as changing your light bulbs, doing a home-energy audit, and turning things off when you leave a room.

These steps help your power savings , and your green actions, pile up. Then, if you decide to take further action, you can move up the pyramid, taking higher-level actions toward energy efficiency.

In the end, you save money. The utility company saves money because, with less electricity being used, it doesn’t have to build as many new power plants. And we help stop climate change.

How’s that for a win-win-win situation?

Get Started Today

• Take a closer look at the Pyramid of Conservation at the Minnesota Power site. You can click on each level of the pyramid to learn more about the actions you can take.
• Get involved with Team Earth – joining your voice to the more than 134,000 people who have pledged to Do More or Do Less for the planet.

We interrupt this Team Earth blog-cast to bring you a shameless (and awesome) cross-promotional message from our parent organization, Conservation International (CI).

Dear friends: Do you like adventure? Think you might you enjoy hearing about some of the world’s most exotic places? Do you believe we ought to protect creatures that offer real, tangible benefits to humans — benefits like pest regulation and possible treatments for diseases like HIV and skin cancer?

Of course you do.

We do, too. That’s why we’re so excited to announce CI’s Search for the Lost Frogs.

The Search

Over the next few months, CI will support expeditions by amphibian experts to 18 countries around the world. These scientists are taking trips to all corners of the globe – from Australia to Venezuela, Rwanda to Costa Rica — to find species of amphibians that haven’t been seen in the wild in years.

Why Amphibians?

Amphibians are the most threatened group of vertebrates on the planet. Up to 30% of all amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

In part, that’s because factors such as their naturally permeable skin make amphibians particularly sensitive to changes in the environment. So understanding how changes affect amphibians now can help scientists understand how those changes might affect other species, including humans, in the future.

Amphibians also offer major benefits to humans. They regulate pests, such as mosquitoes, that carry disease. Because they live both on land and in the water, they help ensure that the proper nutrients get to both types of ecosystems. And because they’re such unique creatures, scientists study amphibians to see whether the creatures can point us to treatments for a variety of deadly diseases like HIV and skin cancer.

And when it comes down to it, frogs and other amphibians are pretty sweet. Did you know that toads use their eyeballs to help them swallow their prey? Or that many salamanders can regrow an entire tail? Just check out these amazing frog facts.

Join the Search

Basically, what we’re trying to say is that there hasn’t been a scientific expedition this cool, this global in scale, since Indiana Jones was fighting off bad guys in the desert.

Do you want to be part of the search?

• Tour our campaign pages to learn more about the search, including the Top 10 Lost Frogs
• Upload your own photos of frogs to our pages on Flickr
• Send an eCard featuring one of the lost species to your friends and family
• Tell your friends on Twitter and Facebook about the search

And, most importantly, sign up today to receive the most up-to-date information as our scientists head to the field and undertake the search:

http://getinvolved.conservation.org/site/PageNavigator/Search_Frogs_Landing

Thanks for all you do, Team Earth! We hope you enjoy the Search for the Lost Frogs.