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Take Steps to Cut Back on Home Energy Use

Written by Chris Coletta | August 11th, 2010 | Add a comment

You might already know that your home energy use is a major part of your total environmental impact.

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.

People can take small steps to cut back on their home energy use, saving money and helping the environment.

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.
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Join the Search for the Lost Frogs

Written by Chris Coletta | August 9th, 2010 | Add a comment
The golden toad is one of many amphibian species scientists are looking for in the Search for the Lost Frogs.

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.

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Fossil Fuel Subsidies Show the Need for Change

Written by Chris Coletta | August 4th, 2010 | Add a comment

The next time you hear a politician talking about clean energy, just remember this: A new study from Bloomberg shows that government subsidies for fossil fuels around the world are really, really big.

They’re 12 times bigger, in fact, than support for renewable energy!

Now, not all subsidies are bad. Neither are all politicians (or all their promises).

What this shows us, though, is how entrenched fossil fuels are in the lives of people from Berlin to Beijing, Tokyo to Topeka.

It shows us that if society is to move to a clean-energy future, it will take efforts from all of us. We can all do our part, taking actions that add up to something bigger than ourselves – actions that have a real impact.

Do More for the Earth

In the U.S., a large percentage of the fossil fuels that everyday people use come from two places: their cars and their homes.

Of course, most people can’t stop driving everywhere, and it’d be pretty tough to shut off the power and go back to living in caves.

But what if you:

  • Drove 25% less this year? You’d cut your greenhouse gas emissions, the stuff that traps heat in the atmosphere and causes climate change, by more than a ton over the course of a year. And you’d save a lot on gas – at least hundreds of dollars.
  • Installed a home energy meter? Just by figuring out how you can power your house more efficiently, you can cut your annual emissions by as much as 6.5 metric tons. That’s more than 14,000 pounds. All that energy you’re not using also disappears from your power bills.

Drive less. Or install a home energy meter. They’re two small things … but they can make a big difference in your life.

Act now. Join Team Earth and pledge to make the world a little bit better.

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