Ten’s Cool Aid raises awareness
If you're anywhere near as scared as I am about the future of our planet then you may have given up the usual Sunday night movie to tune into Ten's Cool Aid - the national carbon test program.
Now I may be a little cynical about Ten cashing in on the whole Inconvenient Truth bandwagon, but when all's said and done, any exposure that raises awareness on the global warming issue is a good one.
As Dr Karl said last night, "You learn something new everyday", and here are a couple of little chestnuts I learned during the 2 hour program that I'd never really thought of. Once you read them, it's pretty bloody obvious, but sometimes I guess out of sight is out of mind:
- Your hot water system is one of the greatest energy uses in the home, besides the fridge. Look at switching to solar and make sure your hot water pipes are insulated.
- Halogen lights use as much as 60 watts per globe. There are fluro replacements for halogen downlights available from the Neco online store.
- Buy local beers - the importation of foreign products contributes massively to carbon emissions. If you're not a CUB fan there's plenty of good local brews, just to name a few. For that matter, buy local full stop - as if you needed another excuse.
- Upgrade you appliances, apparently newer ones don't use as much energy when in standby mode. Failing this, switch them off at the wall.
It's not rocket science, but the more we save energy and save water, the better off our planer will be.
