Take Action

Since you are an American citizen, you may have the right to some green earth energy options and giving your opinion in the matter. If you do not vocalize your feelings and take action on it, your opinion doesn’t mean anything. You will notice that there are many supporting green alternative energies that will create a difference.There are many steps that you will need to do to get involved with alternative energy sponsors and you may find yourself voicing your opinion to all parts of the country. You will want to show your support by helping to clean up your environment and by setting a good example with your children and the community by caring for the environment and keeping it a green earth. 

Green Alternative Energy

You may also want to think about just using less energy. Like, you can use the sun to dry your clothing in the summer so that you can save some energy and help save the environment.Instead of having the lights in your home turned on all day, you should take advantage of light from the sun and do work and reading outside. You will also want to replace any bad windows that might not be sealed right and you will want to do your best to use installation in your home so that you don’t have heat and such leaving your home. All of these steps are simply the beginning in a campaign to support green alternative energy.

Stay Informed

Right now you will want to get information about the green alternative energy sources so that you can make good decisions.. To do this, you can spend time at your local library or research the subjects online. One might find that the federal government’s department of Energy will share with you all the knowledge that you have to have to make good decisions about alternative energy. You need to take advantage of their easy-to-use website or the literature they publish. You can also subscribe to energy magazines to stay up-to-date on the latest news and events in the alternative energy world.

Involve Yourself

You will want to join some of the local communities that support the green alternative energy. You will find that there are some communities that have groups getting involved so that the government begins to take them serious for their need of alternative fuels. The cause for the green alternative energy is simply so that you don’t rely on the fossil fuels, which is depleting. So that there is a solid plan for the future you will want to get involved.

There are many publications & Internet sites with more than enough information on how to live green. Even though being a local real estate expert gives me plenty of opportunities to talk about the many ways of green living with my clients, my topic today will be a bit more specific. In this article, I will try not to repeat all the recommendations on eco-life, you have probably heard them many times before anyway. Today I would like to ponder on the three very usual resources which people from the developed countries usually take for granted: food, water and electricity.

Groceries

Suppose that the majority of people are used to recycling part of their litter – at least paper, glass and metal, then we can say that most of the remaining household waste is comprised of groceries. Most of this food would usually be in perfect condition, sometimes not even out of its wrapper or container. We can find out that out of all the groceries that Canadian families pick out and pay for in shops, 20 to 30% eventually ends up in the dustbin. If we include all the food that is wasted in shops and restaurants, we come to the result that some 7 to 14 billion tons of groceries is thrown away every year. Speaking in money language, it means annual waste of $3 to 5 billion (in Canadian dollars).

Surprising, what we have just calculated, isn’t it? With so many charities trying to help people suffering from lack of food, while at the same time so much of it is being wasted right under our noses. Now you might decide “OK, so I will take our leftovers, pack it and send it somewhere else where people are hungry.” But hold your horses, that is not the best thing to do, we have some more useful advice for you. 1. Try using leftovers. For example if you had some rice left from last night’s supper, you could have made stuffed peppers today. 2. In your pantry or food cabinet, try to stick to a simple habit: the groceries closest to the expiration date is always stored in front of the fresher ones. 3. Sometimes you know you have some food you are not going to use before its expiry date and you would have to dump it. Try to take these to your local charity place or soup kitchen or any similar place where they can find some use for the food before it goes bad. If you cannot use up all the groceries you have purchased, there are enough people even in your city who will be happy to eat it – hunger is not limited to Africa. 4. If you have some leftovers anyway, try mulching it instead of just throwing it out. Always try to think in the way that food just shouldn’t be dumped. If you don’t have a garden yourself, try to find someone who does and can do the mulching.

Water

You probably already know many advices on how to prevent using more water than necessary in your household. But there is one remarkable side of family water saving – toilets, as places we use to get rid of our faeces. We got used to using toilets so much that we no more think of them – as long as they operate the way the are supposed to. But do the calculations: establish how much water your family used in the last month through flushing. You might be surprised by the big number you get out of this. Now suppose you could reduce that by simply decreasing the amount of water your lavatory needs every time you flush. There are two different methods to achieve that. 1. Replace your old lavatory by a new type that has been designed to use as little water as possible. Go and check out the assortment in your local store, it is amazing how wide it is nowadays! 2. If you place a couple of plastic bottles full of water into the tank of your lavatory, it will help you to save some water for flushing as well. You might have to keep trying a bit before you find out the right amount of water needed for the toilet to keep functioning fine.

Electricity

Here the situation is similar to the one with water and wasting it – there are a lot of advices on how to save electric energy to be found in books, magazines and on the Internet. What I personally regard as being the biggest electricity waster is the commonly used tumble dryer. In modern times, people are not used to waiting before they get something they want or need at the moment, and they sometimes consume too much energy getting it, just because it will be done faster. It’s a fact that nobody has time today to do the laundry by hands and dishwashers actually save water. But tumble dryer? Would it be such a great trouble if we just waited 1 – 2 days for our laundry to get dry? If you really wish to “live green”, use your tumble dryer only in emergencies or get rid of it (sell it) altogether. Not only the environment will be grateful for your decision, but also you will pay less for electricity.

The Benefits of Building Green

by Caroline Kelm

There are many benefits to building green and it seems the real estate industry is catching on. Not only does building green provide a healthy place to live along with protecting the planet, but it also saves you money. One program that offers green building certification is the LEED for Homes rating system. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a certification that you can receive when building a green home.

The LEED for Homes Green Building Rating System is a measurable tool that is evaluated by a third party in regards to sustainability and performance. The four different levels of green that you can achieve include: certified, gold, silver, and platinum levels. One of the benefits of building green is that it reduces the building’s environmental footprint on the planet.

U.S. homes account for 21% of carbon dioxide emissions, 22% of energy use and 74% of potable water consumption and therefore are a huge contributor of emissions that damage the earth. Building green can help reduce the causes of climate change by reducing our emissions, energy use and water use. In the LEED program some of the criteria include building with solar orientation in mind to capture as much sunlight as possible in addition to using durable products to reduce the need for replacement.

The program also awards points for placing a home near community transit as well as using landscaping that lessens irrigation demand. There are many health benefits to building green. The LEED program gives points for building with non-toxic materials such as zero or low VOC paint and soy-based insulations. By building with these materials, the owners reduce the chance of having health issues as a result of living among toxic building materials.

The LEED program awards points for other measures to avoid health problems such as flushing the property prior to occupancy, prohibiting exhaust fans in the garage so to not vent harmful fumes into the house and building with radon-resistant construction. Another benefit to building green is that it can save you money. Compared to traditionally built homes, green homes use an average of: 40% less energy and 50% less water.

They are also built with non-toxic building materials that lower exposure to mold and mildew which could lower health care costs. Another monetary factor to consider is your homes re-sale value. If a buyer can save money on water, energy and health bills by buying a green home versus a standard home, the buyer may be willing to pay more to purchase the green home.

The list could go on in regards to the many reasons to build green, but what seems to be clear is that the green train is coming and the real estate industry appears to be on board.

About the Author Caroline Kelm is a real estate agent living and working in Jackson Hole.

http://www.searchjacksonholerealestate.com

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