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#1.  Green "A/C".  Open your windows and doors to the cool air of night and morning.  Then, close up and use blinds and curtains to keep out the hot sun.  Run a fan in rooms that are occupied -- moving air feels a lot cooler than still air. 
 
#2.  No Gas Lawnmowers.  Get rid of that gasoline lawnmower.  Use an electric mower, or better yet a manual one.  According to a Swedish study, a 4-horsepower gas mower used for one hour causes as much pollution as driving a car 93 miles.
 
#3.  Green Grilling.  If you are buying charcoal, make sure it's made from a sustainable source.  Enormous areas of tropical rainforest are destroyed every year to produce the 400,000 tons of charcoal burned annually in the U.S.

#4.  Local Foods.   Buy foods grown and produced locally.  Check out our Farmers' Markets Tuesdays and Saturdays downtown, Thursdays outside the Pioneer Museum on 13th, and other places).  They reduce by one-fifth the amount of energy needed to grow and transport our food.  Buy fresh foods instead of frozen.  Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce.

#5.  Use Your Car Less.  The weather is fine, so it's a good time to find other ways to get where you're going.  Whenever possible, walk, bicycle, carpool, take the bus.  If you drive just 10 miles less per week, you will save about 500 lbs. of carbon emissions a year.

#6.  Plant Smart.  Redesign your landscaping with native and drought-resistant grasses, ground covers, shrubs and trees.  Once established, they will not require frequent watering and can even survive a dry period on their own. 

#11.  Save Water.   Check hoses and outdoor faucets for leaks.  Don't leave hoses and sprinklers unattended.  Check sprinkler systems and timing devices regularly.   If sprinkler is not automatically timed, set a kitchen timer to remind yourself to turn it off.  Position sprinklers to water lawn and shrubs, not your driveway and walks.  To reduce losses from evaporation, water in the early morning hours when heat and wind are lowest. 

#12.  Vacations.   Vacation closer to home.  Explore Oregon!  Explore Lane County!  If you travel, use the train or bus.  Avoid air travel.

#13.  For Golfers.   Urge the managers of the courses you play on to "go green" in use of water, fertilizers, pesticides, mowers, etc.  Let them know that you are aware of and appreciate their efforts. 

#14.  Air Conditioning.  Place your air conditioner or themostat away from lamps, TVs, or any heat-generating appliance.  Outdoors, if you shade your air conditioning unit, you could save 10%-15% a year on energy use and costs. 
 
#15.  A/C Thermostats.  Set your A/C thermostat at the high end of your comfort zone.  Just 1 degree higher can reduce energy use by 3%.  Program your A/C to turn off when nobody's home and to turn on 30 minutes before you return.
 
#16.  Save Water.  Raise your lawn mower blades to at least 3 inches.  If you let your grass grow a little longer, it will stay greener, grow deeper roots, hold soil moisture better, and need less water. 
 
#17.  Water Heater.   Turn off your hot water heater while you are away on vacation, or even while you are at work or away for the day.  Turn it off at the circuit breaker, or install a switch or a timer to make it easy to turn off. 

#18.  Watering--How Much is Enough?    In Eugene, outdoor watering takes a full 2/3 of the residential water use in summer.  That's a LOT of water, so we should try to use only as much as we need.  EWEB wants to help you do that.  Here is how it works:
 ~~ a)  You pick up a FREE Green Grass Gauge (a little yellow thing to stick in your lawn), which is available at EWEB and at several garden centers (Down to Earth, True Value, Gray's, Home Depot, Jerry's). 
 ~~ b)  Every Friday EWEB will tell you in inches how much you should water during the coming week, based on the previous week's weather conditions.  Just phone EWEB at 341-8510, or check their web site at www.eweb.org, or tune in to the Friday weather reports on local TV.
 ~~ c)  Your Gauge will show you how many inches of water you have given your lawn each time you water during that week, so you'll know when it has had enough.
 ~~ d)  Remember that shrubs and perennials need only half as much water as lawns do.
 
#19  Packaged and Processed Foods.  Cut at least one of these items from your weekly diet. Instead, visit the bulk bins, or try buying the ingredients and making your favorites yourself.  A sobering fact is that food processing and packaging accounts for about half the total energy used in the food production system. 
 
#20.  Eat Less Beef.  Reduce meat consumption in general.  Growing grass to feed animals, who convert this energy to meat for human consumption is an inefficient method of food production, a poor use of land, and a waste of energy.  And to make matters worse, because of the way cows' digestive systems work, they necessarily burp out huge amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
 
#21.  Avoid Food That Flies.  Ask how your food made it to your store.  Food that travels by air causes much more greenhouse gases than food that comes by rail or truck or by sea.  Just one example:  A Hawai'ian pineapple shipped by air results in 50 times more greenhouse gas emissions than does a Costa Rican pineapple shipped by ocean barge.

#22.  Seldom-Used Freezers and Refrigerators.  Unplug these energy hogs and save maybe $100 a year and lots of carbon emissions. 
 
#23.  Clean Those Coils.  The condensor coils behind or under your refrigerator need to be cleaned with a brush or vacuum to operate efficiently.  Don't forget to unplug the fridge first!
 
#24.  Cook Efficiently.   Cover pans with lids to save 2/3 of the energy used in cooking.  Use your microwave rather than the stove and save as much as $50 a year.  And NO PEEKING:  Every time you open the oven for a peek, 25-50 degrees of heat escapes.

# 28.  Turn down your hot water heater to 120 degrees.  Many of these appliances come preset at 140 degrees.  Every 10-degree reduction can cut energy use by 6%.
 
#29.  Shower the old Navy way.  First, wet down.  Then, turn off the shower while you soap down, scrub, shave, shampoo, sing, or whatever else you do.  Turn the shower on again to rinse off.  Shoot for a 5-minute shower. 
 
#30.  Install a low-flow showerhead  for about $15 and cut 25%-60% of your hot water use.
 

See also UUCE-generated Tips