A Piece Of The Green Puzzle

On October 2nd, President Barack Obama declared October as National Energy Awareness Month. He addresses how energy research and development will help our society on a number of levels, from helping to save the planet to helping to save our economy. While research and development is all good and well, we, as individual Americans, are supposed to be recognizing National Energy Awareness Month by "making clean energy choices that can both rebuild our economy and make it more sustainable". Not all of us are able to replace energy-inefficient appliances, or make other energy efficient installations, but most people could make minor changes that would make for smart energy-saving choices. Here are a few easy ideas from Blackle:

• "Turn off everything not in use: lights, TVs, computers, etc."


• "Activate "sleep" features on computers and office equipment that power down when not in use for a while. Turn off equipment during longer periods of non-use."


• "Replace your five most used light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. These light bulbs use two-thirds less energy and last up to 10 times longer."


• "Take your own reusable bags to do grocery shopping to save the unnecessary production of plastic bags."


• "Drive sensibly. Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gasoline, it can lower your highway gas mileage 33% and city mileage 5%."

Are you doing your part as a piece of the Green Puzzle? For more great ideas on how to do your part during National Energy Awareness Month, check out Blackle, U.S. Department of Energy, or Flex Your Power.

Post by Kate Hill.