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Celebrate Your Personal Energy Independence

 

With 4th of July celebrations upon us—as well as the summer heat—no one wants their energy bills to rise with the temperature. Now is the time to think about how to manage your home energy use effectively, practically, AND economically. So, to coincide with our nation celebrating its independence, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ENERGY STAR® program is bringing you cooling tips for every budget, as well as some tips for travel if you’re getting away—small steps that can help make a big difference in saving energy, money, and fighting climate change.

Share these helpful tips with your friends and family. Click here to view the 4th of July greeting and send it with a personalized message to whomever you want!

Cooling Tips for Every Budget
Staying cool this summer doesn’t have to mean cranking up the AC and spending a lot of money. A typical household spends almost 20 percent of its utility bill on cooling. EPA’s ENERGY STAR program has some low- to no-cost energy-saving tips to beat the heat and save money, too.

No-Cost:

• Program your thermostat to work around your family’s summer schedule—set it a few degrees higher when no one is home, so your cooling system isn’t cooling an empty house. With proper use, programmable thermostats can save you about $180 every year in energy costs.
• Check your HVAC system’s air filter every month. If the filter looks dirty, change it, but change the filter at least every 3 months. A dirty filter will slow air flow and make the system work harder to keep you cool—wasting energy.
• Run your ceiling fan to create a cool breeze. If you raise your thermostat by only two degrees and use your ceiling fan, you can lower cooling costs by up to 14 percent. Remember that ceiling fans cool you, not the room, so when you leave the room make sure to turn off the fan.
• Close the curtains and shades before you leave your home, to keep the sun’s rays from overheating the interior of your home. If you can, move container trees and plants in front of sun-exposed windows to act as shade.

Low-Cost:

• Remember to have your HVAC system serviced annually to ensure it’s running at optimum efficiency for money and energy savings.
• Swap out incandescent bulbs with more energy-efficient lighting choices—ENERGY STAR qualified lighting not only uses less energy, it also produces about 75 percent less heat than incandescent lighting, so cooling bills will be reduced, too.
• Seal your ducts. As much as 20 percent of the air moving through your home’s duct system is lost due to leaks and poor connections. Seal duct work using mastic sealant or metal tape and insulate all the ducts that you can access (such as those in attics, crawlspaces, unfinished basements, and garages).
• Make sure that connections at vents and registers are well-sealed where they meet your floors, walls, and ceilings. These are common locations to find leaks and disconnected ductwork.

Medium- to Higher-Cost:

• When buying a room AC unit, look for one that has earned EPA’s ENERGY STAR. If every room air conditioner in the U.S. were ENERGY STAR qualified, they would prevent 900 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions annually—equivalent to the emissions from 80,000 cars.
• Add insulation to your attic to keep cool air in—if every American household did so, we’d collectively save more than $1.8 billion in yearly energy costs.
• Hire a contractor to seal and insulate the interior ductwork in your home (the ducts you can’t reach yourself). For help on choosing the right contractor, go to www.energystar.gov/homeimprovement.
• If your central AC unit is more than 12 years old, replacing it with a model that has earned EPA’s ENERGY STAR could cut your cooling costs by 30 percent.

For more information about keeping cool and comfortable while saving money this season, visit www.energystar.gov/heatcool.

Summer Travel Trips
As you get ready to travel—even if it’s a short trip, like 4th of July weekend—don’t forget to take these few easy steps at home before you leave:

• Turn up your thermostat to 85 degrees (unless you’re leaving pets at home, of course). Experts agree that the energy saved from turning your thermostat up in the summer while you’re away is greater than the energy used to cool your house back down after you return.
• Close window blinds and shades to block out the sun’s heat. It’s amazing how much indoor heat simply comes from the heat of the sun though the windows. Most ENERGY STAR qualified windows reduce the “heat gain” into your home more than typical windows do, without reducing the visible light. You get the light you need without the uncomfortable heat.
• Aside from those one or two lights that you may want to leave on for safety, make sure everything else is turned off—all lights, ceiling fans, the alarm on your radio, and other small appliances.
• Perhaps the best thing you can do to save energy this summer is to choose hotels that have earned EPA’s ENERGY STAR label. These hotels listed use at least 35 percent less energy and emit at least 35 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than other hotels—making a stay with them a carbon-saving experience. For more tips on bringing your green on the road, visit EPA’s press release.

Take the ENERGY STAR Pledge

Take the ENERGY STAR Pledge to save energy, money, and help fight climate change. Even by celebrating your personal energy independence, you'll be joining others in making a difference together.

Thanks to ENERGY STAR and the EPA for this post.

~Amazon Green Scene

Guest Blogger: Aimee Bender

I started The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake shortly after a phone conversation with a composer named Harold Meltzer. He had read some of my stories, and called me up to ask if I might be up for collaborating on a piece he was working on. "Let me tell you my idea," he said.

He wanted to do a take-off of an idea from a Brecht opera about the seven deadly sins, updating it, he said, to the 'seven abstemious sins' (which I had to look up). Basically, he felt the seven deadly sins needed modernizing--instead of gluttony, how about something on anorexia, about resisting food. Instead of rage, how about all the passive-aggression? Instead of greed--well, he figured I could fill in the blanks. Was I interested? "Yes!" I said, delighted. I loved the idea. And I thought he was truly onto something--it seems the vices of our time are often the covert vices, the ones that don't quite express what we feel--not lust, but endless watching of The Hills;  not quite pride, but the inability to say thank you without endless self-deprecation, and on.

I felt so energized after the call and promptly went and wrote seven short paragraph/monologues. The food one came easily. It was about a woman who couldn't eat the food she made. I didn't know why. She just refused to eat it. But it wasn't anorexia--I felt that territory had been well covered and there was something different in this woman. It seemed she wasn't eating it for a reason I didn't understand yet. A few days later, I opened a new file and began the voice that became Rose; I wrote two scenes--one of a food she loved dearly, one of a food that revealed her own skill and burden to her. And I could feel that there was something in this dilemma, this power--something I could write about for awhile.

The piece for Meltzer became its own thing, and when I look at it now, that voice isn't Rose at all. He gave me an idea that led to a diving board that led into Rose. I also have a friend who talks about feelings as something to digest--about her experience of the feelings in herself, or others, that may not be digested. Or processed/unprocessed. All these words for feelings that are the same words we use for food. The two were matched up in my mind long before Harold's call, but I do feel so glad and grateful that he called me up out of the blue and told me his idea that led to another idea that freed up this character!

Summer Is a Berry Good Time

Looking for a way to cool off this summer? How about a glass of homemade strawberry lemonade, a raspberry-nectarine smoothie, or perhaps a blackberry martini?

Berries are the heart of James Beard award-winning chef Janie Hibler's cookbook, The Berry Bible,  new on Kindle this week. If it's still cool where you are (like here in Seattle) or you're looking for something more substantial, try Hibler's recipes for Hot-Smoked Turkey with Blackberry Barbecue Sauce or Curried Halibut with Strawberry-Papaya Relish. From cocktails and salads, to entrees and desserts, Hibler covers all the ways that berries can be transformed into delicious (and healthful!) dishes.

Aside from over 175 recipes, the book also includes an encyclopedia of berries--where they're found and how to pick them. Hibler also covers how to select, wash and freeze fresh berries for year-round enjoyment--a great reference to have on hand for stocking up at local farmers' markets.
Check out The Berry Bible on your Kindle today. Enjoy!

The New Republic: Easy Rider

In this week's issue of The New Republic,  Judith Schulevitz shares the story of how her revolutionary folding bike changed her experience of New York City. Having recently moved from Westchester, she quickly became bothered by its noise, smell and crowds in the Big Apple. Rather than wallow in misery, she did something about it. She got a bike - a folding bike made by a British company called Brompton, that enabled her to go wherever she wanted, at the speed that she wanted. The bike meant freedom.

Schulevitz's folding bicycle has only recently been marketed to the general consumer, and she argues it's the most revolutionary bike of them all. "If your city can't make itself bike-friendly fast enough to suit you, with a few turns of a screw and kick to knock your wheels in place, you can make your bike city-friendly instead," she said. Since you can take this bike with you, you can forgo parking. Additionally, you can forgo the gym - too. In the end, Schulevitz experiences New York City in a much larger way as she sees more and more of it.

Adding balance to the issue's articles about foreign and fiscal policy, Schulevitz regales her readers with her new perspective on city living. "I glided past East Village landmarks I hadn't seen in years, because they weren't close to any subway stops," she said. A short history of bicycles, starting with the 1817 velocipede, is also included.

Read this full story and more - start your 14-day free trial today or buy the current issue for $2.25.

Living for the Weekday

Employee engagement drives superior performance--it's that simple. Good leaders know this, and take active steps to promote it. Yet engagement is a two-way street; no program works without employees stepping up and participating. If you're a leader, this participation is the key to your team's breakthrough results. If you're a team member, it's the ticket for more life satisfaction and career advancement.

Living for the Weekday is an innovative and entertaining book that takes a fun yet practical look at job satisfaction from the employee's point of view. Filled with challenges and self-assessments, it supplies you with a series of tools to get the most out of your team and your career, while serving as an enduring reminder that job satisfaction comes down to practicing a few simple behaviors--behaviors that may seem simple on the surface, but that can be agonizingly difficult to master. Make this inspiring and powerful book your first step in achieving a new level of workplace success.

Open Road Brings the Thrills

Open Road Integrated Media has made 24 Jack Higgins thrillers, originally published between 1959 and 1985, available as eBooks as part of its Author Branded Program. Titles include the bestselling A Prayer for the Dying, Bloody Passage, The Valhalla Exchange, Dark Side of the Street, Dillinger, and Exocet.  These editions feature bonus content, such as an illustrated biography with previously unpublished photos and details about the author's life.

Speaking of thrillers, Open Road has also released Stephen Rebello's Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.  It's a gripping behind-the-scenes look inside the classic suspense shocker, and the creative genius who revolutionized filmmaking.

Word Power with Reader's Digest

Each issue of Reader's Digest comes with its well-known language quiz found in its "Games" section, Word Power.  Each month's game has a different theme, and this month's covers words from Yiddish proverbs. As the English language has borrowed thousands of words from other languages, Reader's Digest enlightens readers on perhaps the weightiest of them all--Yiddish loanwords.

Word Power poses over 15 words and gives you multiple options for its definition. Quiz answers are included, giving the definition and putting the word into a contextual sentence. Here's a sneak peek into the Yiddish words you'll learn this month: kvetch, zaftig, chutzpah, yenta, plotz, meshuga, nebbish, tchotchke, schnorrer, oy vey, kibitz, mensch, schlep, nudnik, bubkes, shamus, and mazel tov. Also included is a 'Vocabulary Rating' that tells you how well you did depending on the amount of correct answers you chose.

Try your hand at one: Mazel Tov--A: Sorry-my bad! B: Welcome home! C: Best wishes!

Learn Yiddish with Reader's Digest - start your 14-day free trial today, or buy the current issue for $1.49.

The Seventh Generation

We live in an endlessly interconnected world but every day all too many of us don't consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations yet alone the next six, five, four, three, two, or even one. Historians will write about ours as the generation of great unconsciousness. How despite all the warning signs and red flags waving violently in front of our eyes, we failed to see the writing on the wall.

Remaining hopeful in the face of our willful inaction is a daily challenge. Hope lives in the certainty that there is always the possibility that we might still be able to stop the huge momentum that is propelling us ever faster toward our plunge over the cliff. Hope lives in knowing we can if we choose to.

In the midst of the recent violent turmoil in Greece, journalist Tom Friedman observed a piece of graffiti left by a 10-year-old child, who wrote on a wall, "In what kind of a world will I grow up?"

We are responsible for the answer to that question and for whether or not she'll want to bring children of her own into the world she inherits from us.

Soon I'll deliver another speech. I was asked to be hopeful. I promise to try. I'll focus almost entirely on a one issue: We must move from "Siloed Interests" to a "Shared Purpose." What I mean by that is that we can no longer afford to advocate for "our" issue rather than "the" issue. We must stop organizing ourselves into categories that separate those who fight for global climate change, human rights, health care, environmental justice, or any of the countless other challenges we face.

There is now only one issue: redesigning the systems that govern our societies to ensure they are sustainable, just, and promote well-being for all the world's living things.

Jeffrey Hollender is the co-author of the recently published book, The Responsibility Revolution, The Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Seventh Generation. Hollender also shares his insights at The Inspired Protagonist, a leading blog on corporate responsibility.

Have You Tried The Economist on Kindle?

Each week, The Economist's selection of articles is well suited for any type of reader. If you prefer to skim the news, every issue begins with "The World This Week" section, which includes both 'Politics This Week' and 'Business This Week' articles. If you prefer lengthy in-depth articles, find them in its "Special Report" section. Its "Letters" section proves just as informative as The Economist's original content, as thoughtful readers present opposing perspectives and add to ongoing discussions.

Each issue includes over 18 sections and 90 individual articles, providing readers with both depth and breadth of today's news. Its content sections range from geographical (United States, The Americas, Asia, Middle East, Europe, and Britain) to topical (Business, Science and Technology, Books and Arts, and Finance and Economics). Feature-length special reports are also included among the sections.

See the selection for yourself - start your 14-day free trial today, or buy the current issue for $5.49.

The Plundered Planet

In The Plundered Planet,  Paul Collier builds upon his renowned work on developing countries and the poorest populations to confront the global mismanagement of nature. Proper stewardship of natural assets and liabilities is a matter of planetary urgency: natural resources have the potential either to transform the poorest countries or to tear them apart, while the carbon emissions and agricultural follies of the rich world could further impoverish them. The Plundered Planet charts a course between unchecked profiteering on the one hand and environmental romanticism on the other to offer realistic and sustainable solutions to dauntingly complex issues.

Grounded in a belief in the power of informed citizens, Collier proposes a series of international standards that would help poor countries rich in natural assets better manage those resources, policy changes that would raise world food supply, and a clear-headed approach to climate change that acknowledges the benefits of industrialization while addressing the need for alternatives to carbon trading. Revealing how these are all interconnected, The Plundered Planet charts a way forward to avoid the mismanagement of the natural world that threatens our future.