Celebrating Energy Independence: Ideas That Start at Home
I think we can all agree that a transition away from an oil and fossil-fuel-based energy strategy is an absolute must, and, while it’s great that there are huge solar arrays [www.treehugger.com] that are popping up everywhere [www.treehugger.com] and that some states are taking initiative [www.treehugger.com] to create viable energy alternatives (and we’ll need all of these, for sure, plus more leadership at the national and international level…but that’s another post), there are a surprising number of things that we, as individuals, families and communities can do to celebrate a little energy independence, every day.
1) Change your incandescent light bulbs [www.treehugger.com] to compact fluorescents [www.treehugger.com]. Yeah, we say it over and over [www.treehugger.com] and over again [www.treehugger.com], but there’s a reason for that: it works and it makes a difference [www.treehugger.com]: if you use less power, you (or your local wind-powered utility [www.sundancechannel.com]) don’t have to produce as much. C’mon, everybody’s doing it [www.treehugger.com]…
2) Employing solar power at home can be as simple as one little gadget [www.treehugger.com] or a handy feature you may not have thought of before [www.treehugger.com], but it can be substantive and impactful with a pretty small investment [www.treehugger.com] and a baby-step commitment to take one room off the grid [www.treehugger.com]. Check out FindSolar.com [www.treehugger.com] and the Affordable Solar Store [www.treehugger.com] to start shopping for an energy-independent future.
3) We’ve beaten the eat local drum before [www.sundancechannel.com], but it doesn’t get any more local than growing your own. Hydroponics [www.treehugger.com], and it’s waterless cousin, aeroponic gardening [www.treehugger.com], make it easy to grow in climates that don’t always support vegetable gardens. Things like the Hortuba table [www.treehugger.com] can help you grow your food in as little as one square yard of space; You Grow Girl [www.treehugger.com] is a great resource for DIY gardening, including tips on growing cascading herb pots in tiny spaces and making beauty products from the plants in your garden. Of course, no discussion of green food would be complete without a spin through TreeHugger’s How to Green Your Meals [www.treehugger.com] guide.
4) Biodiesel [www.sundancechannel.com] can be a great way to boycott oil companies [www.treehugger.com] and put some domestically-produced, fossil-fuel-free energy to use, and you can make it yourself [www.treehugger.com] (as the picture below shows, it can be as easy as one, two, three!) but you can take it even further and convert your diesel to run on straight vegetable oil [www.treehugger.com] (such a good idea, we mentioned it twice [www.treehugger.com]. Even Julia Roberts [www.treehugger.com] likes the stuff.
