Adopt these habits to make a difference in fighting climate change - Evanston RoundTable

Adopt these habits to make a difference in fighting climate change - Evanston RoundTable

In discussions about climate change, something often gets lost: One of the easiest and fastest ways to lower your carbon footprint is to adopt energy-saving habits around the house.

Let’s start with setting the thermostat. Nothing does more to reduce household energy consumption, since, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, around 50% of household energy is used for space heating and cooling. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, you can save as much as 10% a year by turning your thermostat back 7-10 degrees from its normal setting for eight hours a day.

An easy way to do this? Turn down the heat at night in the winter and turn down the air conditioning at night in the summer. Better yet, automate the process with a programmable thermostat. If you don’t have one, they start at about $30 but it’s likely you can get one for much less through the ComEd Marketplace. Installation should take about 15 minutes.

In my experience, not many households do this. But suppose yours did. Compared with the average Illinois household, which spends about $200 per month, or $2,400 per year, on electricity and natural gas, you could save up to 10%, or $240, per year. That’s according to government and other data compiled by Sofi.com.

And, based on usage data provided by the Energy Information Agency, you could save as much as 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 100 therms of natural gas per year, which, taken together, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially – equal to what would be generated from 2,500 miles of driving in a typical gas-powered vehicle.

You could save even more, of course, by adjusting the thermostat during the day. If you feel cold with the heat turned down, put on a sweater or sweatshirt. Every layer of clothing is said to raise body temperature by 2 or 3 degrees. If you feel warm with the AC turned up, use ceiling or floor fans. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that using fans in conjunction with the AC allows you to raise the thermostat by 4 degrees without reducing comfort.

Water heating is the third-biggest end-use of energy, accounting for 20-25% of usage. An easy way to conserve: Wash the clothes in cold water. Extrapolating from data provided by the EPA, this could save the equivalent of about 160 kWh per year, for a savings of about $11, because about 75% of the energy used in washing clothes goes to heating the water.

Next, air-dry the clothes, like your grandmother did. Use an outdoor clothesline, an indoor drying rack or the shower rod. According to the EPA, this should save the equivalent of about 700 kWh and $100 per year.

Inconvenient? Sure, a bit. But think about what’s at stake: according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sea levels could rise 3 feet by the year 2100, displacing 4 million Americans in coastal areas. By that point, real-estate data provider Zillow predicts, as many as one in eight homes in the state of Florida could be under water – literally.
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From turning off lights to turning off the hot water while you’re shaving, there are far too many household energy-saving tips to list, but to sum up the impact of those mentioned here: per household, per year, it’s a savings of about 3,360 kWh, which is roughly equivalent to not driving 3,360 miles in a typical gasoline-powered car or SUV.

Meanwhile, you could save around $350 per year – more, as energy prices go up – on utilities. This is 100% free, there-for-the-taking money. It’s like giving yourself an annual cash grant.

If this seems out of reach, maybe the experience of my household can offer some proof: We own a typical Evanston “farmhouse” of about 1,500 square feet with three bedrooms and two baths. Over the last five years, my three-person family has lowered its annual electricity usage by 24% and its natural gas usage by 39%. I haven’t even calculated the dollar savings because to me, well, that’s not the objective.

We’ve done this almost entirely by changing our consumption habits. No new HVAC system. Same water heater. No insulation added. Not even any weather-stripping.

Energy-saving changes in behavior require no investment, no new technology and no special knowledge or expertise. If you’re concerned about global warming, try to adopt at least some of these habits, at least some of the time. If you’re asking me, it’s the least you can do.

Climate Watch is a series of occasional articles and essays about what climate change means for Evanston and what we’re doing locally to make a difference.