APPENDIX B

Our Paths to 20

Team Member Statements about
Reducing Our Own Carbon Footprints

JEFF DEYETTE

Senior Energy Analyst, Climate and Energy Program

When my wife and I bought our first home in 2009, I was excited to finally put into practice some of the energy-saving techniques I had long studied and endorsed at work. We had done what we could to reduce energy consumption in our old apartment—such as installing a programmable thermostat, insulating the water heater, using compact fluorescent lightbulbs, and buying an Energy Star–certified air conditioner for our bedroom—but as renters we were not able to do much more.

After moving in, our first order of business (after installing the CFLs and programmable thermostat) was insulation. First, we insulated all the hot water and steam radiator pipes in the basement. The difference was like night and day: in cold weather, our basement was no longer warmer than our living room! We also found reflective insulation to place behind our recessed wall radiators to help bring more heat into our living space. To tackle the larger spaces—the attic and exterior walls—we took advantage of state and federal tax incentives to bring down the costs of insulating, installing it ourselves in the attic and hiring a contractor to blow insulation into the walls. These improvements made a huge difference. Last winter, we used more than 100 fewer gallons of heating oil than we had the first winter in our house. Tax credits also allowed us to replace the house's old and inefficient kitchen appliances with Energy Star–rated versions for even more reductions in our carbon emissions.

BRENDA EKWURZEL

Climate Scientist, Climate and Energy Program

Perhaps the most important change I have made is my decision to live within walking distance of work, allowing me to abandon my former practice of making a long daily commute by car. I now walk three blocks to the Capital Bikeshare kiosk (in Washington, DC), put on my helmet, and ride most of the way to my office, dropping the bike off at a conveniently located kiosk near work. Because the trip takes less than one-half hour, the bike ride is free (aside from my annual membership fee). And it normally gets me from home to work in about 15 minutes.

At home, I also replaced windows and doors in my condominium. Unfortunately, I wasn't eligible for a tax credit, but I still bought the most energy-efficient windows I could find. Now, in cold weather, when I put my hand on the window, it is actually warmer than the nearby wall. I buy green power from my utility for a small additional cost. And, for those few occasions in winter when I want to make a fire in my traditional fireplace, I have found logs made from used coffee grounds that burn well, with far fewer emissions and no unpleasant odor. And, yes, when my fireplace is not in use, I make sure the damper is closed tightly to prevent unwanted heat loss!

DAVID FRIEDMAN

Deputy Director and Senior Engineer, Clean Vehicles Program

Ten years ago, when I first came to work for the Union of Concerned Scientists, I bought my first new car. Coming to work for a nonprofit, I couldn't afford a hybrid. So I did my homework and purchased a Honda Civic HX, a relatively rare model of gasoline car with the highest fuel economy of any car sold at the time. (Honda made only about 500–600 of these lean-burning engines that year.) The car is still running well and has dramatically reduced my carbon emissions.

More recently, the biggest decision my wife and I have made to reduce our carbon footprint was to buy a house just two miles from work in Florida, where we live. Before our son was born, we both bicycled to work. Today, we are keeping it up with one of us continuing to bike either to or from work each day while the other drives to drop our son off at day care. Despite the Florida heat, we keep our house at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. We have switched our lightbulbs to compact fluorescents and use power strips to turn off our electronic equipment. At some point, I'll be in the market for a new car again. If I had to buy one today, it would certainly be a hybrid, but I'm keeping a close look at the coming generation of electric-drive vehicles, which could help reduce my emissions even further.

MARGARET MELLON

Senior Scientist, Food and Environment Program

I commute to work on the metro and have owned a gas-electric hybrid Prius for three years, both of which have dramatically lowered my emissions. For decades, my diet has included fish and dairy (often organic) but very little pork, beef, or poultry. The meat I do eat usually comes from local or organic producers. Buying local and organic meat may not help much from the climate standpoint, but it matters a great deal to me to know that the animals were raised humanely and not fed antibiotics. Over the years, my partner has moved in my direction on eating less meat while I've moved in his direction on using more aggressive thermostat settings and being better about turning off lights every time I leave a room, as he prefers to do.

At home, we have replaced most of our incandescent bulbs with more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. We have a programmable thermostat and have bought energy-efficient appliances, including a dishwasher with two separate drawers that allows us to efficiently wash a smaller load when we need to. We compost our food waste, and last year we purchased an in-home seltzer maker, which has allowed us to stop buying bottled water almost entirely. The magnitude of this purchase on our carbon footprint may not be that great, but it certainly feels good to no longer be discarding so many plastic bottles.

JOHN ROGERS

Senior Energy Analyst, Climate and Energy Program

The lens for much of my work on climate issues and climate solutions is my children and the kind of world they're growing up in. I've offset some of the environmental impact of adding to the world's population by preparing my two boys to be the environmental leaders of tomorrow; at ages seven and eight, they are fully attuned to the value of compact fluorescent and LED lighting, hybrid cars, and turning off the television at the power strip. Still, expanding our household has meant having to work harder on our carbon footprint. We've taken important steps toward bringing our old house onto the necessary carbon path. My first line of attack was the lighting. I was an early adopter of compact fluorescents, and I was inspired a decade ago to swap out virtually every bulb. We've since replaced our old, inefficient furnaces and an air conditioner with top-efficiency models, ditched an inefficient water heater in favor of solar water heating and an on-demand heater, and buttoned up the house with a new door, improved windows, air sealing, and more and more insulation. One measure of the effectiveness of those efforts is the fact that, despite building an addition that increased the square footage of our home by 10 percent, our electricity and gas bills have shrunk to pre-kid levels and are staying put.

But we continue to look for ways to do more. We're getting professional help to seal our house much more effectively, while ensuring we still get fresh air, and insulating the basement correctly. We're looking into more efficient car options for when my early model hybrid or my wife's station wagon needs replacing. We're continuing to buy green power but still trying to figure out how we might be able to make a solar array work despite shading. When our utilities show us how we stack up against our neighbors, we want to be the ones to beat.

 

SUZANNE SHAW

Director of Communications

Having grown up in the Los Angeles area, with its infamous sprawl and congestion, I feel fortunate now to live in a city with great public transportation, which allows me to avoid the frustration of sitting in traffic. Since we are a one-car family and don't use the car for commuting, when I wanted to reduce my global warming emissions, the first place I looked was at my home's heating and cooling. My house came with an ancient oil furnace, which I replaced with a high-efficiency natural gas furnace. While this was an investment of several thousand dollars, the old furnace had been so inefficient that the new one paid for itself within several years. The house also had zero insulation except for newspaper (from World War II, no less!) stuffed into a few cracks. So I blew insulation into the walls and put a layer in the attic. This project wasn't very expensive and made a huge difference in the comfort level of the house.

I installed a programmable thermostat (which came with a rebate coupon allowing me to recoup the entire cost of the unit) and swapped out most of our home's incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescents. (I do keep a few dimmable incandescent bulbs in the kitchen, as the current generation of dimmable CFLs still has room for improvement.) My family is committed to buying the most efficient Energy Star models we can when the time comes to replace our appliances. And we wash our clothes in cold water without noticing any difference. Over the years, these changes have greatly reduced my energy bills, so that I now pay about half of the average amount of similar homes in my zip code. I have also begun to buy green power from my utility, which, given fluctuations in electricity prices over the past several months, seems to have caused no noticeable increase in my electricity bill.

SETH SHULMAN

Senior Staff Writer

While I have long been relatively conscious about my energy usage, working on this book gave me some new impetus to review my family's carbon emissions and some useful information that helped me make significant additional reductions. Because I commute to work by car and the time was right to replace an old Volvo wagon, I made the most substantial reductions by buying a car that nearly doubles my fuel efficiency, slashing some 3 tons of carbon emissions annually. Last fall, I added more insulation to my attic and more aggressively programmed my thermostat, lowering the temperature further at night and while my family was away at work or school during the day; I saw the results in energy savings right away.

My family has long had a mostly vegetarian diet, so I couldn't find additional reductions there. But I did break one longstanding bad habit by buying two power strips and shutting off power to the television and home office equipment when not in use. I had always tended to leave my office laser printer on, assuming that it went into “sleep” mode. I had no idea that habit alone was costing me roughly $130 in electricity annually! I'm happy to report that even though I live in a big, old house, when our electric utility company began a program comparing our electricity usage with that of our neighbors, the recommendations in the book helped me to move surprisingly easily from average electricity usage into the greenest quadrant of similar homes in my neighborhood.