Emissions-reduction calculators

Since I’ve become a homeowner, I’ve done a number of small things to reduce my energy use and thus my greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In our house, we:

• wash clothes in cold water in a front-load washer
• use the “light” wash cycle on the dishwasher and don’t use the “heated dry” option
• have a programmable thermostat that drops from 19ºC to 17ºC at night during the winter, and rises from 24ºC to 27ºC at night in summer
• replaced at least a dozen incandescents with CFL bulbs in high-use rooms
• turned down the hot water tank’s set temperature
• installed a dimmer switch for our front foyer’s light
• put our exterior lights are on a timer

Hooray, US!

The thing is, I know these actions save energy, but how much? How can I translate my actions into GHG emission reductions? Enter the web-based calculators! Although they are fairly generic in order to be applicable to the most number of people, they do give an excellent idea of how much energy/emissions one can save per action taken. Please evaluate what you can do (or have already done) at:

• Environment Hamilton
• OneLessTonne.ca

I’m happy to report that we’ve shed our tonne, but I’m looking forward to shedding more in the future.

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