Thursday, March 25, 2010

Top 10 Tips for Making it Earth Hour, Every Hour

shutterstock_19234501This Saturday, March 27, My Yoga Online is celebrating Earth Hour. At 8:30 pm local time, hundreds of millions of people all over the world will be turning out the lights for 60 minutes. Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sidney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour. Last year, just two years later, hundreds of millions of people took part; over 4000 cities in 88 countries committed to turning off their power. Earth hour is now the world’s largest global initiative for climate change.

The team at My Yoga Online will all be participating this year. We hope you do, too, and we compiled our favorite tips for making it Earth Hour, every hour, below.

Top 10 Tips

1. Replace an older furnace with a new, energy-efficient model. This can boost your home’s energy efficiency by 20-30%.

2. Calculate how much energy your business consumes using this online tool.

3. Buy green electronics.

4. Use EPEAT to help you evaluate and compare electronics, based on their environmental attributes, before you buy.

5. Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TV’s and game consoles, according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.

6. Food portal CHOW has a feature to rate the kinds of packaging used for food, based on energy used to create it and decomposition.

7. Reconsider buying bottled water. Get the facts from the David Suzuki Foundation, including how much energy is used to create them.

8. Find tons of tips on greening your home and business.

9. Check the Energy Star Canada website regularly for updates on new energy-efficient lighting.

10. Queen’s University’s Live Building Project focuses on tips for commercial spaces, but these can be applied to your home, too.

For more information, please visit Earth Hour.

For more earth-friendly insight, check out all the Green Living articles on My Yoga Online.

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