Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
Actor Ed Begley Jr. says his most important role hasn’t been in movies or television, but in real life as an environmental activist.
"Live simply so that others can simply live," he says. "There's six billion of us on the planet now and we need to behave differently than we did when there was a lot fewer people around. And so we all need to cooperate in every way and use our resources wisely."
Begley says there are five things anyone can do to help the planet.
1) Buy an Energy Star appliance.
2) Save energy in your house. Turn out the lights. Use a power strip for things that don’t need power all day.
3) Cut down on driving where you can. Walk wherever you can or ride a bicycle if you are able.
4) Plant a tree – on your own property or be part of a group that plants in public spaces.
5) Reduce waste and recycle. Take canvas bags into the store rather than use paper or plastic. And buy items with smaller packaging if you can.
“Those are a few simple things that would help anybody and they are cheap and easy to do," he notes.
Begley believes we’ll be judged in the future for what we do or don’t do on our watch.
“We will be judged harshly if we don't do something now, if we continue to have this big party. We are operating like a business in liquidation. We are liquidating all our assets, our forests and turning them into two-by-fours and everything else, and depleting all our fishery stocks. We'll be judged very harshly by our children and our grandchildren, and I don't think we need to do that. I would like to leave them a planet at least as good as the one I grew up with and possibly even better.”
