Guy Goes Green

Wannabe green guy going green

Posts Tagged ‘lights’

Turning the lights off of week 8 – A little greener

December 14th, 2009

I have completed another week of my year long quest to learn how to be green. My wife’s challenge to me for the week was to turn off lights when I am not in a room. Right now, we only have one lamp and one overhead light laminating the room so I think we are making progress. I think I have learned quite a bit about electricity use and have changed my habits in a manner that will reduce our environmental footprint.

This has been an exercise in habit and I thought I would have more problems with it than I did. Last week, my task was to stop using plastic bags and I had one heck of a time remembering to adhere to the challenge at hand. For some reason, this week’ green challenge seemed much easier and I thought it would be considering I thought it required the sort of mental discipline as last week’s task. So far, I have been doing a good job and I have only been told by Ashley a few times that I should turn off a light.

I am not exactly positive on the long term impact I will have by continuing to do this task, but I would imagine it will add up over a lifetime. Ultimately, leaving lights on when you are not using them is wasteful and there is no real reason that I should leave lights on. Turning lights off is good for the environment, good for your electricity bill and the right thing to do. Please let me know any comments you have in the area below and stay tuned for the next task that is coming shortly.

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Posted in Energy, Week 8 Turn the lights off

Tags: electricity lights

Turn off the lights when you are not in the room to conserve energy

December 7th, 2009

This week’s challenge is to conserve energy by turning lights off around the house. Although I think I have already starting becoming more conscientious about this since I started Guygoesgreen, it certainly is a behavior that I need to improve. Hopefully, you can join me this week on this eco challenge and both give me tips on what you do to conserve energy and possibly also learn along with me.

I have been told ever since I was a little guy that I should turn lights off when I am not in a room because it is wasteful. I, being somewhat stubborn and forgetful, may not have been the best at this and hope to learn about this type of wastefulness and take effort to change this behavior. I learned last week that I might have a tough time re-training my brain, but I think part of my journey is not only learning how to be green, but also how to rewire my brain for some things.

Some of my previous tasks require multiple steps and thought to follow through with. Those challenges seemed to be a bit easier for me. It is easy to say “I can only shower once a day” and for me it is easy to turn off the faucet when I brush, but it seems that there are some very small actions (or inactions) that I perform nearly every day that are difficult. For example, last week my challenge was to not use plastic bags and it seemed like I only realized that I took a plastic bag once I was in my car. I did it without thought. I think that possibly this might be another one of these tasks.

So, now that I know going into this green challenge that I will need to retrain my brain, do you guys/gals have any suggestions right off the bat? Are there any tricks, tools or suggestions you have for me to make sure the lights are off or how to conserve energy in relation to the lights?