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Prevention at an individual level
Each person can, and must fight against global warming. The most effective way is to limit personal energy consumption, particularly in the area of transport, which is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
A little list of good individual habits which will help in the fight against the greenhouse effect
Avoid taking the plane
Avoid using the car whenever possible: ride a bike or take the train
Avoid travelling by scooter or motorbike
Drive the car calmly, not harshly and impatiently, so as to reduce fuel consumption to a minimum
Have the car serviced regularly
Improve the thermal insulation of the home, avoid wasting heat in winter
Avoid using the air conditioning at home and in the car
Don’t waste electricity
Choose low-energy-consumption equipment and household appliances
 Infrared photo of the city of Gap taken from the air in Winter (Click to enlarge)
© Trading Corp. Consulting
A yellow patch on a blue roof very often indicates the presence of a badly-insulated window or a chimney. However, some information remains more difficult to interpret : a navy blue house can mean it is well-insulated, or, on the other hand, that the people are not at home and have not switched on the heating !
Some examples of low-consumption equipment
Cars
Hybrid cars have been on the market for years now. They combine petrol and electricity, petrol and natural gas, or petrol and bio-fuel. To different degrees, they allow significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
For information on how a hybrid car works and some examples of the genre :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_cars
Lighting
Fluo-compact bulbs (also known as low-energy bulbs) consume 5 times less electricity than conventional incandescent bulbs and last a lot longer.
LED (Light Emitting Diode) lamps and bulbs also have a long life and consume less. LED’s are already used in many traffic lights. They are particularly effective for production of localised light (a torch for example) and in cases where small bulbs are required.
Electronics
Fortunately, even if they are more and more widely-used, the many forms of individual electronic equipment consume less and less.
A good example is the project to produce a 100-dollar computer for third-world children. It uses technologies enabling electricity consumption to be reduced by a factor of 10.
Description of the project:
http://laptop.org/en/index.shtml
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