Cool September nights

Cooler nights in September mean less reliance on air conditioning.  

Air conditioning cools our interiors, but can heat up the outside temperature by 1 - 1.5 degrees in cities. 

Opening windows in the early morning to let in the cool night air can quickly reduce indoor temperatures by several degrees, especially if you can create a cross breeze.  Just remember to close them again before the day starts to heat up.  

Raising the temperature of your air conditioner by even half a degree also helps save energy. 

If we each save a little, we all save a lot.

It's easy to be green.

Why should we worry about idling the car a few minutes when the global problem of emissions is so vast? 

It is the same reason that Terry Fox's dream was for each Canadian to donate $1 to his cancer campaign: collective action, even a small scale, can make a big difference.  

When we look for the small stuff we can do, you will find that it is really easy to be green!

What Environmental Topics are you interested in learning more about?

How we live impacts our environment and its ability to support us. 

The City of London, together with the Public LIbrary and the London Environmental Network, are asking for suggestions on topics that you are interested in for upcoming information sessions.

With your input, these discussions, presentations and workshops will be designed to meet your needs and advance our collective goals of living more sustainably.  Even more important, is your attendance at these upcoming sessions.  

Complete the survey here:  https://getinvolved.london.ca/greening-london  

Slow down - and reduce GHG emissions

I am often looking to get where I'm going as fast as possible but I am learning to give myself enough time to slow down.  Without the push to get there fast, you can enjoy the ride and the cost savings.  Reducing highway speed from 120 to 110 km/h can deliver fuel savings of 12–18 % for most cars.  Maintaining consistent speed and reducing quick starts and stops increases savings. On a recent road trip, I noticed the fuel consumption drop from 9 l/100km to 7.5 l/100km just by reducing speed.

Reduced idling time can add up to large savings

An average vehicle idling for 10 minutes burns over 1 cup of fuel, producing 690 grams of CO2. 

If Canadian drivers avoided unnecessary idling for just 3 minutes every day, we would collectively save over $630 million!  

In 1 year, we would prevent 1.4 million tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. That's the equivalent of taking 320,000 cars off of the road! 

Clearly, individual actions, when taken by millions of Canadians, can make a difference.

Trees can save us

A new study suggests that planting trees could be an effective way to combat climate change. 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/world/trillion-trees-climate-change-intl-scn/index.html

Did you know that 15 billion trees are lost every year to deforestation? 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation/

Learn about a group of children determined to plant 1 trillion trees:

https://www.plant-for-the-planet.org/en/home   

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This is a weekly newsletter on all things environmental, where we highlight trends and solutions that are moving us to a more sustainable world. (Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/what-on-earth-newsletter-climate-change-1.5183329