Tangible Results on Our Carbon Footprint

I read something recently that said if you raise your thermostat by two degrees in the summer, and lower it by two degrees in the winter, you can reduce your annual carbon footprint by 2,000 lbs and save about 100 bucks on your electric bill. Well, simple enough — so we tried it for the month of June. It wasn’t uncomfortable. We vary it slightly by cranking the AC just before we go to bed (to get the house cooler) and then turning it all the way off, and I don’t turn it on again the next day until the temperature inside the house hits about 78, which some days is 10 a.m., and some days is around noon.   I also reset it to about 83 when I leave for work around 2, so it’s considerably higher between then and when my sig. oth. gets home around 6.

We made no other big changes in our power consumption that month. Our electric  bill shows a “same month last year” comparison of kWh used, so when the bill arrived the first week of July, I took a look.

We used 1/3 — ONE THIRD — fewer kilowatt hours this June than last, just by doing that one thing.  Try it!