Change a light, and you help change the world. Replace the conventional bulbs in your 5 most frequently used light fixtures with bulbs that have the ENERGY STAR and you will help the environment while saving money on energy bills. If every household in the U.S. took this one simple action we would prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from nearly 10 million cars.
When buying new products, such as appliances for your home, get the features and performance you want AND help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Look for ENERGY STAR qualified products in more than 50 product categories, including lighting, home electronics, heating and cooling equipment and appliances.
Simple steps like cleaning air filters regularly and having your heating and cooling equipment tuned annually by a licensed contractor can save energy and increase comfort at home, and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When it's time to replace your old equipment, choose a high efficiency model, and make sure it is properly sized and installed.
Sealing air leaks and adding more insulation to your home is a great do-it-yourself project. The biggest leaks are usually found in the attic and basement. If you are planning to replace windows, choose ENERGY STAR qualified windows for better performance. Forced air ducts that run through unconditioned spaces are often big energy wasters. Seal and insulate any ducts in attics and crawlspaces to improve the efficiency of your home. Not sure where to begin? A home energy auditor can also help you find air leaks, areas with poor insulation, and evaluate the over-all energy efficiency of your home. By taking these steps, you can eliminate drafts, keep your home more comfortable year round, save energy that would otherwise be wasted, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Green power is environmentally friendly electricity that is generated from renewable energy sources such as wind and the sun. There are two ways to use green power: you can buy green power or you can modify your house to generate your own green power. Buying green power is easy, it offers a number of environmental and economic benefits over conventional electricity, including lower greenhouse gas emissions, and it helps increase clean energy supply. If you are interested, there are a number of steps you can take to create a greener home, including installing solar panels and researching incentives for renewable energy in your state.
If there is a recycling program in your community, recycle your newspapers, beverage containers, paper and other goods. Use products in containers that can be recycled and items that can be repaired or reused. In addition, support recycling markets by buying products made from recycled materials. Reducing, reusing, and recycling in your home helps conserve energy and reduces pollution and greenhouse gases from resource extraction, manufacturing, and disposal.
Use a push mower, which, unlike a gas or electric mower, consumes no fossil fuels and emits no greenhouse gases. If you do use a power mower, make sure it is a mulching mower to reduce grass clippings (PDF, 8 pp., 1.59 MB, About PDF). Composting your food and yard waste reduces the amount of garbage that you send to landfills and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. See EPA's GreenScapes program for tips on how to improve your lawn or garden while also benefiting the environment. Smart Landscaping can save energy, save you money and reduce your household's greenhouse gas emissions.
Saving water around the home is simple. Municipal water systems require a lot of energy to purify and distribute water to households, and saving water, especially hot water, can lower greenhouse gas emissions. Look for products with EPA's WaterSense label; these products save water and perform as well or better than their less efficient counterparts. There are also simple actions you can take to save water: Be smart when irrigating your lawn or landscape; only water when needed and do it during the coolest part of the day, early morning is best. Turn the water off while shaving or brushing teeth. Do not use your toilet as a waste basket - water is wasted with each flush. And did you know a leaky toilet can waste 200 gallons of water per day? Repair all toilet and faucet leaks right away. See EPA's WaterSense site for more water saving tips.
Tell family and friends that energy efficiency is good for their homes and good for the environment because it lowers greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Tell 5 people and together we can help our homes help us all.
Office equipment and electronics use energy even when idle or on stand-by. To save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at work, always activate the power management features on your computer and monitor, unplug laptop power cords when not in use and turn off equipment and lights at the end of the day. Consider using a power strip that can be turned off when you're done using your computers, printers, wireless routers and other electronics.
When buying new products for your office at work or at home, get the features and performance you want and help reduce greenhouse gases and emissions of air pollutants. Look for ENERGY STAR qualified office equipment, such as computers, copiers, and printers, in addition to more than 50 product categories, including lighting, heating and cooling equipment and commercial appliances.
ENERGY STAR-labeled buildings provide safe, healthy, and productive environments that use about 35 percent less energy than average buildings. Their efficient use of energy also reduces the total operational cost of the building.
Switch to public transportation, carpooling, biking, telecommuting and other innovative ways to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on your way to and from work. Encourage your employer to offer commuter benefits that address limited or expensive parking, reduce traffic congestion, improve employee recruiting and retention and minimize the environmental impacts associated with drive-alone commuting. If you do drive, find out the fuel efficiency of your vehicle using EPA's and DOE's fuel economy Web site, and make more environmentally-informed choices when purchasing your next vehicle by using EPA's Green Vehicle Guide.
Recycle office paper, newspapers, beverage containers, electronic equipment and batteries. Reducing, reusing, and recycling in your office helps conserve energy, and reduces pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from resource extraction, manufacturing, and disposal. You can reduce, reuse and recycle at the office by using two-sided printing and copying; buying supplies made with recycled content; and recycling used printer cartridges. For your old electronics, investigate leasing programs to ensure reuse and recycling or donate used equipment to schools or other organizations.
Explore the Climate Change Kids Site and watch Climate Animations that bring to life the science and impacts of climate change. The site also provides games that help students, their parents and their teachers learn about both the science of climate change and what actions they can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
High school students can investigate the link between everyday actions at their high school, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Using EPA's Climate CHange Emission Calculator Kit (Climate CHECK) (WinZip of Excel spreadsheet, 3.4 MB) students can learn about climate change, estimate their school's greenhouse gas emissions and conceptualize ways to mitigate their school's climate impact. Students gain detailed understandings of climate-change drivers, impacts, and science; produce an emission inventory and action plan; and can even submit the results of their emission inventory to their school district. You can also use Portfolio Manager to compare the energy use of your school with other schools nationwide, and earn the ENERGY STAR for your school if it qualifies as a top performer.
College students can play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions at their colleges or universities by reducing their emissions from energy they use in dorm rooms. Students can also work with school administrators to: increase energy efficiency on campus, reduce their school's greenhouse gas emissions by using green power, create a campus climate action plan , or develop an inventory of their school's greenhouse gas emissions.
Use the Climate Change, Wildlife and Wildlands: A Toolkit for Teachers and Interpreters to learn about the science of climate change and its potential effects on our nation's wildlife and their habitats.
Enhance critical thinking skills by introducing the Global Warming Wheel Card Classroom Activity Kit to middle school students. A hand-held wheel card and other resources help students estimate household greenhouse gas emissions in order to encourage students to think about ways to reduce their personal, family, school and community contributions to climate change. If you are an informal educator, simply use the Global Warming Wheel Card as a part of your field activities.
Investigate what other schools and organizations are doing to educate their audiences on climate change by clicking on Educators' Links, a searchable database offering links to resources such as lesson plans, videos, books and toolkits.
The least efficient schools use three times more energy than the best energy performers. By partnering with the highly successful ENERGY STAR for K-12 program and using Portfolio Manager to track and rate the energy performance of your portfolio of school buildings, school districts can serve as environmental leaders in their community, become energy efficient, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save money!
School Administrators can also work to reduce their school's greenhouse gas emissions by developing an inventory of their school's emissions or by taking the 2006 College and University Green Power Challenge.
Recycle school or classroom paper, newspapers, beverage containers, electronic equipment and batteries. Reducing, reusing and recycling at school and in the classroom helps conserve energy, reduce pollution and greenhouse gases from resource extraction, manufacturing and disposal. You can reduce, reuse and recycle at school or in the classroom by using two-sided printing and copying; buying supplies made with recycled content; and recycling used printer cartridges. For your old electronics, investigate leasing programs to ensure reuse and recycling or donate used equipment to schools or other organizations.
All Seed-the-Future projects support various government and non-profit agencies, including Trees for the Future for international projects and other environmental associations for domestic projects. These organizations are helping people in developing countries improve their rural livelihoods through the introduction of environmentally sustainable land management projects focused on beneficial tree planting.
Most communities around the world recognize that if they are to improve their lives, they need to plant additional trees on their degraded lands. By providing technical knowledge on agroforestry and sustainable development, along with planting materials, the projects supported by Seed-the-Future help communities return their lands to the viable production farms they once were.
Trees are beneficial for many reasons. In addition to helping the air we breathe, trees minimize soil erosion, supply shelter for animals and provide a source of fuelwood. However, planting trees is difficult when the topsoil has already been eroded and the climate and growing conditions have changed. The projects Seed-the-Future supports help alleviate those challenges through a network of technicians, volunteers and community leaders worldwide. These programs reach remote areas and give local people the knowledge and ability to rehabilitate their environment.
Thousands of communities around the world have been able to improve their livelihoods and their environment by planting million trees.We calculate that these trees remove approximately one million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year.
International project photos © 2013 Trees for the Future, all rights reserved.
Seed-the-Future supports non-profit projects located around the world, impacting millions of people's lives. Currently Seed-the-Future supports international projects run by Trees for the Future and various other organization that run domestic projects. In the near future, our partners hope to add many other international and domestic projects.
In supporting the projects’ global efforts, communities from around the globe apply for a project to be established in their area. Once an application is received, they along with their Board of Directors, review all of the aspects of the potential project and as resources allow, new projects are implemented.
Based on the specific promotion you are a part of, one or more trees will be planted once you have completed the redemption steps. While one tree may seem insignificant in terms of a global impact, it shouldn't! One mature tree can absorb as much as 1 Ton of CO22 in it's lifetime! So, yes your donation really does something to help the earth!
Trees are carefully selected to suit the unique needs of each forestry project. When possible native tree species are planted, however in many cases native species would not be able to successfully grown, so substitute trees are chosen.
Some of our most common species include:
| Acacia angustissima Acacia mangium Acacia nilotica Acacia senegal Albizzia julibrissin Albizzia lebbek Azadirachta indica Balanites aegyptiaca Calliandra calothyrsus Cassia fistula Delonix regia Faidherbia albida (Acacia albida) Gleditsia triacanthos |
Gliricidia sepium Grevillea robusta Leucaena collinsii Leucaena leucocephala Moringa oleifera Paraserianthes falcataria (Albizzia falcataria) Prosopis juliflora Robinia pseudoacacia Senna Siamea (Cassia Siamea) Sesbania sesban Sesbania grandiflora Ziziphus mauritiana |
*Reforestation projects supported by various nonprofits other than TFTF.
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| Seed The Future 77 East Halsey Rd. Parsippany , NJ 07054 |
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