ECO UU Open Team

In researching the carbon impact of concrete, I was surprised to learn that the cement industry releases 3 times as much CO2 as the aviation industry. Do other materials have this kind of impact? Of course, steel production involves high heat, of produced by fossil fuels. Beef has a high greenhouse effect due to methane released by cattle...

My husband has had good experiences with lending through Kiva (kiva.org).

More than half of our Honduran scholarship students (some shown here) are girls, and over the years, I've seen with my own eyes how girls with more education delay childbearing, while dropouts often become pregnant. Excuse me talking about Honduras again, but it's my direct line to supporting girls' education.

We recently drove on the NYS Thruway (for a volunteer activity). So many vehicles are going 75 MPH or faster! I Googled and found a claim that an average vehicle uses almost 20% more gas at 75 mph than at 65 mph. Do drivers realize that? Sure, gas is cheap right now, but climate change will be expensive! Of course, we could have used even less...

I just spent some time researching air-source heat pumps, which are an excellent way to switch from heating with fossil fuels like natural gas to heating with electricity, which can be (though isn't currently mostly) made using renewable sources. But one article I read reminded me that the simplest, most cost-effective way to reduce use of...

Something I learned: Bamboo is not a tree, but a type of grass. It grows super fast (some as fast as a couple of feet a day!) and doesn't require much water or care. I bought for the first time, a reuseable personal care item made from bamboo! It helped that it was on sale, but I'm hoping I'll like it and can continue to research and buy more...

Our communities in Honduras cook exclusively on wood stoves. The U of R Global Health group with substantial help from our church has supported the reconstruction of many of these stoves to be more efficient, reducing the need for wood, reducing smoke, and venting the smoke outside rather than blackening the lungs of the traditional indoors...

Now I just wish I could stop those annoying weekly automatic mailers that come with all the coupons and advertisements. Does anyone know how to stop them from coming? 

Plugging my car into electricity, not gas.

In upstate NY, 70% of our electricity comes from non-carbon sources, so whenever we (individually, industrial, etc.) can change from gas/oil to electricity, it's beneficial in our combating climate change.