Read Vanity Fair and Save the Earth

The April 2006 Vanity Fair had an article with 50 ideas to reduce global warming. A reprint can be found at StopGlobalWarming.org or take a look at Vanity Fair's 2007 Green Issue online.

Here are some my favorites from the list of 50.

1. LIGHTBULBS MATTER Switch from traditional incandescent lightbulbs to compact fluorescent lightbulbs (C.F.L.). If every American household replaced one regular lightbulb with a C.F.L., the pollution reduction would be equivalent to removing one million cars from the road. A 30-watt C.F.L. produces about as much light as an ordinary 100-watt bulb. Although the initial price is higher, C.F.L.'s can last 12 times as long. C.F.L.'s are available at most home-improvement stores and at bulbs.com.

3. RINSE NO MORE According to Consumer Reports, pre-rinsing dishes does not necessarily improve a dishwasher's ability to clean them. By skipping the wash before the wash, you can save up to 20 gallons of water per dishload. At one load a day, that's 7,300 gallons over the course of the year. Not to mention that you're saving time, dishwashing soap, and the energy used to heat the additional water.

13. FOOD MILES MATTER Food is traveling farther than ever. Once upon a time people ate seasonally—artichokes in the winter, cherries in June. Now you can buy most fruits and vegetables practically year-round. The average American meal contains ingredients produced in at least five other countries. The transportation of food and agricultural products constitutes more than 20 percent of total commodity transport within the U.S.

14. GO VEGETARIAN ONE DAY A WEEK To produce one pound of beef requires 2,500 gallons of water—that's 40 times more water than is used to produce a pound of potatoes. Before buying beef, think about the immense cost of energy used to raise cattle and to transport meat to your supermarket shelf. Besides all this, cows consume enormous amounts of antibiotics and are a prodigious source of methane, which is the number-two greenhouse gas; livestock are responsible for almost 20 percent of the methane in the atmosphere.

19. STOP THE WATER By leaving the water running while you brush your teeth, you can waste 150 gallons of water per month—that's 1,800 gallons a year!

24. AVOID DISPOSABLE GOODS Institute a mug policy in your office. Americans throw away some 25 billion polystyrene cups every year, most of which end up in landfills. Refill your water bottles once or twice, and make your coffee in a ceramic mug. If you bring in cutlery from home, you will also cut down on those pesky plastic forks, knives, and spoons.

28. CARBON OFFSETTING. For more information, visit www.climatecare.org

30. STANDBY NO LONGER Electricity "leaks" are no laughing matter. Televisions, video and DVD players, cable boxes, and other electronic equipment found in nearly every American home are wasting huge amounts of energy. When these devices are left on standby (the equivalent of "sleep" mode for computers) they use about 40 percent of their full running power. Every year, the energy wasted in this way is the equivalent of the annual output of 26 power plants. To avoid the drain of these "energy vampires," plug them into a power strip and turn it off when they are not in use.

31. TURN OFF YOUR CHARGERS Most cell-phone chargers continue to draw electricity even when the phone isn't plugged into it. If your cell-phone charger averages five watts per hour and is plugged in all the time, that means a total of more than 40 kilowatt-hours every year, or about 93 pounds of CO2. The same problem applies to your other electronic equipment—your laptop, iPod, digital camera, and BlackBerry. Unplug all your chargers when they are not in use.

41. BAT BOXES Want to reduce the number of mosquitoes in your backyard? Then invest in a bat box. One bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes a night. You will also be making a contribution to our country's temperate biodiversity: bat populations in America and around the world are declining, especially in urban areas, where they have few roosting spaces. For more information, visit http://batconservation.org/