TThisguide to effortless environmen-talism is based on two assumptions:1. You want to do your part to pro-

tect the earth.2. Your name is not Ed Begley, Jr.If you are Ed Begley—in fact, if

you’re anything like the actor—thenyou don’t really want to hear that it’spossible to be an armchair environ-mentalist. Begley delights in makingsacrifices forMother Earth. He lives ina two-bedroom home, microscopic byHollywood standards, with solar pan-els on the roof to charge his electriccar and heat the rainwater he collects.He composts compulsively and knowswhich of the seven kinds of plastic torecycle. He cooks food from his gar-den in a solar oven. He harangues his

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Conserve

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wife about her wastefulness. Asviewers of HGTV’s green real-ity show Living With Ed know,he has used a stopwatch totime her showers.Now, there’s nothing

wrong with this lifestyle—ifyou get the same satisfactionout of it that Begley does andif it doesn’t drive your family crazy(see what the Begleys say on page 88).But if you prefer to conserve your en-ergy for other endeavors, you can easeyour conscience. You don’t have tofeel bad to do good. There are smartways to reduce emissions of green-

John Tierneymakes the casefor being an armchair environmentalist

When he’s not in his pajamas saving the earth,John Tierney is a columnist and blogger (Tierney-Lab) covering science for The New York Times.

EnergyYour

PHOTO - I L LUSTRAT IONS BY DAVE WHEELER

house gases that don’t take much ef-fort. They can even simplify your lifeby saving you time and money. Tobecome an armchair environmentalist,just relax and follow these little steps:

Skip a tripSitting in your La-Z-Boy in-stead of in an airplane seat is the

easiest way to make a big difference ingreenhouse emissions. Forgoing a sin-gle international trip might offset allthe carbon dioxide you producethrough your home and car during theentire year. Besides spewing CO2, jetsemit water vapors and other green-house gases (like nitrogen oxides) thatare believed to be at least as damagingas the CO2 (maybe even twice as dam-aging, by some estimates).The nonprofit group Environmental

Defense calculates that an interna-

tional round-trip between cities 4,000miles apart (like, say, Al Gore’s homein Nashville and Oslo, Norway, wherehe received the Nobel Peace Prize)produces approximately eight tons inCO2-equivalent gases per passenger.That’s roughly the amount of CO2 pro-duced yearly, per person, to power theaverage American car and supply heatand electricity for the average home.

Hire someoneto seal upyour house

You could weatherproof your homeyourself, of course, but you can lazilydelegate the job and still come outahead financially in the long run.Merely sealing leaks in windows anddoors and insulating ducts could saveyou at least $100 a year and reduceCO2 emissions by at least 1,000 pounds

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5ThingsNot to SweatTurning off your car’s airconditioner.Yes, theACdoes affect fuel efficiency.ButConsumer Reportsfigures it amounts to onlyonemile per gallon, andedmunds.comsays youcould endupburningmoreif you open thewindows andincrease air resistance. Thegreen experts at both groupssay it’s okay for highwaydrivers to use theACon alow setting. Keeping cool

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makes sense because it’llmake you a safer driver.

Filling up your tankwithethanol. The corn-basedfuel is popularwith politi-cians looking for votes fromIowa farmers, but environ-mental groups have opposedthe subsidies because of allthe land,water and energyneeded to produce it.Whileusing ethanol instead of gasmay reduce greenhouse

emissions by about 10 per-cent, the benefit is swampedby the adverse environmen-tal consequences, accordingto an exhaustive study ofbiofuels last year by Swissresearchers.

Recycling everything.While it canmake economicsense to recycle aluminumandpaper, towns frequentlylosemoney recycling glassandplastics because they’re

per year—and possibly much more.Adding insulation to your home coulddouble the savings.

Work fromhomeYou’ve heard the ex-

hortations to carpool or takemass transit to work, but you proba-bly haven’t heeded them. Despiteall the official encouragement,like special carpool lanes andhefty subsidies for mass transit,in recent decades the percent-age of people who drive alone towork has been increasing, while theshare of commuters who carpool ortake mass transit has been declining.Unless you live in New York or a fewother cities, these options just aren’tpractical when you’re juggling workand family responsibilities as more

expensive to collect andaren’tworthmuch. Go aheadand recycle plastic if it givesyou pleasure—you can feelvirtuous about the energysavings. But there are easierand cheaperways to reducegreenhouse emissions.And youmay not be savingenergy if you’remaking a tripto the recycling center tohaul a fewbottles.

Buying local food. If youwant to support local farm-ers and love fresh food, fine,but don’t assume you’re

helping the planet. Foodsfrom farther awaymaybe grown and shipped somuchmore efficiently (andcheaply) that they producefewer greenhouse gases.“There are lots of goodreasons to eat local,” saysDavid Victor, director ofthe ProgramonEnergy andSustainableDevelopmentat StanfordUniversity. “Butenergy savings don’t top thelist, because local productionoften requiresmore tripsthanmechanized foodproduction.”

Going organic.Buyingorganic foodmakes senseif you believe it’s tastier,more nutritious or saferthan conventionally grownfood (despite conflictingopinions on these points).But there is onemajorenvironmental downside:Since organic farmsoftenyield less per acre thanfactory farms, organic foodrequiresmore land, leavingless room for forests thatabsorb carbondioxideandwilderness areas thatpromote biodiversity.

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andmorejobs move to thesuburbs and beyond.Meanwhile, though, there’s been

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one encouraging trend: The numberof people who telecommute has in-creased bymore than 40 percent since1980. Todaymore than 4million work-ers telecommutemost days, and nearly20 million Americans work fromhome at least once a month. In mostU.S. metro areas, telecommuters nowoutnumber people who get to workby mass transit, says Ted Balaker, afellow at the Reason Foundation.Telecommuting isn’t for everyone,

of course, but surveys have found thatboth employers and employees arewarming up to this option. Compa-nies like American Express havefound telecommuting increasesworker productivity. Businesses thatlet people work at home save moneyon rent and utilities by using less of-fice space, and attract and retain em-ployees more easily. In one survey, athird of Americans said they’d ratherhave the option to telecommute thanan increase in salary. What’s good forthe bottom line and worker morale isalso good for the atmosphere: Oneperson telecommuting just one day aweek can reduce emissions by 400pounds per year.

Drive a fuel-efficient carChoosing the right car is a

tricky thing. How, for instance, do youbalance fuel efficiency with other fac-tors like safety and convenience? Butthis is one task that merits the atten-tion of even the laziest environmental-ist. A few hours of research can save

thousands of dollars and tens of thou-sands of pounds of CO2 over the lifeof the car.On a social level, getting people to

drive more efficient cars is a muchsmarter carbon-busting strategy thantrying to lure them tomass transit, ac-cording to Randal O’Toole, a seniorfellow at the Cato Institute, a libertar-ian think tank. He calculates that mosturban transit systems emit at least asmuch CO2 per passenger mile (be-cause of all the empty seats) as the av-erage passenger car. (The transitsystems in New York, Atlanta, SanFrancisco, Portland, Boston andChicago are exceptions.)“Getting commuters to switch to hy-

brid or biodiesel cars will cost lessand save more energy than gettingthem to switch to public transit,” saysO’Toole, noting that a Toyota Priushas lower CO2 emissions per passen-ger mile than every transit system ex-cept for the New York City subwaysand the San Francisco BART trains.

Use cruisecontrolLetting your car’s computer

control the speed is a win-win for lazi-ness and the environment. Most tipsfor improving gas mileage requiresome work on your part, like keepingyour tires inflated properly (which canimprovemileage by 3 percent and saveabout 250 pounds of CO2 annually forthe average driver).But youmight double that improve-

ment just by relaxing with cruise con-

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your water heater to 120 degrees andwashing clothes in cold or warmwaterinstead of hot. You can save evenmoreby replacing a water heater that’s morethan 10 or 15 years old.

Don’t washthe dishesLeave the job to a profes-

sional: your dishwasher. As long asyou wait until it’s full to run it, it usesless than a third of the water that you’duse doing the job by hand. And forextra points in armchair environmen-talism, go ahead and scrape yourdishes but don’t rinse them beforeloading (if you can run the washersoon and not worry about bugs orsmell). A good modern dishwashershould be able to do the job withoutyour help.

Use a laptop,and let it napReplacing your desktop and

monitor with an efficient laptop thatdisplays the Energy Star logo, andsetting it to go to sleep whenyou’re not using it, can save about500 pounds of carbon dioxideevery year.

Drink tapwaterInstead of lugging

bottles of water home fromthe store, leave thework toyour local utility. In most

trol. Tests by edmunds.com found thatusing cruise control improvedmileageby 7 percent. (One exception: Cruisecontrol can use more gas if you’redriving in very hilly terrain.)Even more savings are possible if

you’ve got a car with the new “adap-tive cruise control” that uses radar orlasers to keep you at a safe distancefrom other cars. Themore drivers whouse these systems, the more smoothlytraffic flows, resulting in less conges-tion and therefore less fuel wasted.

Cool yourwater-heating billsYou can easily save money,

and hundreds of pounds of CO2 peryear, by lowering the temperature of

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Acharcoal grill releases nasty emissions, so Icookwith a solar oven, an insulated boxwitha pane of glass and four reflectors to focuslight. I even built a rolling stand so I canmoveit around to capturemaximumsun.On areally goodday, I can get it to 375 degrees.

RACHELLEED

That solar ovenused to be the bane ofmyexistence. Edwas alwaysmoving it. I’d comeout into the yard and—boom!—walk straightinto it. It doeswork; Edmakes really goodsoups and stews. But I think he likes the nov-elty of it. I like the fact that I’mnot cooking.

When I needmore flexibility than a publicbus ormybike can offer, I usemy 100per-centelectric car. If you charge itusing any kind of greenpower, it’s a true zero-emissions vehicle.

WhenEd and I started dating,electric carswere not reliable.We ran out of electricitymany times. Then therewas the time Iwentinto laborwith our daughter, Hayden. Edwanted to driveme to the hospital in hiselectric car. I said, “Noway!”

Ed is so in lovewith those solarpanels. Sometimes he spendsmore timeon the roof thanwithme. Growing up in Atlanta, Inever thought the electricityinmyhousewould dependon amanon the roofwith a broom.

Shades of GreenIfyou, too, are an armchair environmentalist, youmay have alreadywatched television’sgreen giant, EdBegley, Jr., wranglingwith hiswife of seven years, Rachelle, onHGTV’s LivingWith Ed. Here’s a sampling ofwhat Ed says about saving the earth, andwhat Rachelle saysabout saving their family’s sanity.

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places tap water is just as safe, muchcheaper and more convenient. (See“RethinkWhat You Drink” in the Feb-ruary issue.) Replacing just two store-bought bottles of water every weekwith tap water from the faucet canmean 500 fewer pounds of CO2 emis-sions over a year.

StaymarriedHappy in your marriage?

Turns out, staying together isbetter for the earth. Converting onehousehold into twomeans bigger util-ity bills and, therefore, more green-house gases. Researchers at Michigan

I installed photovoltaicsolar panels on the roofofmyhouse and garage.They doneedmainte-nance. Four times ayear, I have to hoseoff the panels andbrush them.

BCII/JENNIFERSHIELD

Buy a copy ofLiving Like Ed

at rd.com/begley.

FROM “L I V I NG L I K E ED : A GU IDETO THE ECO - FR I ENDLY L I F E ,”COPYR IGHT © 2008BY ED BEGLEY, J R . , AND BC I I( C L ARKSON POTTER )

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cuts or direct rebates. My favoritescheme to keep themoney out of Con-gress’s hands calls for divvying it upinto retirement accounts for everyAmerican.The problem is that an equally wide

range of politicians are convinced thatvoters would turn them out of officefor even suggesting such a tax. A fewbills to tax carbon have been intro-duced in Congress, but none is ex-pected to become law anytimesoon—certainly not in an electionyear. For their part, voters, unfortu-nately, don’t seem to appreciate howblessedly simple a tax would be, com-pared with the elaborate energy plans,regulations and incentives that arebeing enacted instead.If the costs of gasoline, electricity

and other products took into accountthe amount of carbon they produce,you wouldn’t have to wade throughcalculations in articles like this one.You could choose the most conven-ient green alternatives just by lookingat the price tag.For an armchair environmentalist,

what could be easier?

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State University last year computedthat the extra electricity consumed bydivorced families amounts to 73 bil-lion kilowatt-hours, which works outto about 6,000 pounds of carbon diox-ide per household.

Considercarbon offsets,but be careful

The ultimate in lazy strategies is topay other people to offset your emis-sions by planting trees or installinggreen technologies. In theory, themoney you would spend at homecould be put to more efficient use byexperts in charge of larger projects.In practice, though, it all depends onbuying offsets from a trustworthy or-ganization (such as Climate Trust)that’s doing the job correctly. You canfind guidelines on how to buy them atrd.com/carbon.

Supportcarbon taxesA wide range of experts,

liberal and conservative, agree thatimposing a carbon tax on gasoline,coal and other sources of fuel wouldbe the simplest andmost efficient wayto reduce carbon emissions. Thiswould be a surcharge imposed onusers of fossil fuels like coal, oil andnatural gas according to the amountof carbon dioxide produced. Somehave proposed easing the pain byreturning all the revenues of the taxto the public, either through other tax

Are you an eco-hero? Take ourquiz at rd.com/ecohero.

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If everyRD reader followedthisgreenadvicefor a year, we’d prevent the release of104million tons of CO2.That’s roughly the amount of greenhousegas producedby powering the state of Ari-zona or driving 21million cars for one year.

The Impact