Category: Direct Action

Cheap and Easy Ways to Keep Cool Without Air Conditioning

I’m one of those people that can’t handle unrelenting heat and so I’m always looking for ways to stay cool. I’m also one of those people who doesn’t like air conditioning (for reasons beyond the obvious power consumption), as a result I love tips on how to make your home cooler in easy ways.

At Treehugger they have a list of 10 ways to alleviate the need for AC. Some require a few years to take effect (like growing a shade tree) while others can happen right away like opening the windows.

The windows on your home are no just holes in the wall that you open or close, they are actually part of a sophisticated ventilation machine. It is another “Oldway”—People used to take it for granted that you tune them for the best ventilation, but in this thermostat age we seem to have forgotten how.

If the Treehugger list is not enough for you, don’t worry! We’ve looked at energy-free ways to stay cool in the summer before:

Keeping it Cool Without Air Conditioning

Green Ways to Stay Cool in Summer Heat

The Vegetarian Calculator

It’s well known that meat production has a large carbon footprint. A diet that includes meat requires more land than a plant based diet so even decreasing the amount of meat one eats can be a good thing. Some fans of vegetarian diets have created the Vegetarian Calculator that lets people know how good their diet is.

Use this form to calculate the impact you have made by being a vegetarian. Vegetarians use less resources like water, food, oil, contribute less CO2 to the atmosphere, and animals are not killed for their consumption.

Raising livestock contribute more to global warming than automobiles, and is the second leading cause of global warming behind industrial pollution.

Calculate!

How to Get Out From the Invasive PRISM Surveillance Program

Thanks to the brave efforts from Edward Snowden we are now aware of something long suspected: that the USA (and many other nations including Canada) are reading our communications. The program is called PRISM and it monitors your communication. Basically, if you connect to the internet or use a mobile phone you can, and may already, be tracked by various entities.

This shouldn’t be acceptable to anyone. With the pervasiveness of the internet it may seem like an overwhelming task to not be monitored. PRISM Break is a guide to open source and secure technology that you can easily implement on your own.

PRISM Break

Check out PRISM Break.

Do You Make the World Better? There’s an App for That

By now most people have heard what a carbon footprint is, but have you heard about your gloabl ‘handprint‘? The notion is that it’s the opposite of a negative counter of your impacts on the planet. Handprints are recorded online or on your phone as you make little (or big) improvements to the world around you.

You can create a handprint in three ways. First, you simply cut your footprint: say, by cycling to work, rather than driving. Second, you can champion an action suggested on the platform (carpooling, say). Or, third, you can come up with a completely new idea. In each case, Handprinter calculates the benefit and your part in bringing it about. If, for example, you share a link and someone clicks on it, you get credited with that action. Everything is subtracted from your footprint, which you calculate at the beginning.

Read more at co.Exist.