Winter Conservation

It has been so cold this winter! It sure makes it easy to turn up the heat really high or take a hot shower, doesn’t it? We consume so much energy in the winter. We start our cars so they are warm by the time we need to leave. We blast the heat in the car. We blast the heat in our home. We only use hot water in baths and showers. Some of us leave the oven open just to warm the house a bit more. It’s these times when we need to be reminded of our effect on the world. Winter causes most of us to consume great amounts of energy without much thought. We need to remember to conserve and preserve!

First of all, we use a lot of gas in our cars in the winter. Turning up the heat in your car uses extra gas. Everyone knows that more used gas means more is bought and more pollution occurs. This time of year money is tight! Christmas shopping does that enough, but our extra gas consumption adds to it. We have so many products made just to keep warm in the car that don’t require energy. We can buy heating pads and we can, and should, dress warmer. We have warm winter clothes for a reason.

At home, it is important that solutions for the cold meet in the middle. It is not practical to keep the heat really low and be walking around the house in snow suits, while frost grows on everything in the house. But we can still bring the heat down and put on a sweater or a housecoat.

Another important thing to remember about conserving energy in your home is proper insulation. Without it we will lose so much heat through walls, windows, and doors. This makes the house colder and we end up turning up the heat even more. Make sure open spaces under doors have an insulation flap, windows are double layered, and proper sealing is done around the windows.

The hardest one to conserve is hot water. This takes the most will power. It’s not exactly pleasant to shower in cold water on a cold day is it? This is another place we can meet in the middle.

We all know of these things. But in this cold weather it is easy to forget about energy consumption when our mind is on combating the cold. It is really important that we all make conservation a habit. One day we will run out of natural gas; and the world is having a hard time keeping up with our consumption and pollution to replenish its natural state.