A Green Christmas
Bing Crosby may not agree with the lyrics as much as his beloved White Christmas, but the world’s a different place and we all need to be a little more environmentally conscious wherever and whenever we can and that includes Christmas. No, we’re not talking about green snow, but we are talking about making your holiday lighting eco-friendly. Following are three changes to incorporate into your holiday plans if you truly believe that a green Christmas will do the earth more good than a white one. 1.Choose LED lights whenever possible. These little powerhouses use 90 percent less (yes, you read that right) energy which means less greenhouse gas emissions (while potentially putting more money in your pocket, as well). 2.If you see anything with an Energy Star rating or logo, use it. These bulbs use as much as 75 percent less energy than the old-school Christmas lights. And here’s an interesting statistic to get you even more motivated to make the switch: if every new string of lights purchased in the US were ENERGY STAR qualified, as a country we would save over 2 billion kWh of energy every year, which would be equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road.3.Use a timer! Sure, it’s nice to have your holiday lights on as night falls, but do they really need to be on all night? And if you’ve ever had to dash out at the last minute have you wished you would have remembered to turn your lights off (or on)? Well, do yourself (and the environment) a favor and get hooked up to a timer to take the guess work (and waste) out of timing the lighting display. And should you need one more push to get you to truly make the change, did you know that there are on average 300 Christmas tree fires each year which result in untold financial loss as well as loss of life. But guess what? The risk for tree fires is reduced greatly when LED lights are used since they always remain cool to the touch thereby greatly reducing the risk of fire.