Global Warming and our Changing World

On Monday on NBC, during "Chuck," there was a "green tip" that sounded incredibly useful. The tip said, "40% of home energy is used when appliances are off."

Can you believe it?! I had read somewhere before that there is always a trickle of power, but I never realized it was that much! The tip concluded by suggesting using power strips (surge protectors) to keep all your major appliances plugged in. That way, when you're done at night, you can turn them all off.

But, you'd have to run out and but a bunch of strips, and their not very eye-appealing in abundance. And some devices need a power trickle to keep their memory of the time. Like those VCR's that you unplug and then have to reset.

So I figure you can still get the same benefit of saving around 40% of your normal energy from being wasted by just unplugging something as soon as you're done with it, as long as it doesn't need to stay plugged in for some reason.

Maybe future outlets will have a simple button you can press, like on power strips, to cut off the power flow. Until then, a motto could be, "Unplug It!"