You can help to reduce the demand for fossil fuels, which in turn reduces global warming, by using energy more wisely. Here are 10 simple actions you can take to help reduce global warming.

1) Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Do your part to reduce waste by choosing reusable products instead of disposables. Buying products with minimal packaging (including the economy size when that makes sense for you) will help to reduce waste. And whenever you can, recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans. If there isn’t a recycling program at your workplace, school, or in your community, ask about starting one. By recycling half of your household waste, you can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

2) Use Less Heat and Air Conditioning

Adding insulation to your walls and attic, and installing weather stripping or caulking around doors and windows can lower your heating costs more than 25 percent, by reducing the amount of energy you need to heat and cool your home.

Turn down the heat while you’re sleeping at night or away during the day, and keep temperatures moderate at all times. Setting your thermostat just 2 degrees lower in winter and higher in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.

3) Change a Light Bulb

Wherever practical, replace regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. Replacing just one 60-watt incandescent light bulb with a CFL will save you $30 over the life of the bulb. CFLs also last 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs, use two-thirds less energy, and give off 70 percent less heat.

If every U.S. family replaced one regular light bulb with a CFL, it would eliminate 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, the same as taking 7.5 million cars off the road.

4) Drive Less and Drive Smart

Less driving means fewer emissions. Besides saving gasoline, walking and biking are great forms of exercise. Explore your community’s mass transit system, and check out options for carpooling to work or school.

When you do drive, make sure your car is running efficiently. For example, keeping your tires properly inflated can improve your gas mileage by more than 3 percent. Every gallon of gas you save not only helps your budget, it also keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

5) Buy Energy-Efficient Products

When it’s time to buy a new car, choose one that offers good gas mileage. Home appliances now come in a range of energy-efficient models, and compact florescent bulbs are designed to provide more natural-looking light while using far less energy than standard light bulbs.Avoid products that come with excess packaging, especially molded plastic and other packaging that can’t be recycled. If you reduce your household garbage by 10 percent, you can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

6) Use Less Hot Water

Set your water heater at 120 degrees to save energy, and wrap it in an insulating blanket if it is more than 5 years old. Buy low-flow showerheads to save hot water and about 350 pounds of carbon dioxide yearly. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water to reduce your use of hot water and the energy required to produce it. That change alone can save at least 500 pounds of carbon dioxide annually in most households. Use the energy-saving settings on your dishwasher and let the dishes air-dry.

7) Use the “Off” Switch

Save electricity and reduce global warming by turning off lights when you leave a room, and using only as much light as you need. And remember to turn off your television, video player, stereo and computer when you’re not using them.

It’s also a good idea to turn off the water when you’re not using it. While brushing your teeth, shampooing the dog or washing your car, turn off the water until you actually need it for rinsing. You’ll reduce your water bill and help to conserve a vital resource.

Plant a Tree

If you have the means to plant a tree, start digging. During photosynthesis, trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. They are an integral part of the natural atmospheric exchange cycle here on Earth, but there are too few of them to fully counter the increases in carbon dioxide caused by automobile traffic, manufacturing and other human activities. A single tree will absorb approximately one ton of carbon dioxide during its lifetime.

9) Get a Report Card from Your Utility Company

Many utility companies provide free home energy audits to help consumers identify areas in their homes that may not be energy efficient. In addition, many utility companies offer rebate programs to help pay for the cost of energy-efficient upgrades.

10) Encourage Others to Conserve

Share information about recycling and energy conservation with your friends, neighbors and co-workers, and take opportunities to encourage public officials to establish programs and policies that are good for the environment.

These 10 steps will take you a long way toward reducing your energy use and your monthly budget. And less energy use means less dependence on the fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming

Conceived and promoted by a team of journalists and experts including Peter Myers, Dr. Victoria Johnson and Andrew Simms, the 100 months problem is the idea that in roughly 8 years, our current lifestyles will have taken the earth beyond a revocable point when it comes to global warming and climate change. The project is designed to give people a more systematic approach to the problem; the deadline gives an effective time-scale for the implementation of sustainable infrastructures, so that global warming skeptics cannot claim the movement to be lacking in substance.

Since its introduction, there have been many critics and many dissenters. Despite the program’s attempts to pin down the global warming problem, many are not convinced by the original premise; that, in a relatively short time span, our current CO2 emissions habits will have driven us to a point where climate change and global warming have spiraled out of our control. The problem, as has often been the case for global warming prevention activists, is that most skeptics still do not see the problem as something tangible. And even if they do, it is seen by so many critics as paling in comparison to economic concerns.

As a result, the 100 months project has been called hyperbolic and unfounded. But the importance of the 100 month deadline is not so much the validity of the claim, but the practical and pragmatic approach it grants us towards solving a number of problems at once; without a deadline, and without a potential ‘tipping point’, it would be difficult to justify a systematic approach to the problems of fossil fuel depletion, rising sea levels, and a volatile climate. It is certainly possible to argue that those problems are not real problems, or that perhaps those problems are less severe than environmentalists make out. But what skeptics cannot deny is that CO2 emissions are rising; the EIA reports show a steady annual rise since 1980.

The 100 months program, then, need not limit itself to environmental issues, even if its end goal falls under that sphere. Outside of the stringently environmental effects of CO2 emissions, there are economic effects; fossil fuels are a finite fuel source, and that – as we have seen – is likely to drive prices up. And that cannot be refuted as a natural cause; the U.S contributes to around 20% of CO2 emissions worldwide each year, and it occupies just 5% of the world population. That inconsistency in statistics can only be explained as a failure in lifestyle that has without doubt draining oil reserves quicker than is necessary.

The 100 months concept, then, is not just important for the environment. It gives a time scale for social reform, and – for economics as well as the environment – social reform is needed; our current habits and our current paradigm are not sustainable. To many, the global warming problem is very real indeed, and it is to those people as serious as the 100 months concept suggests. But it is linked to the equally troublesome economic problem, and the 100 month program – if we can subscribe to it, for pragmatic or ideological reasons – will curb that issue through a break from our dependence on fossil fuels.