How Nonprofits Can Positively Impact Climate Change on Blog Action Day 2009

The Energy Information Administration, the US government's official source for energy statistics, reported that in 2006, electricity generation alone was responsible for 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the US. If we want to have a positive impact on climate change, then, we need to do two things:

1. Change how we produce that energy (In the electric power sector, coal accounts for 83 percent of the CO2 emissions.) and
2. Lower the amount of electricity we consume.

Unless your nonprofit or library is also running a power plant, I suspect you can do little other than lobbying your representatives to affect number 1; however, you have it within your power (pun intended) to reduce your energy use.

One of the most effective things most individual users can do is to set the power management features on your computers. These features are the ones that automatically turn off your monitor and put your computer to sleep.

Right now, before even finishing this blog entry, I urge you to go and check your power settings. On a Windows machine, open the Start menu, select Control Panels, and open Power Options. On a Mac, open the Apple menu, choose System Preferences, and select Energy Saver. Configure both the settings for when your computer is plugged in and when it's running on battery. Climate Savers Computing and TechSoup's GreenTech suggest the settings below, but you'll need to find the exact numbers that are right for you.

• Monitor/display sleep: Turn off after 15 minutes or less (we suggest 5 minutes)
• Turn off hard drives/hard disk sleep: 15 minutes or less
• System standby/sleep: 30 minutes or less (we suggest 20 minutes)

From CSCI: "To maximize the battery life of your laptop computer, consider setting even more aggressive monitor, hard drive and standby/sleep settings for battery mode."

By taking this one simple action, you might be saving yourself approximately $60/year per computer. So, you are not only saving the planet, but you're saving some cash too.

Starting November 2, TechSoup's GreenTech Initiative will host, "Unpower Yourself!" our educational campaign to help nonprofits and libraries reduce the amount of electricity used by our information and communications technologies (ICT). Between November 2 and November 20, please visit us at the GreenTech Initiative to learn practical steps that you can take to reduce the amount of electricity used by your computer systems.

TechSoup Global is happy to participate in this year's Blog Action Day to help positively impact climate change. You can get more information at blogactionday.org and at twitter.com/blogactionday.

Photo: Thomas Hawk, CC license