In the latest Sounds Sustainable podcast I had the opportunity to catch up with Chris Winter, the executive director of Conservation Council of Ontario. Currently the CCO is running the Lighten Up Ontario campaign, which aims to reach every citizen in the province.
They say conservation starts at home… well, let’s make it happen!
There are 4.6 million homes in Ontario, and we’d wager 4.5 million of them could stand to save a little electricity.
The campaign asks Ontario residents to take a pledge to reduce their energy consumption this year. I’ll admit that I haven’t offcially taken the pledge, but if you have read any of the the past posts here at besustainable then you would get an idea our household is on the right track. You can find out more about the pledge here and sign yourself up. I will update the post once our pledge is finalized.
In addition to the pledge the CCO offers some conservation tips you can apply in your own home and provides some resources for homeowners such as the Compact Flourescent Light Calculator (downloadable PDF). A tip to consider - Make a one percent commitment — give yourself a conservation budget and use it to invest in the extra cost of energy efficiency when you buy new appliances or lights. Make a personal commitment of at least one percent of your income and time to conservation!
In our discussion Chris and I also speak about the previous CCO campaign, Doors Shut Ontario. Here is a sample of the poster that retail stores sported during the campaign.
Have a listen to the show and be sure to provide some feedback. In addition to making you conserver pledge consider providing some thoughts or ideas as a comment for this post. Need more direction, How do you see a conserver society.
If you would like to leave an audio comment you can call the feedback line, 647-477- 5524, and leave a tip, comment or audio pledge of your own. While you are at it you may as well toss that number into the speed dial of you phone so you can drop a line to the show while on the go.
…and on to the show.
Sounds Sustainable speaks with Chris Winter from the Conservation Council of Ontario. (about 12 minutes, right click-save as to download).
1 response so far ↓
Steve Carew // Feb 11, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Yes I agree almost every home in Ontario could conserve energy. However the conservation of energy is not what the government of Ontario nore the government of Canada wants. Bold statement if I could not back it up. I have record of over 200 telephone conversations with the Canadian and Ontario governments in which I tried to get them involved in 100% green energy at absolutely no cost to them. Would anyone like to guess what the outcome of all this time and work was? To me green energy is the easiest thing going, in whatever quantity you want. It is my beleif that if we conserve, it will only be so that our governments will be able to take even more of our money in some other way. My way saves the comsumer thousands of dollars per year while increasing the amount of electricity they can use. The government way is to build new plants that you and I have to pay for and create waste that our children’s children will have to deal with.
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