Week 1: Use good design to beat global warming...

This is an email received from our Facilities Manager at the CIM just before Christmas:

Dear All
Some useless facts to help us to remember to switch off the office equipment

• Energy used by office equipment left on standby would be sufficient to roast 4.4 million turkeys!
• Equipment not fully turned off would be sufficient to micro wave 268 million mince pies!

Have a good Christmas,
Jon
Not just useless facts but a stark reality check - we are wasteful and we need to think more about the consequences of our actions.

'52 Weeks' suggests this week that I should change my light bulbs and cut my emissions of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. No one really knows what greenhouse gases are doing to our climate, but it is changing that's for sure.

This is my husband Tony's domain and so I am emailing him the suggested web address from which to purchase energy saving light bulbs right now - www.bltdirect.co.uk - with an opening line of...

Save Money! Each low energy light bulb saves £7 worth of electricity a year and lasts 12 times longer than normal ones.

That will get his attention.