How to Ditch the Biggest Fossil Fuel Offenders in Your Life

stabby_cicada made an interesting comment on how personal choice and leading by example can be combined with politics to effectively address climate change. This is a good article that combines the two approaches, it shows you some changes you can make along with reminding people the importance of voting, and being involved politically. The article mentioned the biggest user of fossil fuels in homes may be a gas fired furnace so if it's time to replace your furnace you may want to consider an electric heat pump.

One thing not mentioned in the article is if you have any incandescent light bulbs that receive regular use consider replacing them with LED. The payback period can be pretty fast for example if you replace a 60w light with a 10w LED assuming you use it for an average of two hours a day and you pay $0.20 kw/h you'll save $7.3 per year. This was calculated as follows:

(60 energy usage of old bulb - 10 energy usage of new bulb) 2 hours per day average usage 365 days in a year / 1000 to convert from watts to kilowatts 0.2 cost per kwh = $7.3.

Over a 10 year period that's $73 in savings.

If the light bulb cost $2.5 to buy you'd break even in only 125 days (a little over 4 months) if we use the same usage assumptions.

Payback period can be calculated like this:

$2.5 cost of light bulb/(50 our energy savings2 hours of average use)(1000kw /0.2 price per kwh)