5 Top Fuel Efficient Cars

You’ve installed solar panels on your house, gone vegan and purchased a Brita filter so you can avoid ever having to use plastic bottles again. Yet, as you drive around in your mid-sized SUV, something doesn’t seem to mesh with your green lifestyle. So, you begin looking at fuel efficient cars, and if you’re like most people, your first test drive is probably in a Toyota Prius. While the Prius continues to hold its position as the king of green cars, there are other cars on the market that have been working towards the standard set by the Prius. Here are some of the vehicles that FuelEconomy.gov lists as the most fuel efficient vehicles of 2010.

1. Toyota Prius

No surprise here. The Toyota Prius still hovers above all other gas-powered cars with a mile-per-gallon rate of 51 in the city and 48 on highways. The Prius has an energy impact score of 6.9 barrels of petroleum used in one year, and it scores an 8 on the air pollution scale with 10 being the best possible rating.

2. Honda Civic Hybrid

The Honda Civic Hybrid is not far behind the Prius in mile-per-gallon ratings. The Civic Hybrid gets 45 mpg with highway driving and 40 mpg with city driving. Its energy impact score is 8.2 barrels of petroleum used in one year, and it scores a high air pollution ranking with 9 out of 10.

3. Smart Fortwo Coupe and Smart Fortwo Convertible

Smart cars are popular in Europe, and they are slowly catching on in the United States. The cars comfortably seat two people. Smart cars are not hybrids, however, they still get good mileage. In the city, smart cars get 33 mpg while on highways, they get 41 mpg. Smart cars have an annual petroleum consumption of 9.5 barrels. Their air pollution score is 6 out of 10.

4. & 5. Audi A3 and Volkswagen Jetta

The Audi A3 and the Volkswagen Jetta tie in all energy-efficiency categories. For being small station wagons, the Audi A3 and the Volkswagen Jetta have impressive mpg ratings. Both cars get 30 mpg in the city and 42 mpg on highways. Their annual petroleum consumption is 11.6 barrels, and they both score 6 out of 10 for their air pollution ratings.

Choosing to purchase a green car is the first step in reducing your environmental impact from driving. How you drive your vehicle and how well it is maintained will also make a difference in how many miles per gallon you are able to get. Greenercars.org recommends avoiding aggressive driving, opening windows instead of using air conditioning and coasting when possible as opposed to sudden braking. Tune-ups and regular emissions tests are also recommended.

Be Amazed At Your Water Usage :: And Make A Change Today!

In all of my efforts to be green, I still find ways to improve!  I was just turned on to WECalc.org, and I am completely dumbfounded at the results for even my personal life… honestly I am a bit too embarrassed to share them right now, but I learned so many great ways to cut down on my water use and water-related carbon footprint.

WECalc is all about water and how you are using it – even unconsciously.  First, the program gathers several obvious pieces of information about your household water usage; it goes deeper than surface level considerations of regular water usage.  Most importantly, however, is that WECalc.org provides reasonable results for you on how to not only save the environment, but also how to save money.

You’ll have to do it for yourself to see just how cool it is!  Here are some cool facts about water conservation that I learned while doing this for myself.

• Shortening Showers by 1 minute per day (at my household usage) can save about $19.00 per year, decrease my water usage by 4.37 gallons per day, and decrease my CO2 emissions by 184 lbs. per year.
• Installing 1.5 gpm faucet aerators costs about $1.00-$4.00; this will save me 17 gallons of water each day, decrease my carbon emissions by 439 lbs. annually, and could save me $53.00 this year.
• Rinsing clothes in COLD water lowers CO2 output by 206 lbs. each year and can save $15.60 annually.
• The global average carbon footprint (emissions per person) is: 5.4 metric tons, or 12,000 lb of CO2-eq emissions per year.
• Installing a Solar Hot Water Heater may seem expensive, but it can cut CO2 emissions 16.3% annually from the global average.  It also can save you around $150.00 each year.

I learned so much more about water usage than I could begin to adequately share here; please investigate this for yourself!  It will also challenge you to think more actively about how everything that we do is related to the footprints that we leave behind us on the Earth.

Terrapass: Offsetting Your Personal & Professional Carbon Footprint

All of us leave a carbon footprint, and while some footprints are bigger than others – it’s wonderful to see companies developing ways to help offset some of the eco-damage that we can cause. I recently was turned on to Terrapass, and was very impressed with what I saw.

First and foremost, Terrapass is a company that allows you to purchase the reduction of your carbon footprint. Here’s how it works: You (as a consumer or a business owner) may calculate an estimate of your carbon emissions, you may then purchase your TerraPass online, the proceeds then go to 10 separate projects (in 2010) in North America that are either Wind Farms, Landfill Gas Capture, or Farm Power (making the best use of animal waste.

Terrapass walks the walk as well as talking the talk. 100% of their carbon offsets are verified annually by broadly accepted standards. They also only sell carbon offsets that are happening in today’s world and do not depend on future developments (for example waiting for the maturation of trees). Finally, they maintain transparency by promoting and making available the sold carbon credits, including the project name, location, type, standard, verifier and the exact quantity of carbon credits that they purchased from each project. This way, you know exactly where your money goes.

If you haven’t checked this out yet, you should! It’s a great way to help save the planet while maintaining responsibility for your own carbon footprint!

Weatherization Not-a-Happenin’

We’ve included a few blogs on Feed Your Eco explaining how to weatherize your home and the benefits of doing so. We’re not the only ones who understand the importance of this and that’s why $5 billion was allocated to weatherizing homes as part of the 2009 Recovery Act. However, according to a new report from the Energy Department’s inspector general, the program has barely gotten off the ground a year after it started and some of the larger states meet less than 2 percent of their three year goals.

These funds were allocated to help make low-income homes more energy efficient to save money and emissions all while stimulating the job market. “The job creation impact of what was considered to be one of the department’s most ‘shovel ready’ projects has not materialized,” the report said. An example of this takes place in New York where only 280 weatherization projects have been completed out of their 45,400 goal. This goal is projected over three years, but that means that less than 1 percent of the project has been completed, leaving only two more years for full execution.

Since the act included such an increase of funds from other years, state officials are claiming it’s hard to keep up with the increased budgets. “We went from a budget of $13 million for weatherizations to $327 million,” said Gordon Anderson, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. “So we needed to get a serious plan in place to assure that our agency and all our contractors had the adequate capacity to administer the funds.”

Hopefully this plan will happen fast and will be effectively implemented. Weatherizing homes is one of the easiest things we can do to save money and the planet, and of course, increase available jobs.