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See this bird? His name is Birdy and he's part of the city's multimedia campaign, GreeNYC, to educate New Yorkers about making environmentally sustainable decisions.
Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled GreeNYC and shared how he didn't realize chargers plugged into outlets draw electricity even when they're not in use. "I always assumed that chargers for my BlackBerry, which I had plugged in at one end and there's no BlackBerry [attached], wasn't using any electricity. I was wrong." Okay, we give him points for honesty but we're taking them away because it's not a big secret.
In addition to ads and banners around the town, the city has a list of ten things New Yorkers can do to help create a greener city:
1. Switch to ENERGY STAR® qualified Compact Fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).Con Ed will be giving $1 off coupons for GE Energy Smart CFLs in August. Aw, Con Ed and GE, how generous. And here's a video of Birdy:
2. Buy ENERGY STAR® appliances.
3. Don’t air condition an empty room
4. Unplug chargers and appliances when not in use.
5. Switch to a green energy provider.
6. Walk or take public transportation.
7. Recycle your glass, metal, paper and plastic.
8. Bring your own cloth bag to the grocery store.
9. Use green cleaning products.
10. Switch to paperless bank statements and online bill paying.
A pressing question: Does Birdy the GreeNYC bird look like a bird from The Partridge Family? And we were calling this animated feathered friend "Birdy" because that's what the city website referred to him as, but apparently he is actually nameless, so we will just call him GreeNYC Bird. Or you can suggest a clever name for him!
Photograph of the GreeNYC bird from the Daily Politics
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Ooh, they named the bird "Birdy". That's fucking clever. Some marketing firm probably got paid $150K to come up with that, too.
I'm wondering if people who are concerned about the environment but also have pets think it's ok to put your A/C on a timer or the highest possible setting while you're at work so the pets don't die of heat stroke, if you do all the other things on the list.
I must keep my wine cellar A/Ced. Sorry.
They forgot to mention Fluorescent light bulbs are bad for your eyes.
10. Switch to paperless bank statements and online bill paying
Be careful on this one.... Make sure you can get all your past bills on line before you cut it off. I'm with Commerce Bank and realised that I cannot get any documentation of my account past two months ago unless I get paper documents, or pay for something like Quicken.
The big downside of the compact fluorescent light bulbs is their disposal, since they have mercury. If everyone switches to them, sure we'll save energy, but we'll have a mercury disposal problem and knowing most people they'll just toss them with the regular trash instead of properly disposing them, since they didn't know or don't want to be bothered with busy work.
As for bags, Whole Foods offers a five cent discount per bag when you use your own.
I hate the way light from CFLs look.
Hmm. . . That bird looks EXACTLY like those wild green Monk Parrots that inhabit certain areas of Brooklyn.
See: www.brooklynparrots.com
CFLs come in all the different color temperatures as regular bulbs...
So if you get the right CFL, you can't tell its flourescent...you can also get them frosted which is nice.
Its going to shock you how much less power the CFLs use - if you change all your bulbs and unplug your TV when your not at home (leave the tivo plugeed in of course) and you will save ATLEAST 20 dollars per month on your bill! try it
plus - the CFL take 5 years to blow out...so you don't ahve to buy bulbs all the time
The bird is nameless - I mistakenly referred to him as Birdy because that's what the NYC.gov website said. But now the site has been changed to make sure other visitors do not make the same mistake.
Brooklyn parrots rule!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YES1V91iVZ4
Bah, you ruined my attempt to make fun of overly expensive marketing campaigns.
#9, CFLs don't have as wide of a frequency range as tungsten (traditional) lights do. In fact, CFLs have *missing* bits of spectrum! This is why even the newer, tint-corrected CFLs still feel "different" than tungsten. Seriously, all the color tinting in the world will *never* fill-in light frequencies that simply aren't there.
Tungstens and halogens, while being relatively energy-inefficient, still emit a wide spectrum (although much warmer than sunlight) which is what living beings have evolved with for millions of years. We as animals have a negative reaction when exposed to prolonged CFLs, due to its unnatural missing light frequencies.
Ever feel sick being in an office cubicle with florescent lights? Contrast that feelling with how refreshing art galleries feel with their wide-frequency, quality halogen track lights.
For health reasons, CFL is probably not the way to go. I think LEDs might truly be the wave of the future, once they figure out how to make a wide-frequency LED that's bright enough. And LEDs use *far less* energy than CFLs, we're talking fractions of a cent on the dollar.
Sorry, not interested. Thanks anyway.
Yeah, I didn't know chargers continued to use electricity even when the phone or whatever is not connected to it. And referencing a year-old Gothamist post which states that this is a "little known fact" doesn't go far to prove that it's "not a big secret."
1. Switch to ENERGY STAR® qualified Compact Fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
2. Buy ENERGY STAR® appliances.
3. Don’t air condition an empty room
4. Unplug chargers and appliances when not in use.
5. Switch to a green energy provider.
6. Walk or take public transportation.
7. Recycle your glass, metal, paper and plastic.
8. Bring your own cloth bag to the grocery store.
9. Use green cleaning products.
10. Switch to paperless bank statements and online bill paying.
Then why is that everytime I do this, I seem like some weird Brookyln Hipster who should move back to Bushwick.
The Outer Boroughs have a ways to go.
I won't ever use flourescent lights at home. The light is sickly and saps me of all my energy.
As for taking cloth bags to the grocery store, that's fine, but then what do I use for garbage bags? Can't use paper, that kills trees. What's left?
#17: I'm sure that you'll still accumulate enough plastic bags to use as garbage bags even if you use a cloth bag for, say 90% of your shopping trips. I've been using cloth for 2 years now and believe me, there's never been a shortage of grocery- or retail-store donated plastic bags in my apartment.