A Day In The Life Of Mother Earth : Steps Toward Saving the Earth : “Saving the planet is not a spectator sport,” notes Lester R. Brown, president of Worldwatch Institute. Here are some actions you can take today to help our fragile planet:

AT HOME:

* Substitute fluorescent lights for traditional bulbs and help keep one half-ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the useful life of each bulb, or replace existing bulbs with lower-wattage bulbs when fluorescents are not suitable.

* Weather strip doors and windows and save as much as 10% of annual energy cost.

* Use cold water rather than hot water for your kitchen tasks and save the energy it take to heat the water unnecessarily.

* Install a low-flow shower head and take showers of five minutes of less instead of a bath. An average bath takes 30 gallons, a short low-flow shower uses on average less than 15 gallos gallons.

* Use a displacement device in your toilet reservoir to save two gallons of water per flush. The average home uses 40% of its pure water by flushing the toilet.

* Raise the setting on air conditioners by six degrees. If all Americans did, we could save 190,000 barrels of oil every day.

* Stop ‘Junk Mail’ from being sent to you. You can reduce the flow of unwanted and wasteful junk mail by writing to Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, 11 West 42nd St. PO Box 3861 New York NY 10163-3861.

* Reuse old news. If Americans recycled only 1/10th of the 120 pounds of newsprint they consume each year, 25 million trees would be saved.

* Eat less meat. Cutting back 10% could save enough grain and soybeans--now used for animal feed--to nourish 60 million people.

* Use your own cloth or string shopping bags for groceries.

AT WORK:

* Participate in recycling programs, or encourage your company to start one.

* Encourage your company to purchase office supplies that are made from recycled material.

* Use ceramic or reusable mugs instead of disposable plastic or foam. Encourage your company to provide a discount on things like coffee for those who do.

ON THE ROAD:

* Drive less frequently. If only 1% of American car owners didn’t use their cars one day a week, it would save an estimated 42 million gallons of gas a year and reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 840 million pounds a year. Avoid driving short distances that could be walked or multiply chores done on any given trip.

* Properly inflate your car’s tires. It is estimated that as many as 80% of the 500,000,000 tires in use in the country are under-inflated promoting premature wear from “overflexing” and overheating. This condition reduces a cars’ fuel efficiency by up to 5% and contributes to the waste of 2 billion gallons of gas a year.

* Use radial tires, they last longer and can improve fuel efficiency by 4%.

* Recycle your motor oil. More than a third of the one billion gallons of motor oil used in the United States each year makes its way into the environment and the nation’s water supply.

* Greatly reduce or eliminate the use of your car air conditioner. A major source of CFCs in the atmosphere are the roughly 95,000,000 car air conditioners in use in the U.S.

Sources: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth, Green Lifestyle Handbook; 1001 Ways You Can Heal The Earth.