At work, we have little fliers in the kitchen with 10 ways we can save energy. They include the usual things like turning the thermostat up in the winter, turning off lights in your house, changing the set temperature of your hot water heater, etc. What they don't include is anything you can do at work. How about this:
Turn off your desk light when you leave at night.
Turn off the power strip that powers your monitor, cell phone charger, docking station, and desk light.
Turn off the lights in conference rooms when you leave.
Wear light clothing so that the thermostat at work can be turned up. (This is unlikely to happen, so bring a sweater or blanket so you can adjust to the temperature setting without using more energy in the form of a space heater.)
Or, even more annoying:
Two months ago (MONTHS!) I got an alert on my computer that the batteries in my mouse were beginning to die. Many people would take that warning and replace the batteries. I wanted to see how long the batteries would last without changing them. TWO MONTHS. And today, my scroll wheel started to be less sensitive. The scroll wheel. That's it! If I had changed my batteries when I got the message, I'd be two months into a new set of batteries and probably would have already received a warning about those batteries.
I would also like to add that space heaters are a great thing for the winter. They allow you to save energy by keeping the thermostat low and only heating the areas where you will be working. When you use them to counteract your air conditioning, you only cause a ripple effect of more energy usage. Using the space heater makes the temperature heat up, which makes the air conditioning turn on, which makes the space heater turn up, which makes the air conditioning work harder. This is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. It's also the reason I'm wearing a knit shirt, jacket and blanket at work today instead of firing up the space heater. /rant
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