These are only a few of the great ways you can start to do your part to prevent global warming. 

• Turn off the lights in a room when you leave — if you’re going to be gone for more than 30 seconds. Put timers on lights if you sometimes forget to turn them on at night
• Bump up your A/C a few degree or push down your heater a few degrees. Use ceiling fans whenever and wherever you can - they distribute air more efficiently.
• Don’t leave the water running while you brush your teeth.
• Recycle - separate cans, bottles, plastic, and newspaper and take it to a recycling center if your city does not pick it up for you.  Have your kids help so they get used to the idea
• When you go grocery shopping, take along a canvas bag or permanent carrying bag instead of using their bags. Or, save your paper bags and take them back to the store with you to have them refilled. 
• Speaking of shopping — try to buy local foods when possible. Food that has to travel a long distance is so not green. Buy from a local Farmers Market if you can.
• Go with rechargeable batteries if you can. 
• Keep your fridge and freezer closed as much as possible - use the water and ice dispenser if you have one, do quick open-and-closes. 
• Don’t use your dryer, if you can help it. Dryers use a lot of energy and if you can air-dry your clothes, you’ll save on the electric bill and help the planet.
• Appliances and electronic equipment use power even when they’re in the stand-by mode. Put a lot of those things on a power strips and turn off the power strip every night when you go to bed.
• Check the seal on your refrigerator door - put a dollar bill in doorway, close the fridge door on it, and pull out the bill. Try it at several points along the door. If the bill pulls out easily, or even slightly easy, you can have someone re-seal the refrigerator.
• Your water heater is cold! Give it a blanket! Wrapping a water heater with special blanket insulation can improve the efficiency and save money. Also, wrap foam insulation around all your water pipes. It prevents heat loss during transfer.
• Close your curtains - heat and cool air loss from older windows can be substantial. Also, the sun beating in the windows will warm the house and cause the a/c to come on and work harder.
• Replace all of your regular light bulbs in your house. Buy Compact Fluorescent (CF) bulbs. Each bulb will save you about $50 each in electricity savings through the life the bulb. They last longer and use 70% less energy. 
• As your appliances go out, replace them with Energy Star appliances. Did you know that your refrigerator uses the most power in the house? (the dryer is usually second). 
• Change the home filter on your house every three months. When it gets clogged, your a/c has to work harder and in turn uses more energy. 
• Replace your thermostat with a programmable one.   You can set it to be off while you’re away. You can also have temperature zones set up in your house so that you can cool/heat one area of the house that you’re in and not parts of the house where you are not. 
• Replace your single-pane windows with new ones that have UV protections and tight seals. This will also improve the value of your house. 
• Plant a tree
• Purchase carbon offsets
• Switch to a 100% renewable energy source