Footprint Renovations

While a man sleeps, his feet grow to a gigantic size due to the large carbon footprint of his home. Fortunately, a visit by the Green Ninja ultimately reduces the size of the man's feet!

Let's look at what the Green Ninja does after entering the home.

Lighting : He replaces an incandescent bulb with a Light-emitting diode (LED) bulb. How big a deal is that? Typically, CFL bulbs use 7-10 times less energy than incandescent bulbs. As an example, one can replace a 75–watt incandescent bulb with a 10–watt LED bulb and still get a similar amount of light. Are there tradeoffs in using LEDs? Sure, see our LED section for more details. LEDs make sense in almost all situations, and California law has banned the sale of high-wattage incandescent bulbs.

Home Electronics : The Green Ninja powers down the array of media devices that were using power, even when they were not in use. Many homes have an entertainment center with a large-screen TV, DVR, video game console(s), Internet modem, and wireless router. When these devices are all turned on, they are by far the largest energy user in the house. The Green Ninja uses his superior acrobatic abilities to power them all down one by one with his toes. While you may try this at home yourself, using your fingers is usually easier! For more information about phantom loads and the energy use of different electronics, click here.

Kitchen : The Green Ninja heads into the kitchen and finds a variety of quick fixes. First, he tackles all the trash and separates the recycling and compostables into their rightful places. Learn more about composting here . Then he does a quick refresh-slam on the fridge, turning lots of processed foods into fresher (and greener) healthy foods! He then speeds over to the 24–pack bottled water and does a truly amazing squeeze job, turning all those plastic bottles into a plastic water filter, fully installed and without any drips!

Heating : The Green Ninja zips all around the house; closing windows, turning down the heating, and closing the drapes, which also holds in the heat. Heating homes in winter is not only a significant cost to the homeowner, but also a major guzzler of energy, so these simple tricks really make a big difference.

Lawn : The automatic sprinkler system doesn't notice it is raining, but the Green Ninja does, so he turns off the sprinklers. Water is a valuable resource that also takes energy to treat and transport, so fixing leaky drips and taking more care when using automatic sprinklers can save large amounts of energy too! For more information, click here .

Garage : While zooming around the house, the Green Ninja almost misses peeking into the garage, but boy was he glad that he checked out the garage. In addition to the normal washer/dryer and family SUV, he spies a real treasure—the garage fridge. Upon further inspection, he finds a lonely six-pack; well chilled, but very expensive in terms of energy use . Using all his green-ninja strength, he does a cyber transformation/upgrade in the garage—Energy Star washer/dryer,* electric car, bike, and no fridge! Oh, what happened to the beer? Burp...

*The energy consumption of dryers does not vary significantly, so there is no Energy Star label for them. (ref)

Housing is a big part of a person's carbon footprint; by some estimates up to 40% (REF) . Just by making simple and inexpensive adjustments to make a home more energy efficient, people can save money on their energy bill and reduce the carbon emissions associated with their house.

 

 

Credits

Director/Story/Character Design: Marty Cooper

Animation: Michelle Ikemoto, Danny Men, Miyuki Richardson, Aaron Soon, Jason Wong, Alex Yip

Backgrounds: Ishmael Hoover

Voice Actors: Ovan Chan, Jessica Ellithorpe and Katie Zeisl.

Sound Editor: Steve Erickson

Visual Development Supervision:Christine Nguyen and Melissa King.

Animation Supervision: Erin Schleupner and Chris Lam.

Visual Development/Layout/Backgrounds: Jesse Champlin, Marty Cooper, Nancy Thai, Cory Fuller,
Erin Schleupner, Phil Wanardi, Jeffry Mazon, Peter Le, Kevin yang, Bryan Mann, Kim Knoll and Jon Magram.

Animation: Michelle Ikemoto, Paul Yula, Izzy Hoover, Joanna Johnen, Jeanie Chang, Chris Lam, Kathleen O'Brien, Taylor Hsieh, Michael Tate Kato, Miyuki Maruyama, Rebecca Roberts, Lucie Roberts, Hillary Bradfield, Eric Pagtaconan, Man Yee Wong, Brandon Moore, Yen Nguyen, Jose Martinez, Jason Wong, Erin Schleupner,
Corwin Herse-woo, Danny Men, Alan Pasman and Aaron Soon.

Editing: Taylor Hsieh, Jon Magram, Alan Pasman, Mark Wanninger and Paul Yula.

Voices: Nic Rudy and Alejandro Garcia