1. Myth: Bottled water is safer than tap water.
Reality: Tap water is subject to stricter government standards. In United States, the EPA requires large municipalities to test water for bacteria in an independent lab a dozen times a day. On the other hand, the FDA mandates that water used for bottling be analyzed only once a week for bacteria. Water that's packaged and sold in the same state - about 70% of the bottled water sold in the U.S. - is exempt from federal regulation because it doesn't cross state lines. Americans gulp down 28.5 gallons of bottled water per capital each year, discarding billions of plastic containers.
2. Myth: Buying local food is good for the government.
Reality: It depends on how your food was produced and delivered. According to a report titled, "Fair mile - Recharting the Food Miles Map," a tomato trucked from Spain to Britain may be more environmentally friendly than a tomato grown in a greenhouse in Britain because that process needs energy intense farming techniques and more fertilizer and could degrade the soil.
3. Myth: Organic foods are produced without pesticides.
Reality: Organic guidelines need to be tightened up. Great many pesticides are permitted in organic farming, and some of them are considered lethal to humans in very small quantities - like nicotine sulfate and lime sulfur, both of which carry a "danger" warning from the FDA but are permissible under organic-farming guidelines.
4. Myth: Cars are one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gas.
Reality: Yes, but those hamburgers you like to gobble down are actually much worse. According to a report by the UN's Food and Agriculture, meat accounts for 18% of the greenhouse gases the world produces every year, compared with 13% for vehicles. Other studies put that percentage even higher.
5. Myth: It's okay to put plastic containers in microwaves.
Reality: Stick to ceramic ware. Even though something is labeled as safe for use in the microwave, it may not be so. A substance used to make polycarbonate plastic - bisphenol A, more commonly known as BPA - could leach into your food and disrupt your hormonal system.
6. Myth: Fluorescent bulbs are bad since they contain mercury.
Reality: Yes, but not using them will pour even more mercury into ecosystem. Compact fluoroscent light bulbs (CFLs) consume 75% less electricity than traditional light bulbs. Incidentally, although CFLs contain mercury, using them reduces mercury in the atmosphere since it helps in cutting down the consumption of electricity generated in majority of cases by coal-fired power plants (the leading source of mercury emission in the U.S.). According to Energy Star, a 60-watt incandescent bulb adds 5.8 milligrams of mercury into the environment over its lifetime vs. 1.8 milligrams for a comparable CFL.
7. Myth: I should wait for all my incandescent bulbs to burn out before replacing them with low-energy fluoresents.
Reality: You'd be wasting a lot of money and energy. According to scientists at Sandia National Laboratories, you'd save money by tossing a new 60-watt incandescent and replacing it with a fluorescent since the money you'd save on your electric bill with the CFL would more than make up for the cost of both bulbs. Over the CFL's 12,000-hour lifetime, you would save some $51.
8. Myth: It's better to buy an artificial christmas tree than cut down an evergreen every year.
Reality: Get out your ax. It is important to think about of renewable and nonrenewable resources in this case. Once a tree is cut, it can be grown again and the trees once used in the home can be turned into mulch. 350 million Christmas trees are growing in U.S. farms and 30 million trees are sold each each. The trees growing in the farms store carbon, thereby, favorably impacting the environment. Most artificial Christman trees are made of nonrenewable plastics, and furthermore, according to U.S. Census Bureau, last year 92% of these plastic trees made their trip from China.
9. Myth: Paper grocery bags are better than plastic ones.
Reality: Plastics, young man, plastics. According to Franklin Associates, a waste
management firm, it takes four times more energy to produce a paper bag than a
plastic one.
10. Myth: My jeans are made of organic cotton so it's okay to buy as many pairs as I want.
Reality: When it comes to wasting water, organic jeans
are as bad as regular ones. It takes as much as 2,100 gallons of water to grow
enough cotton – organic or otherwise – to produce just one pair of jeans, not
including the water used to dye and finish the fabric.
11. Myth: I'll save energy if I keep my appliances turned off.
Reality: Yes, but not as much as you think. According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 5% to 10% of residential electricity use can be attributed to standby power.
12. Myth: Soon jets will run on biofuels, enabling us to fly guilt-free.
Reality: Time to come down to earth. Ethanol provides roughly a third less energy per gallon than jet fuel. This will necessitate a bigger fuel tank, which means a bigger, stronger plane will need to be designed. This in turn will need more fuel, resulting in a vicious cycle making ethanol impractical. Airlines have been testing fuels made from jatropha and palm oils, but those fuels remain expensive and lack the hydrocarbon rings that interact with the seals in current engines.
13. Myth: We can meet our energy needs and global - warming targets with wind and solar power.
Reality:While the solar and wind industries have been growing rapidly over the past decade, those two sources of power together account for less than 2% of all the electricity American use. Solar typically is still two to three times more expensive than coal, and while wind in many places can compete with fossil fuel, it isn't a dependable source of power.
14. Myth: It doesn't pay to turn down your thermostat when you're not home.
Reality: The energy needed to reheat a home is pretty much equal to the energy saved when it cools down.
15. Myth: For your home to be green, you need a high-efficiency furnace, not to mention high-efficiency appliances and windows.
Reality: It doesn't matter how efficient your furnace is if it's heating the outside of your house. According to experts from Natural Resource Defense Council, it is more useful to hire a professional to plug all the leaks in the home since it makes the old furnace operate better.
16. Myth: Plant more trees in the city because they absorb carbon.
Reality: The maintenance of urban trees makes it unlikely they are net stores of carbon.
17. Myth: Climate change critics like to point out that the weather has gotten cooler over the past decade, so how can there be global warming?
Reality: According to a new study by NASA, the past decade was the warmest on record since the 1880s.
18. Myth: Offsets are the answer to climate change.
Reality: It is difficult to ensure that carbon is actually reduced by means of the carbon offsets bought by companies to compensate their carbon dioxide emissions.
19. Myth: Snowy winters equal no global warming.
Reality: Weather is not the same thing as climate. Climate scientists argue that bigger snowfalls are consistent with climate change because warmer temperature mean more moisture evaporating into the atmosphere and hence more rain and snow.
20. Myth: You need to warm up your car before driving it.
Reality: Idling the car for a few minutes in winter just wastes gasoline. According to an EDF report published last year, unnecessary idling will waste between $44 and $392 on fuel annually (depending on fuel prices, idling habits, and vehicle type). Two extra restarts each day will average about $10 a year in repairs since shutting the car on and off wear down the starter and battery.
21. Myth: I'd never buy an electric car because I'd run out of power and be stranded.
Reality: A study by Chrysler found that 80% of American drivers travel 40 miles or less each day (the distance being even shorter in Europe), and hence the probability of power running out is low.
22. Myth: Electric cars rated to go 100 miles will make it that far.
Reality: Electric-car batteries are rated when the car is being driven in temperatures of around 70 degrees and on flat terrain.
23. Myth: Car air conditioning wastes energy.
Reality: According to Consumer Reports running the AC will decrease performance by two to four miles per gallon. However, Consumer Reports tested a Toyota Camry at 65 mph and found that AC use burned only slightly more energy than with windows open.
24. Myth: Hybrids are much better for the environment than regular cars.
Reality: Not all hybrids are created equal.
25. Myth: Driving fewer miles is good for the environment.
Reality: The shortest distance between two points is not always the greenest.
Source: "25 truths about green" Fortune, April 12, 2010.