Amidst a backdrop of soaring gasoline prices and the one-month countdown to Earth Day 2000, the 30^th anniversary of Earth Day (April 22), as half a billion people worldwide focus on energy and its environmental impact, the Alliance to Save Energy offers consumers year-round energy tips to reduce their energy costs and pollution with little effort.

"Using inefficient energy in today’s world is like using a typewriter and white out in a computerized world," notes Alliance President David M. Nemtzow. "There’s no reason for our current oil dilemma. Today’s energy-efficiency technologies can easily reduce energy use and costs, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously month after month, year after year."

Here are some energy efficiency tips from the Alliance:

• When shopping for heating and cooling equipment, appliances, computers and office equipment, windows, lighting fixtures, and consumer electronics, select products bearing the Energy Star label (symbol for energy efficiency) to cut related annual energy expenditures by 30 percent - www.energystar.gov. • Join the Alliance’s "4 for the Planet" Earth Day 2000 challenge. Just replace your four most used 100-watt incandescent bulbs with four comparable 23-watt compact fluorescent bulbs to save $82 over three years. If all U.S. households did the same, we’d save as much energy as is consumed by 7 million cars in one year!
• Tired of coming home to a stuffy house in summer or awakening to a chilly bedroom in winter? A programmable thermostat will automatically coordinate your home temperature with your daily and weekend patterns to increase comfort and monetary savings.
• Plug energy "leaks" with appropriate insulation, weather stripping, caulking, and low-e or spectrally-selective windows, glass doors, and skylights . Make sure your attic and/or ceiling are well insulated-as well as the rest of your home. (See North American Insulation Manufacturers Association web site www.naima.org for detailed insulation information.)
• Plug surprising energy leaks - reduce electricity used by idle (turned off) electronics and appliances. Idle TVs, VCRs, cable boxes, CD players, cassette decks, and microwaves continue to consume energy when switched off to keep display clocks lit and memory chips and remote controls working-costing consumers $3 billion annually.
• Activate "sleep" features on computers and office equipment that power down when the equipment is on but not in use for a while. Turn off equipment during long periods of non-use to cut costs and improve longevity.
• Check out horizontal axis (front-loading) washers which use less water and energy yet get clothes as clean as conventional units, dryers with moisture sensors, high-efficiency refrigerators, and motion-detectors on exterior security lights and room lighting.
• To avoid sticker shock at the pump, select fuel efficient cars and the most fuel efficient SUVs - and urge manufactures to use fuel-efficient technologies for SUVs. Consider new hybrid cars.
• Consider safer, more efficient Energy Star torchiere lamps over popular halogen torchiere lamps which can CAUSE FIRES, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. While relatively inexpensive to purchase, they are expensive to operate.