Green Expo on long island

I am new to the board but wanted to share my weekend experience, I was invited to speak at the 1st Long Island Green Expo this past weekend.  I thought it was great that Long Island, NY- home of the SUVs and leaving every light on your house had a green expo.  My company is benefitsofgoinggreen.com and I spoke for 45 minutes on easy ways to go green and green home improvement and the crowd was very respective... A lot of positive energy... Tom

That's great Tom - I definitely don't think of Long Island as a bastion of greenness, but great work on speaking out.

What things do you find people are most open to? Do they want to take small steps in action (turning lights off, only full loads of dishes/laundry, unplugging vampire power, etc.) or are they wanting to dive in head first and swap out all their lights, start a compost, and reinsulate the attic?

Do you find that you most approach people with environmentally based incentives, or financial savings of conservation? Thanks again Tom,

dan

Dan,

Good evening and thanks for the reply...  I spoke on a broad range of topics... I started with a top 5 things to do that are SIMPLE... and don't need radical change in peoples daily life.  ie. recycle, unplug devices (cell phone & ipod chargers, move to surge protectors), change to CFL's, use recyclable bags, and lower the thermostat/install a programmable...

Second part of my presentation was covering home improvements... I spoke about the inefficiencies of an attic that is not properly insulated, I asked if people had single pane windows and could feel the draft etc... The last part of the presentation was on solar panels, solar hot water heaters, speaking about energy star and LEED.

My intent is to make have people make small changes- as a fellow Long Islander watching my neighbors on a daily basis they are not ready to do a 180, so if you can show the value on small projects, I do believe they will come around on the bigger ones...

Thanks,

Tom

benefitsofgoinggreen.com

Sounds like a really great presentation, Tom!  I'm so glad to have you in our community.  It's so important for people to remember that there are small, do-able changes we can make in our every day lives that do really make an impact.  That's great that you're providing such a fantastic resource to Long Island!

sounds awesome! checking out your page now

cool