Keeping your summer safe

I don’t know about where you are but it’s been HOT HOT HOT in the Northeast since last week. How do you keep cool when it’s triple digit temperatures? And what other important reminders should we be aware of regarding heat and its danger?. I mean, heat can kill as we’ve witnessed in France a few years ago when approx. 15,000 people died as a result of unrelenting heat wave that swept the country.

We’ve heard ideas of how to keep cool in summer before, including eco-airconditioning ideas as well as how to green your vacation.

But here are some other summer related tips we should keep in mind :

Heat can kill. Do not leave kids or pets in the car in sweltering heat. A car can be 20 degrees or more hotter inside that out side temperature.
Check in on your elderly neighbors.
Do not leave food outside or in the car in warm weather. Warm weather can spoil foods very easily. When in doubt, keep foods in the refrigerator. If you have to transport food, use insulated bags with ice.
Do laundry or wash dishes early mornings and at nights when there are less demand on electricity. It costs less for electricity in off hours, saving you money but using electrical appliances when electricity is not in high demand can alleviate the burden on the grid.
Extinguish your cigarettes properly. Do not toss the cigarette butt just anywhere. Throw it out in proper receptacles. When the outside temperature is high and dry, wildfire can start with any little spark.
Do not open fire hydrants to keep cool. It creates less water pressure in the grid and if there is fire, fire fighters might have the necessary water pressure to fight the fire.

Do you have any heat related tips you want to share?

{Photo} From Flickr CC by kazeeee

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Tags: how to keep cool, summer tips

About the Author

Karen Lee Karen lives a simple, frugal, green life and shares her eco tips and news on ecokaren and is a co-founder of Green Sisterhood, a network of community of green women bloggers, making change. When she's not managing Green Sisterhood or blogging on ecokaren, she is a chauffeur to two greenagers, wife to an accidental recycler, master chef to hungry locavores, seamstress, knitter, and dumpster diver, not necessarily in that order.