Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
WASHINGTON — Environmental messages preached from the pulpit have yet to take hold in evangelical and Catholic pews, according to a recent survey on religion in public life.
Just 43 percent of evangelical Protestants said they would support strict environmental regulations if such rules would cost jobs or result in higher prices, according to Calvin College’s Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics.
That is down from 52 percent of self-identified evangelicals who said in 2004 that they supported environmental rules regardless of cost.
Likewise support for environmental regulation among non-Latino Catholics fell from 60 percent in 2004 to 52 percent in 2008.
“Despite efforts by evangelical leaders to try to bring this issue to greater attention … it doesn’t appear to be that successful,” said Corwin Smidt, director of the Henry Institute, based at the private university in Grand Rapids, Mich.
However, Mr. Smidt added that because the survey question on the environment posed it as a trade-off between regulation and jobs, the shift may reflect uneasiness about the economy.
Support for environmental regulation held steady at 61 percent among mainline Protestants, increased slightly among Latino protestants and increased significantly among black protestants, jumping to 49 percent in 2008 from 39 percent in 2004.
The poll, which was conducted in April and May and questioned more than 3,000 people nationwide, found that 59 percent of evangelical respondents said they were likely to vote for likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain. President Bush won 78 percent of white evangelical voters in 2004, according to exit polls, showing Mr. McCain has significant ground to make up among the crucial GOP constituency.
Mr. McCain also attracts significantly less support among Latinos than Mr. Bush did in 2004, with 32 percent of Latino Protestants and 19 percent of Latino Catholics. In 2004, more than 40 percent of Latinos backed Mr. Bush, according to the exit polls.
The survey has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points, meaning results can vary by that much in either direction.
