Essential Skill #45: Take a Bath Together

"In a matter of just a few decades, millions of people will experience water shortages as a result of global warming," writes author David de Rothschild in The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook. Meanwhile, most of us take the water we do have for granted.

Just a regular 6-minute shower uses 24 gallons of water! And though a bath uses even more, at an average of 30 gallons per tub, it's still the smarter choice if you follow Essential Skill #45 in The Handbook:

Take a bath together.

Instead of using 24 gallons each on a shower, you're using only 15 gallons each in the tub.

Of course, there are many other ways to conserve on water at home:

• If you're running water waiting for it to get hot, catch it in a bucket then use it to water your indoor and outdoor plants
• Turn off the water when you brush your teeth or shave
• Fill the sink with water for washing and rinsing the dishes instead of letting it run full-force the whole time
• Only run the dishwasher and washing machine when you have full loads

Click this link for Treehugger's ideas for water conservation.

Essential Skill #44: Build a Bat House

The hotter it gets from climate change, the more hospitable it is for mosquitoes. They're more than just annoying though, leaving you with itchy skin -- they carry diseases like West Nile virus. Your best defense? Bats. Thus Essential Skill # 44 in The Live Earth Global Warming Handbook:

Build a bat house.

"Our maligned friends like nothing more than to swoop down and enjoy a disease-vectory snack," writes Handbook author David de Rothschild. "Little brown and big brown bats, the most common in North America, can catch up to 1,200 insects an hour."

If building a bat house to invite bats to your neighborhood sounds a little extreme, consider this: you probably already have them. "Except for in polar regions," writes de Rothschild, "they live almost everywhere."

You can buy a bat house or build one yourself. Just remember to install it 15 feet off the ground at least 100 yards away from the house. So if you live in a neighborhood where the houses are less than 100 yards apart, hold off until you get that second home out of the city.

Click this link to learn more about housing bats in your backyard.