Actor/Environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. will take it upon himself this fall to tell people how to heat their homes more efficiently just in time for heating season. Ed will be biking through 5 notoriously cold cities in 5 days to reach as many people as he can with this important information. Along the way, he’ll be talking with people, meeting with local government officials and stopping in at local businesses.

Ed’s “Heat on the Cheap” Bike Ride for Change schedule includes:

• November 26 – Chicago, Illinois
• November 27 – Columbus, Ohio
• November 28 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• November 29 – Washington, D.C.
• November 30 – New York, New York

Check back for scheduled stops and where you can meet Ed when he comes to your town.

When you’re cold in the dead of winter, you’ll do almost anything to stay warm.

I’ve heard it’s possible to stay warm all winter long with only one log. Yes, that’s right—one log. You take the log and toss it out of a second story window. Then you run downstairs and outside, fetch the log, schlep it back up the stairs, and toss it out the window again. If you do this for 20 minutes every time you start to get cold, you’ll warm up in a flash.

People will do some pretty crazy things to stay warm. Some work, and some are simply bad ideas, like the following:

Cuddling is another way to stay snuggly warm this winter.

If you’re stuck on the planet Hoth, freezing, and there’s a freshly deceased Tauntaun nearby, by all means use your light-saber and crawl in!

There’s got to be more sensible and realistic ways to stay warm this winter.

Ex-president Jimmy Carter has become quite a divisive figure ever since his first and only term in office ended back in 1981. This is evidenced by the fact that he was notably not invited to give a speech at the recent Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. When your own party disses you, you know you’re politically toxic.

Although many people believe Carter has been wrong about a lot of issues, he’s been undoubtedly right about one of the most important issues that faced Americans during his administration and that continues to bedevil us today: Our addiction to foreign oil. As a result, we’re paying through the roof to run our cars and to heat our homes.

In the wake of the Arab oil embargo in 1973, Carter famously donned a cardigan sweater and told Americans to turn down our thermostats, implying that we had to shiver out the winter. His heart was in the right place, but he was only half way right. He apparently didn’t know that you can have your cake and eat it too—simply turn on your ceiling fan in conjunction with turning down your thermostat and enjoy unheard of heating efficiency.

Generation X and Y’ers like to think they’re ahead of the curve compared to the Baby Boomer generation. We’re more comfortable with computers and the Internet; we can program our DVD players and hook up cable or satellite TV to our complex entertainment systems. We patiently answer our parents’ questions about how to check their voicemail on their new cell phones—and we know not to bother trying to send them text messages. So, it was quite surprising to read this headline the other day: Study: Boomers, Not Gen Y, Biggest Green Shoppers.

As the headline states, apparently Baby Boomers are more likely to purchase environmentally friendly products than Gen X’ers and younger. But the question remains—why? The article suggested that green products tend to be more expensive, and Baby Boomers have more disposable income. I think there’s more to it than that. I attribute it to the 1960’s hippie revolution. Although their hair has been cut short or has fallen out completely, although the peace signs and tie-dyed shirts have been put back into the closet, apparently Baby Boomers still hold true to at least one component of the hippie ethos: a tree-hugging love of Mother Earth.