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Motivating people to make homes energy efficient by tapping into personal and emotional stories, increasing reputation through recognition as a "good citizen," and the broadcasting of environmental messages by a diverse group of people.

"Take a stroll in the sun because 1 hour out in that heat will power 3 hours of iPod playtime or 1.5 hours of cell phone talk time. Take it out as you head to the pool this summer and charge up your electronics. So, not only is this backpack cool and amazing but is also efficient with your energy usage and time."

Tech improvements are making energy-efficient LEDs more attractive for consumers, but the high upfront price is a persistent barrier, according to pair of studies.

"Mangroves are so efficient at keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that when they are destroyed, they release as much as 10 percent of all emissions worldwide attributable to deforestation -- even though mangroves account for just 0.7 percent of the tropical forest area, researchers said."

Solar cells are still very inefficient, but this is helping to chip away at that.

"A new study from the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, confirms what everyone probably knew intuitively: If you give people control of their own environment they use less energy. According to the New Scientist, by installing individual vents and controls for each worker (which automatically turn off when the desk is vacant) instead of cooling the whole office to one temperature, it can cut the energy consumed for cooling in half. It was particularly effective in hot, humid climates; they modeled it on Singapor and concluded that 'In an environment like Singapore, it's pretty clear that these systems would pay for themselves in energy savings.'"