| Worried about climate change? Here's how to help: 1. Change to CFL lightbulbs 2. Use power strips to prevent electronics' "vampire load" 3. Buy fewer things 4. Look for a fossil-fuel free option from your utility or get solar panels 5. When you need to buy a new car, look at the fuel economy Sometimes its hard not to feel like a total idiot, if you're me. I couldn't tell ya how many lists like this I have combed through trying make sure I was doing all the right things. Its embarrassing, but I fell for all this stuff. Not that I regret for a minute any of my feeble attempts to conserve energy -- I don't. I still recommend this stuff to other people -- for sure on principle, partly as a conversation starter & sometimes as way to help kids feel more in control. The thing is, I am hoping maybe I can save a few of you from making my mistake: thinking you can "do your part" and the rest will take care of itself. I've wasted valuable time being distracted by all the cycling, recycling, buying local, etc. I wish I'd realized sooner what little difference this is making. What we need to do is very different from having a handful of individuals voluntarily cut back a bit at the margin. Fixing our carbon problem can still be boiled down to a short list, but the list has gotta look a lot different than I thought at first. We need to: 1) cut carbon emissions nationwide as quickly as possible -- at least 10% a year if we start now for a 50/50 chance at limiting warming to +2C 2) use current dirty energy much more efficiently during the time it takes to replace coal, oil & gas as fast as we can with anything else (nuclear, solar, wind, hydro & geothermal etc) that doesn't produce carbon. 3) get the whole world to do the same. First step toward getting something done is knowing what needs to be done. Then, we need to be able to monitor the progress toward our goal. I can see I am not making a dent. Swimming up stream's just not working for me. Gonna take all of us pulling in the same direction. |
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