The Green Buck Stops Here

The other thing is conservation. There seems to be a growing consensus in Washington that eliminating the bans on off-shore drilling and drilling in ANWAR is the answer to our energy problems, though I’ve never heard of any real effort for a government conservation plan. During WWII, there was a big government push on conservation of resources. Of course there was rationing but the rationing was accepted, in part, because the government made people feel it was their patriotic duty. I’m not calling for rationing but having a government sponsored public relations push would make a lot of sense. My Dad told me a story of the WWII days when the federal government would hold big, nighttime pep rallies in large stadiums. They would hand out cigarette lighters to everyone who came in and after giving their speeches on what a difference ordinary people could make if they worked together, they would have everyone light their lighters at once. He said the stadium lit up brighter than daylight.

Putting my tree-hugging tendencies aside, conservation just seems like the more practical and logical choice. It is a choice. We can pressure our leaders to make efforts in that direction. If that doesn’t work we can always just do it ourselves.

I’m guilty of forgetting about this too often so don’t call me perfect but… taking your own reusable containers to restaurants and fast food joints can make a big difference for our environment.

Styrofoam is a favorite choice of restaurants because it’s cheaper for them but is the most toxic container to the environment. Not only does it not break down in the landfills, when it breaks it releases toxic gasses from the little bubbles inside and you can’t just throw it into the recycle bin. Paper and cardboard containers will break down in the landfills but you can’t recycle them if they’ve been contaminated with food. Plastic bags can be recycled but you have to collect them then take them back to the store.

A couple of benefits to consider besides the environment:

1. Saucy Asian foods don’t drip out of the Styrofoam containers, through the plastic bag and on to your car upholstery or your nice clean shirt if you have your own tight fitting lid.

2. Fewer fast food containers floating down the roads and alleys after trash/recycle pickup days.

Any kind of reusable container will work that fits the food and will get it home clean and in one piece. You can google “Reusable Take-Out Containers” and can come up with all sorts of cool stuff or you can just dig through all those Tupperware containers we all have stuffed in our cabinets. I have to explain what I want when I take my own take-out containers just like I used to explain to the grocery clerks not to wrap my groceries in plastic bags before putting them into the canvas bags, but they do eventually catch on.

I recently read a particularly nasty question in a blog the other day. The question was, “Is it Al Gore stupid or Michael Moore stupid to believe in global warming?” Although the question might be considered distasteful, it is not at all surprising if you have been following the political debates over the environmental movement. It’s become very common for arguments to be riddled with name calling and belittling with no real substance. These attacks fly around the airwaves and on the internet in emails and blogs.

The political arena has turned this very real issue into nothing more than a battle cry and the term “global warming” puts many people into a tailspin. What’s really at stake is the health of our planet and our standard of living. It’s time we stop worrying about the political bickering, stop wasting our efforts and hard earned money and begin dealing with the real facts.

Neigh Sayers argue that what’s happening to our planet is just the natural cycle of climate change. What they don’t mention is that these natural cycles normally take place over thousands of years. Sudden changes usually only happen after a huge natural disaster such as the eruption of Krakatoa. The increased changes we’ve seen since the industrial revolution began have been man-made. The changes have been much more dramatic in the last few decades with the increase of industry, number of cars on the road and the population explosion.

I’m a Believer because I have seen the changing climate in my own home town where I’ve lived off and on for most of my life. There are some places where the air and water are cleaner but that’s because man-made fixes have cleaned up man-made messes. In my city this is not so even though it is finally attempting to go more green. There are fewer snowfalls, more droughts, it gets warmer earlier in the year and our hot season starts in June instead of late July or August. Our air quality used to be good but on some days I can see the haze just by looking at the houses across the street. I don’t need a weather alert to tell me when the ground ozone is at a dangerous level. I just have to walk outside of my house and feel the throbbing headache that won’t go away until the ozone clears.

Political arguments have delayed our efforts to clean up our planet and we are pumping money into the pockets of the politicians and the oil and coal industries who are causing the delays. The answer is very simple. We have to stop waiting for the politicians to fix things for us and take personal responsibility. Going green is the practical thing to do and it’s a less stressful and more pleasant way to live. As individuals we might not be able to clean up the whole world but we do have the individual power not to add to the problem.

It doesn’t matter if you believe in global warming or not. We all want to breathe clean air, to drink fresh water and enjoy good health. We must clean up after ourselves and stop our over consumption of products made by industries that dump toxins into our atmosphere and water supplies. We can increase our national security and create more jobs by not using so much oil and oil based products and switch to clean energy wherever possible. We can become healthier by not loading our bodies down with so many chemicals. We must stop dumping our messes into our neighbors’ yards.

No matter what our political ideology is, no matter if we believe Earth needs saving or not, we must see that political attacks and our attacks against each other get us nowhere. The fact is, going green saves money and that’s something most of need and want. We must stop waiting on the politicians and make the small, inexpensive and free changes in our lives that can make a big positive impact on our environment and our pocketbooks.

© 2008 - Mimi Gibson maintains www.thegreenbuckstopshere.com
This content is provided by Mimi Gibson. It may be used only in its entirety with all links included

I’m far from a perfect tree hugger. I confess that sometimes I’ll drive when I could have walked, buy fast food instead of cooking real food at home and the things I’m doing to my house and yard are coming along slowly. If I’m in a time crunch and I need something new to wear to an event and the only thing I can find that works was made in China I’ll buy it. I don’t believe in sacrifice or suffering but I do believe in examining my priorities and making substitutions.

I’m not asking anyone to be perfect. All I ask is that you examine your life and see if there’s a better way of doing things. Do you really need and want the newest gadgets? If you do, go for it. If you’re just caught up in the newest trends and the money could be better spent elsewhere, then try to control your urges. When the weather gets cold, instead of turning up the heat in the whole house, just put on a sweater. If you really need a SUV, van or big truck, that’s fine but if all you do is haul around a person or two with maybe a few bags of groceries, then think about switching to a smaller fuel efficient car. If you’re lucky enough to live in an area that is serviced by an electric company that offers clean, renewable energy, it only takes a phone call. In hot climates the rates of most electric companies go up in the summer. If you switch when the rates go back down, many companies will let you lock in the lower rate for a full year.

The world offers abundance. If we use our resources wisely and stop hording more than we could ever need, we’d be fine. If enough people made easy and painless changes such as these, we could all be happy and comfortable and the planet would live to see another day.

After many years of learning and observing I truly believe that Global Warming is very real. I understand that changes in climatic conditions are a natural part of the earth’s cycle but these changes should take place over thousands of years, not decades. Geologists will tell you that the only other times there were sudden climatic changes, they occurred as the result of catastrophic events such as asteroids hitting the earth and mega volcanoes.  This time the catastrophic event is man-made.

We seem so small when we look up at the sky and it’s easy to think, “How can my actions have any effect on all of this?” Well, we do have an effect. Each and every one of us do. We’re small but there are a lot of us. Each action we take not only changes our own lives but can have a chain reaction that effects the lives of others. I’ve converted friends, neighbors and family with my low utility bills. I’ve educated countless people in grocery stores and restaurants when I’ve handed them canvas shopping bags and my own reusable take-out containers. It makes them think and the business owners love it because it saves them money.

There are many people who still believe that Global Warming is a myth and here are those of us who are true believers but there is a huge population of people who just aren’t aware. Non believers can sometimes be convinced to make changes when they see how much money they can save. Believers need ideas to make the changes quick and painless. I have found that most people fall in the unaware category. They know something is wrong but don’t know why or what they can do about it. They need to be educated and I’ve found that leading by example is an excellent method to do it in a non-confrontational way. Arguing about it might be fun but does no good at all.

It’s become obvious that we can’t wait on our leaders to do it for us but if enough of us make changes in our personal lives we might just avoid reaching the tipping point.  The way I see it, I have a choice. I can go green or not. If I go green, no matter what happens to the world, at least I tried. If I’m wrong the worst will be that I have a more natural and economical lifestyle. If I don’t go green and the worst happens, well…

The following was copied form http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint

A carbon footprint is a “measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide”.  It is meant to be useful for individuals and organizations to conceptualize their personal (or organizational) impact in contributing to global warming. A conceptual tool in response to carbon footprints are carbon offsets, or the mitigation of carbon emissions through the development of alternative projects such as solar or wind energy or reforestation. The carbon footprint is a subset of the ecological footprint, which includes all human demands on the biosphere.

Defining a carbon footprint

The carbon footprint is a measure of the exclusive global amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases emitted by a human activity or accumulated over the full life cycle of a product or service (see Wiedmann and Minx, 2008).

The life cycle concept of the carbon footprint means that it is all-encompassing and includes all possible causes that give rise to carbon emissions. In other words, all direct (on-site, internal) and indirect emissions (off-site, external, embodied, upstream, downstream) need to be taken into account.

Normally, a carbon footprint is expressed as a CO₂ equivalent (usually in kilograms or tonnes), which accounts for the same global warming effects of different greenhouse gases (UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology POST, 2006). Carbon footprints can be calculated using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method, or can be restricted to the immediately attributable emissions from energy use of fossil fuels.

An alternative definition of the carbon footprint is the total amount of carbon dioxide attributable to the actions of an individual (mainly through their energy use) over a period of one year. This definition underlies the personal carbon calculators. The term owes its origins to the idea that a footprint is what has been left behind as a result of the individual’s activities. Carbon footprints can either consider only direct emissions (typically from energy used in the home and in transport, including travel by cars, airplanes, rail and other public transport), or can also include indirect emissions (including CO2 emissions as a result of goods and services consumed). Bottom-up calculations sum attributable CO2 emissions from individual actions; top-down calculations take total emissions from a country (or other low-level entity) and divide these emissions among the residents (or other participants in that entity).