I'm in this late, but need to add an element that has been missing, far as I can tell: War's effect on the environment. Not only do their vehicles and other equipment use gargantuan amounts of fossil fuel, the extent of pollution by the US military is staggering. Here's just one link for info:
http://scienceforpeace.sa.utoronto.ca/Essays_Briefs/Hamel/Hamel-EnvironWar.html

I wonder how many of CD bloggers have had vasectomies/tubes tied?....if not...well, become a hero with that one selfless act...adopt if you have the uncontrollable urge to parent...( i did have this urge and did tie the tubes and adopt...i did this after reading Silent Spring when it first came out)
i became a vegetarian after raising and killing my steer and then reading Diet for a Small Planet...when it first came out...
i have set up tables with information on deforestation, nuclear energy, solar energy,electric vehicles, steam vehicles etc. at campuses, post office buildings,and markets...since 1976...
it is a pleasure to see all of u...happy to have u on board...

Reducing personal consumption through recyling, driving less, weather-sealing homes, etc. are commendable, feel-good exercises. In terms of dealing with climate change through the reduction in GHG, such actions are almost entirely symbolic. For example, the the GHG emissions from the Alberta Tar Sands - the so-called Saudi Arabia of the North - equals the emissions from ten million cars. The Tar Sands, probably the single largest industrial project on the planet and certainly, given its huge scale, the most environmentally destructive, is being developed principally by US oil companies to supply the American market. The pine beetle infestation in British Columbia, a feed-back loop caused by global heating (winters are no longer cold enough to kill off the bug), will release millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere as over seventy-five percent of the interior pine forest die off and the trees rot. China is adding one new coal-fired electrical station to its grid every week and, along with India, gearing up to produce tens of millions of cars, many of which will be purchased by these countries burgeoning middle classes, adding to the world's net emissions of GHGs.

Clearly, recyling and riding our bikes to work will not solve the problem of anthropic climate change.

I'm starting to feel depressed. We have two children also, much to my now shame. If I go shoot two of my Republican neighbors, will that make up for it?

How do you spell obstical?

At 60 mph versus 70mph, you save __10%__ on fuel consumption. If you have a vehicle that averages 30 mpg, after 10,000 annual miles at a fuel cost of $3.50 a gallon, you will have saved almost $1,200. __ At $4.00 a gallon, you save over $1,300.

In ten years, that's a savings of $12 to $13 thousand, but of course a loss for travel time of almost three hours a year. Actually, $1,200 for three hours time is fairly good wages,___ unless you're my lawyer or othtamologist.

Kim, the methane problem is deeply troubling because with people it takes time to change their minds. The methane problem does not allow for time. I believe we are heading for a paradigm shift in human evolution. I anticipate that people will experiences forces that they have never experienced in their lifetimes. Learning how to process these forces may be key to one's survival. I would suggest that those who can hear should learn more about 2012. There is some "there" there.

You may quote me on this: "CONTROL YOUR EXCESSES!" How hard is that? Consume less, reproduce less, rape and plunder less, put less energy into turning the GARDEN the earth once was into a TOILET ... Kinda feel this must be what a loving, involved God would be thinking about now.

ricshev-I tried that logic on my mom when I was growing up. Why should I have to make my bed?-I was just going to mess it up again. Sometimes, you do things because they are right not because they are easy and not because it will make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

tinylotus-We did do the sterilization. And while I haven't adopted, I feed a multitude of children at lunchtime every summer-they seem to appear at our house right at the noon hour (we have quite a few low-income dense housing w/in a mile of our home). And these kids love to go and nibble in my vegetable gardens, have no problem helping to weed, etc.

obstacle

The truth is (and you can call me a horrible person if you'd like), nothing you or I can do ON THE LEVEL OF THE PHYSICAL PLANE (like driving less, or even not driving at all, or replacing a few incandescents with fluorescents, or paying for carbon credits, or recycling, or voting for this candidate or that one) will be anything more than symbolic. Whether you or I ride bikes or walk or ride camels or drive has absolutely ZERO bearing on what will happen in the foreseeable future. It is just too damn late.

My suggestions? Take it off the physical plane altogether.

Pray. Deeply. Sincerely. All the fucking time.

Be as conscious as you can be. All the fucking time.

And be happy.

All the fucking time.

It seems to me that if we are to save this planet for continued human existence, we have to have highly motivated people. I have been hearing about reaching, passing the "tipping point" for several years. If we are to do anything to change the current situation, then I think saying that we are at or past the tipping point is only counter-productive as I can think of nothing that is more likely to de-motivate people, than the idea that it's too late to do anything about stopping this situation.

Certainly my comment is not meant to suggest that someone doesn't have the right to say such a thing, it is just I want people to think about the effects of such comments. Think twice about it, and then ask what is the purpose of your comment? If it is anything other than to get people to do something positive, then why not reconsider? If you want to motivate people, then please leave that part about the "tipping point" out.

How To Be A Climate Hero:
Great article. There is something everyone can do to become a climate hero - Consume Less. It doesn't matter what it is; meat, clothes, house, t.v.'s, frozen pizza. Over consumption of earth's natural resources is the underlying problem.

You see my blog handle at the top of this post? It's not there by accident. Do the World a Favor and Retire! Retirement is one of the best things you can personally do for the environment. When you retire, your consumption of resources declines dramatically, helping to slow global warming. And if you retire green, you can retire with much less savings, and earlier.

Consumption is the problem - Conservation is the solution.

One other point:
Reducing consumption, contrary to what many believe, is not reducing lifestyle. It can be acheived by eliminating waste. The U.S. is 5% of the the World's population, yet we consume 25% of it's resources, we are wasting resources. Imagine the effect if we Americans, sorry Canada, could reduce our per capita consumption in half.

Ramsay

Leadership

It is leadership by one person that can move many people into action.

Set off your own chain reaction by being a leader. You don't have to do much. Speak up when someone is saying that global warming is not a big deal. Stop using the Republican words "climate change" and keep using the stronger words "global warming" to describe the situation. Post on blogs. Start a sustainable energy blog and research what is going on. Find an issue you have an interest in and tell other people about it.

We all have the ability to be the leaders who stand up first and move other people to action. We need lots of leaders because we need a huge chain reaction to break the Bystander Effect. This includes you so think right now about something you can do to make this world a more sustainable place for ourselves and our children to live.

Excellent article.

It's articles like this that makes me wish Common Dreams had a more dynamic bulletin board system so we could keep some of these discussions going long after the current ones scroll off the screen...and our consciousness.

I think Ramsay has it right (good to see you back, Ramsay). We need to consume less - after all, it is consumption that drives global climate change. I am working on this every day, and let me tell you, it isn't easy. It isn't easy because our culture makes it hard not to. It tells us 24/7, from cradle to grave, that we are consumers and that is the natural state of affairs. Of course, most here know that our culture lies to us. It does so through the media, our teachers, our peers, advertisements everywhere, and even through plants like mcmackle, our newly acquired troll.

Of course, if we understand that our culture is based on consumption and that it lies to us, we can also understand that it is up to us as individuals to break this cycle. There are as many ways to do this as there are individuals, and many of us are doing similar things...and they do make a difference. For instance, my wife and I worked and put extra money into paying down out mortgage until we no longer had a mortgage. This has allowed me to get a job closer to home and one which fits my belief system more. We compost and garden and share our garden with another. We reuse and recycle and buy used things whenever possible, or we do without. We turned down the thermostat and walk more and drive a fuel efficient car (Prius) and hundreds of other things, large and small. And that's the thing...the small things do add up. Like a grain of sand, they add up to become a whole beach.

As for the Y2k reference - it's bogus. Y2k would have been a catastrophe had in not been headed off. I was a computer programmer during Y2k and worked on remediation and testing to make sure my electric utility company could keep supplying power. Millions of companies around the world spent billions of dollars remediating Y2k so that it wouldn't become the problem some warned about. They weren't fools, they knew that it HAD to be done, and so, it was.

It's a good thing that people weren't paralyzed then, like mcmackle seems to be, and it's a good thing that people are coming out of their paralytic stupor about global climate change. Evidently, some people prefer to remain in a stupor. Let's let them. They'll be asking for our help later.

Audrey says: "I insulate my house fanatically. I don't own a car. Every year I do a little more: composting kitchen waste, shopping at farmers' markets, recycling, buying only secondhand. Using carbon calculators, I've figured that I've lowered my family's emissions 50 percent in seven years."

I could say almost exactly the same thing! I know, someone's gonna come and call me "smug". But anyone with a fat-ass western lifestyle can do this. I plan to do it again in the next seven years.

Retire Green says: "Reducing consumption, contrary to what many believe, is not reducing lifestyle. It can be acheived by eliminating waste." Yes, yes and yes. YES! No cold drafts on the feet, no brittle dry or muggy wet air. Better tasting food. Used stuff functions as well as new stuff. (except maybe electronics - and new ones use less energy, if you're careful.) And all the money saved goes into more joyful things than waste and inefficiency.

Buy some caulking. Use it until you can't find another draft to put it in. If you have to drive, be gentle on the accelerator. Use a clothesline. It's easy to make a big difference.

There are millions of Audreys out there. We, and the earth, need every one of them.
Hoa binh

mcmackle - you're the one that's been "hoaxed". If you'd open your eyes, you'd see that this involves money for no-one. Those who say we need to consume less will not profit if people do so. They are not "hoaxing" you. No-one will profit from reduced consumption. No-one will profit if you weather-seal your home. The money you wouldn't waste heating the outdoors is for you. You. The government can't even tax you on the money you get because you didn't waste it. You get this? Or is the sound of Rush in your ears to loud to hear even that? You're the one who's been "hoaxed" - they want you to keep on wasting your money for the benefit of the people who pay money to portray this serious problem as a "hoax".

Further, mcmackle, do you think y2k was no biggie because the bank's computers would have worked fine if no-one had cared, or because the banks "selfishly" employed people to fix them?

Retire Green-I choose to work 3 afternoons a week, in my home, teaching piano, instead of working 40 hours a week, driving to a place of employment-most of my students are neighbor kids who walk or bike to my house. In our extended families, this choice is seen as "lazy" or me being a "mooch" on my husband because if I made more money, we could buy more stuff. Instead, we live a very comfortable life on my husband's salary (in a job he loves) and I am available to my school-age kids 24/7, am available to volunteer at local nonprofits and am available to my neighbors. Unfortunately, our families subscribe more to to mcmackle's way of thinking. We just keep on doing what we know is right.

Each small thing we do helps. Using reusable cloth napkins saves trees. When I find volunteer trees from seeds in places where they will not survive or are not placed well, I replant them in a pot and care for them until they reach four feet tall and then replant them where they will grow undisturbed. Place a container like a coffee container etc., between your garden plants. Drill three holes in the bottom and water your garden by filling up the containers thus not wasting water and distributing water to your plants over time and more directly. I like to dig my containers into the ground somewhat.

Place a stone or brick nest to each plant thus retaining more moisture in the soil. Use water from a rain barrel or a nearby clean creek to water your plants. Mix clay mud and put it into holes bored into your trees by insects or cracks that may have occurred from drought or storm damage. Do this as needed and avoid insecticides. Your tree will thank you.

I too have chosen not to replace my personal car. We have one car in the family and we use it as sparingly as possible, and that car was not bought new.

I built my home thirty years ago and insulated it then to R-19 walls and R-36 ceiling and I used rock wool which is treated used newspaper. I also installed a heat pump when they were very new. My current heat pump is over 20 years old and going strong.

Our home temperatures are kept very moderate and I use a very small fan at my desk and work area.

Large trees that I planted now shade my home from the hot afternoon sun and from the north winter wind.

All dead wood branches are placed in a pile to preserve wildlife. I use available wood to make bird houses and feeders. I am working on a bat house now. I also make cold weather bird shelters. They shelter birds of many different kinds during the coldest winter nights. Birds too cooperate when they have to. I feed them as well. They reward me by keeping my lawn insect pests to minimum. I use no herbicides or insecticides.

Each little thing we do helps all of us.

I turned off my water heater and I'm off to buy a Sun Shower. Every little bit helps.
I'll put my 'stimulus' in Euros along with my tax refund since this Bushbribe myst be repaid with interest.

Along with using washable cloth napkins to save the trees, Cut up old towels, and save worn out dish towels, and other soft cloths to use in place of paper towels, for house cleaning chores, car washing, etc.

Buy or make bags to use when shopping to replace paper bags and most especially the plastic ones. Keep them on your front car seat to remind you when you go shopping to use them.

What a lot of good, practical ideas in these posts. Here's another conservation possibility:

Years ago we bought a rundown, solidly-built old house because it's on a hill facing south, with a big back yard overlooking other hills. We extended the house 6 feet at the rear (along 34 running feet) and added big insulated windows to enjoy the view. Well, talk about dumb luck -- I don't know how many thousands of gallons of heating oil we've saved over the years because of the gazillions of BTUs of passive solar heat!

So many houses have at least a partial southern exposure; if yours does, consider what insulated windows might do in terms of energy savings. Furthermore, many states have rebate programs for replacement windows (double or triple glass, filled with argon gas), which really helps with affordability.

By the way, every commenter here seems to refer to a "mcmackle" -- yet I can't find his/her post. I just have an ordinary Dell PC running Windows XP. Am I missing something?

whatfools -- you say you're putting your rebate into Euros. How does one do that safely, and without incurring large bank fees? Many thanks for any info you can provide.

Thank you for a very fine article Audry. For one thing I never had heard about the "by-stander effect". Every little thing we each alone do to help the climate is very important.

In addition to our actions, there is another MOST important element which must be addressed and soon.__ Very soon.___ Our atmosphere is overloaded with Co2, as we have all heard by now.

The pollution we humans have put into our atmosphere does not evaporate within a few short years. It is very possible we are breathing air which contains Co2, which was emitted from Henry Ford's first model T or the Civil War's Monitor and Merrimack.

The Co2 from burning fossil fuels, gas and oil, has created the "Green House" effect on our water planet's biosphere and heat cannot properly escape from our upper atmosphere as it should. The result is global warming. The global warmng in turn is causing dramatic climate changes and melting ice at the Earth's poles and mountain glaciers all over the globe. All of that is important.

The most iportant item of all, the most serious issue by far facing ALL of mankind, is the methane gas safely locked up in the Arctic perma-frost. "Safely" locked up beneath layers of ice is the KEY.

Recenty some Russian scientists were shocked at what they were witnessing while in the Arctic while studylng the situation. Large lakes which had been frozen over for more than five million years were ice free and methane gas was boiling the lakes surface waters as it billowed out into the atmosphere.

Just "exactly" how serious is that? ___ well, it couldn't be more serious if you trust the words of a world renouned geologist, who wrote the article I will offer here in a link. Perhaps the most impressive sentence in his artice is, "Once it starts, there is NO turning back, once it begins to "Burp" out, there are NO do-overs it will likely play itself out."

If he's correct and there is no sensible reason for me to doubt him, we have a problem and it is without question, the MOST serious probem humanity faces. That humanity BTW, includes our children and any they may have.
This article is a two minute read.

Http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html

I have taken the liberty of free speech, to post that link several times here at C/D. In the off chance some may not have seen it on other threads. So for those who may show up here and have been critical of my constant bitching on the most important issue we face. Please just ignore me and do whatever turns you on.

Americans are each responsible for about 22 tons of CO2 a year. If we want to stabilize the climate, each person needs to produce only 2 tons a year.
A third of US carbon emissions come from transportation. Start with driving only when necessary.
Then:

Stop using disposable plastic cups

Unplug your computer every night for one month. Unless it's unplugged, your idle PC still uses electricity.

Cut out the number of catalogs jamming your mailbox this year

Cut down on new wrapping paper. Wrap 6 of your holiday gifts in reused material like newspaper.

Avoid using plastic shopping bags. Decline fancy shopping bags from stores. Get in the habit of carrying a canvas bag or mesh net bag.

Pick one day this week to leave your car at home and use another way to commute to work or school.

Replace just 3 of the regular light bulbs in your home with Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs.

Instead of creeping your car along in the drive-thru lane, park it. Go inside to order your food or make your bank deposit.

Do you sit in the car and keep it running when you pick the kids up from school? Make it a school wide initiative. Talk to the school and see how they can plan to get everyone to shut off their cars!

Wipe the bottom of a tea kettle free from water before heating

Shower one less minute

Properly inflate your automobile tires.

Finally, reject empire, choose earth community.

Empire is to blame for the thoughtless, shameless, egregious consumption of finite resources by Americans that has been going on for at least two centuries, merely I might add, for their own selfish pleasure and profit.

The change starts with Americans who at 4% of the worlds population and having selfishly consumed 25% of the worlds resources, make a commitment to steward and conserve and yes, sacrifice to achieve a more equitable balance of the use of resources in all its forms so that all may participate in a more sustainable way a standard of living by allocating the basic dignities of life.

If you don't choose to do so, and very soon, our very own Mother Nature will choose for you, and she is a harsh mistress. She will not stand by and continue to be abused and exploited. This isn't like man's dominion over others. She will exact her just amount of due. And it is coming due.

Join the bandana revolution! Show your support for Earth community by wearing, tying or showing a bandana daily. Let's see how many of us are the real earth citizens.

AdeleTheCzech April 27th, 2008 4:17 pm

By the way, every commenter here seems to refer to a "mcmackle" — yet I can't find his/her post.

---

Gosh, I'd swear he was just here... He was a standard issue Gore-bashing AGW Denier... Do people actually just disappear without a trace, like that?

Which is to say, I can't see him now either... Kinda makes me feel like I look like I'm standing on a streetcorner writing rebuttals at no-one in particular...

The most Co2 emissions by far are from burning COAL and vehicle exhausts. Those actions by mankind emit as much Co2 as 17,000 volcanos the size of Hawaii's Kilauea, according to the National Geologial Society.

The only solution is immediate steps taken "world wide", to have totally clean energy from Geo-thermal, wind, solar, wave and tidal. If we ignore it, as Audry so well informed us with this article, our kids won't have a chance at a fair life and that's not fair. ___ We're running out of time.

I got him. McMackel is history. HAAAAAAAAAAAAA, haaaaaaaaaaaa, I got em. haaa haaaaaaaaaa. Whoop.

civil behavior-great suggestions. We've been using cloth bags for several years now-of course, for the first year, REMEMBERING to bring them in from the car was a problem. Now I'm planning to reuse my neighbor's old child bike trailer to haul groceries during nice weather.

KEM: Thanks for the link to the methane article (although it's quite terrifying!).

Big_Money: Are you joshing? Is "Mcmackle" a figment of someone's imagination, like "Kilroy" (who "was here") during WW II?

"I became paralyzed with fear about climate disruption. It was so clear that our children would be punished for what we adults were doing to the world."

I simply wonder how it became clear to him when its not to me.

Theres nothing wrong with conservation, using less energy or any of the other things suggested here.

But to suggest that there is enough scientific evidence or agreement as to what or if anything is happening to our climate is simply not true.

A few years ago I was told that "Global Warming" was happening for all our sins, recently I notice its evolved into "Climate Change" as we've actually been cooling. Melting tundra on one end, expanding ice on the other. Bio fuels was a great idea, we were assured it was win-win. Oops, apparently not. Not just food, but the energy produced is both a net energy loser and money loser.

It seems to me we should go a bit slower and be more careful not to make mistakes. I'm not saying any of these theories are wrong, just that so far there is no proof.

Making believe there is or telling others there is absolute, scientific proof of any of them is just not true.

Remember the florocarbons?

Some parts of the world will get cooler with global warming-Thomas More-more parts will get warmer. The average global temperature is what is getting warmer.

I wish that Ms. Schulman would realize that one of the most effective things she can do, that would give her the most agency, that would imperil her children the least, is to STOP BREEDING.

What is it with this disconnect so many people have about increasing the world's population and resource use? Schulman even got the conservation mojo at the time of her first child's birth, because of worry about that child's future, yet she created at least one more!

I'm afraid that Schulman, for all her enlightenedness, might be in the egoistic mindrut that so many other of our culture are, which goes something like this:

"I'm cutting back, I'm insulating my house, I'm driving less, I'm spreading the gospel, but I'll be damned if I give up my god-given innate human right to make little copies of myself."

Think harder, Ms. Schulman.

Someone mentioned inflating your car tires properly but not how to do this. On most cars the 'correct' inflation pressure is shown on the car door jam. Doing just this is good and would save America 2.8 billions of gas every year. To maximize your mileage inflate your tires to the maximum recommended pressure shown on the side of the tire. Every 1 psi low on your tires equals almost 1/2 a mpg.

As soon as possible the human beings on this globe need to realize that the only way we can have any hope of doing something about global warming is to decrease the population. I have always had great respect for Chinese people, (although their government leaves much to be desired). China has instituted a policy of one-child-per-family and such a policy should apply everywhere in the world for the next two or three generations in order to bring the global population to a level that the earth can sustain. Either we humans take control of our destiny or nature will do it for us - thirst, starvation, drowning, asphyxiation, &c.

As it is, the little things we do to try to reduce our impact on the environment, such as those mentioned in the posts above, are all swamped by the demands of increased population.

~THOMAS MORE~ try this home experiment. Go outside and find and pick up a small egg sized rock in one hand and in your other hand pick up a dried dog turd. Study them closely, until you dectect they are different in many ways. You may detect they may smell different, feel different and look different. You don't have to lick them to see if they taste different, they probably would. If you do notice they are different, you have sucessfully passed the home expermient test.

That's like global warming and climate change, ~THOMAS~__ the two are different!!__ Global warming causes climate change and it has been WELL proven global warming is a scientific fact.

Global warming is why the world's mountain glaciers are now melting and many have totally disappeared. One which was over 90 feet thick four years ago is now only 9 feet thick. Which is almost as thick as some peoples skulls. It is also causing the Arctic's perma-frost to melt and the methane gas which WILL escape into our atmosphere will kill you and any children you may have.

You are absolutely correct about over population ~PARALLAX~. If we humans don't correct the problem of adding excessive amounts of Co2 into our atmosphere however, over population will soon become a moot issue as I can assure you, the human population will decrease to zero.

Parallax...are you volunteering?

I'd guess you're probably thankful your mommy didn't decide to not over-populate ~YOHOCOMA~. Hope you take our own advice, would sure hate to see a copy.

Think harder ~Yoho. __ Ho.

Egads, I have three daughters, all schooled in conservation and ecology, we live in an energy efficient home, compost, put hardly anything out for garbage, drive infrequently, bike/walk, are not overweight, don't smoke, grow our own food, volunteer (yes, all of us) in the community, rarely buy anything new...let the public stoning of me begin for my irresponsible choices.

Hmm... Seems to me that not reproducing is also unsustainable, and will also lead to a human population of zero...

I've heard a number of times about periods in which the earth's population was contracting, (plagues and such), and it was a benefit to the less affluent - Labour and skills shortages and competitive wages and affordable food and housing and all that. A slowdown in population growth sure isn't hurting China any.

KEM, what did you do to McMackarel? Something to do with curbing populaton growth?

He's in a big box that I shipped to outer mongolia.

I suppose that this whole global warming scam isn't all bad if it can get people to conserve energy the way that we should have been all along anyway.

Hi ~BIG MONEY~. Over population is a very serious problem. So is burning coal, gas and oil. Which of the problems do you believe we should attack first?

China has been working on their over population problem for many years, they still have way over a billion population and it increases by leaps and bounds daily and the global warming problem continues. Should we steralize every person on the planet? That would help. Maybe just line up a few billion and shoot em, or give them poisoned lemonaide.

China is currently planning on another 1,000 coal fired power plants. We're building them here in the U.S. also and people with a mind set like that of Thomas More's here are the reason why that continues.

I wish it was a scam GEO522. Could you offer some explinations for us, instead of just saying it's a scam? __ Thank you, I'm willing to listen.

Hi Recycle 1, better watch out for Thomas More. He might be holding an egg sized rock in one hand.

KEM - "Over population is a very serious problem. So is burning coal, gas and oil. Which of the problems do you believe we should attack first?"

While I think we should start trying to deal with both, yesterday, I think one is much more easy and ethical to deal with than the other. There's oodles of waste to trim, and plenty of workable sources of energy that would be being exploited much more now had the oil/coal/gas companies not become so huge and rich and influential from their "crack" energy.

Messing with an individual's right to live, or reproduce, is a pretty dodgy prospect.

The scary thing is, I could see world governments messing with people's reproductive tendancies before taking any kind of meaningful stand in any migration away from fossil feuls.

I know I personally am a lot more inclined to find new ways for my family to consume less each year than I am to wish extinction upon them.

The vast majority of people are in no way inclined to do either. Maybe when oil is $500/barrel folks will pick one and care about it. Or maybe when there's no water, they'll pick the other.