Globally Green Living

Well what better day than Inauguration Day to talk about how our new President feels about environmental issues..

In his inauguration speech this afternoon he mentioned:

* Not depending on energy sources that make our enemies stronger
* Utilizing natural energy sources like solar energy

Here are more specific issues he says he supports… (more…)

Polar bears have been declared a threatened species and the Bush administration has acknowledged global warming is affecting their survival. The ice is expected to continue to melt but it was also made clear that there was no plan to reduce greenhouse gases.

Conservation groups, environmentalists and activists are understandably upset because even though the decision acknowledges Polar bears are in danger, they’re not offered much protection.

Canada so far has not announced that the bears are threatened even though two thirds of all Polar bears are in Canada. See U.S. Lists Polar Bear as Threatened Species for more.

What were you doing during earth hour? My mom said there would likely be a baby boom on March 29 at 8:00pm and she is probably right. (I’m not sure how good that will be for the environment.)

Without televisions and computers running, a lot of people probably did spend some quality time with each other.

We attempted a game of monopoly by candle light. It didn’t go smoothly but we had fun trying. I love how the picture turned out but have no clue how I achieved it.

Here is a crazy conversation that happened with the kids. “Ok, turn off the lights.” “But I can’t see my toys!” Trying for dramatic effect, “Don’t you get it? The world is going to blow up!” Reply, “Oh, alright then.”

After that, they decided it would be fun to see which neighbors did not turn off their lights and started hollering their names and describing what they were doing. The ones next to us who were watching their television must have heard them.

Reduce Your Impact Throughout the Year

Earth hour is a great way to get everyone together, save energy, brings awareness and creates conversations about how to conserve long term.

Recycling, adjusting your thermostat, turning off lights when not in use and switching to florescent bulbs are some ways we can continue to save energy. I think it’s great that millions of people all over the world are making a difference together.

• Check out Earth Hour and World Wildlife Fund’s website for more information on earth hour in your city, pictures and more ideas on reducing your impact on the environment.

The top polluting countries in the world have gotten together to see what they can do to address climate change. The meeting was called by the U.S., in particular by President Bush who, a few years ago, was saying that there is no global warming or effect on climate, for that matter.

Now, after Katrina, you’d better not even utter the idea that global warming is a hoax. Although, it seems that some people also take it to the other extreme, where everything you do causes global warming, but let’s move on.

To fight climate change, the U.S. has “aspirational” goals. What does that mean exactly? Because I aspire to win the lottery but since I don’t play, I don’t see it ever happening. Is that it? Are good intentions sufficient to say you’re trying to make a change?

Let’s get real people. We live in a wealthy country! If the effects of climate change are such that natural disaster will be more likely to occur then the same natural disaster in a rich country vs. a poor country will cause a greater harm in the rich country. The rich country has more infrastructure, is more integrated, contains on average more educated people, and people on average have more assets. Thus, the more you have the more you can lose. That’s what Hurricane Katrina taught us. How long is it going to take for us to learn its lesson and fix our problems?

Or, as Alan Greenspan says, are we just too dumb to learn it the first time around? Do more people have to die and does more destruction have to happen before we do something about it? How long until we adapt and how much is our adaptation going to cost in unproductive activities?

Alfred and I went to the market early this morning, around 7:30 am. The air was brisk and very few people were walking around. Dave had not even gotten his arugula out when we first passed by his stand. But the pot dude was already there. I had to take a couple of glimpses to make sure that it was him because he was clean-shaven and his hair was short. Totally different from the long-bearded and disheveled hair man I had gotten used to seeing. His speech has also changed.

The pot dude usually talks to passer-bys to try to convince them that pot should be legalized because it does not cause addiction and because of other reasons that I have never cared to hear. But today he was defending using pot to make biofuel, specifically ethanol. So he went on about how carbon dioxide emissions would be kept under check if we all started using pot ethanol. I am not sure about the current technological feasibility of doing that, but I cannot help but wonder if a big chunk of the pot supply would not be diverted to other less fuel efficient uses…

Forget the organic claim and expand on the buy local frame of mind. These days some Americans are checking labels to make sure that what they are buying is, well, American. That means, according to these folks, that the product had to travel less miles around the globe and thus less carbon dioxide emissions were created.

Call me the party pooper but one should also make sure that land or air transportation within the U.S. is environmentally friendlier that shipping things in a huge boat. Because, truthfully, if long distance transportation is able to create less emission per item than short distance transportation (because you are dividing the emissions over a lot more items), then it’s not better to buy American stuff. Think about it like this: if you go to the supermarket in a car once a month and buy all your supplies for that month, you’ll cause less emissions than if you go in a motorcycle three times per week for a month.

Everything is relative these days.

P.S. I do prefer to buy American or European than from other continents because labor practices are usually better in the U.S. and Europe, although sometimes there are exceptions.

Humans sure are interesting creatures. Perhaps we are the only species who can really use reason to try to prevent an undesirable outcome instead of simply learning from past mistakes.

There are a bunch of smart people out there, scientists they are called, who think that the human effect on nature and future weather is too strong to ignore. They don’t think that any of these big storms–the Katrinas, Ritas and Deans of the world,– are necessarily connected to this effect but in the future it is likely that we may see more of them. We have had this information since before the big storms happened with alarming frequency, meaning we were warned in much advance.

Did we do anything about it? Not really! It takes destruction and death for us to do anything about it. That’s OK, some people say because humans adapt! Sure we do but those that don’t die. That’s why we have epidemics where millions of people die in a short amount of time. Do these adaptation-promoting epidemics mean that we should stop doing research trying to find vaccines and cures for incurable ailments? No! Well, then why should we stop spending our resources trying to figure out global warming and other global externalities? Why does it take people dying to make us pay attention?