Viraj's Weblog

The average American is responsible for about 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year, which comes from home energy use, personal transportation and waste, as well as the energy used to produce all the products and services we consume. This per capita number is greater than that of any other industrialized country.

I think this a rather shameful statistic. This week I attended a talk by Al Gore on our climate crisis. This was an extremely impassioned talk, which really left me wanting to make a change. I've never seen Al Gore speak that way, and he came across as someone sincerely caring about our Earth's environment. Retired politicians are great speakers, because they can be more truthful when they are out of the arena. I strongly urge people to put aside political boundaries and do something that will truly help you, your family, and future generations. What I mean is making an effort to take care of our Earth, or our "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam," as Carl Sagan put it.

I've known about global warming and CO2 emissions for some time. I used to read Discover magazine religiously, and every other issue had something about global warming. It's a highly debated topic, but only in the economic realm. In the scientific realm, there is simply no debate. It is an accepted truth. Here is a very good quote by Upton Sinclair mentioned in the talk that explains the perceived global warming 'debate' quite nicely:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Why would Exxon/Mobil disqualify global warming? Simply because they would lose money if they didn't. To make a dent in oil usage would mean making a dent in our economy, at least in the short-term, until there is more demand and innovation for cleaner solutions.

But let's forget about that for a moment. The main thing I thought about after this talk was the future of Earth if we continue our current path. Our climate is becoming destructive, and the gist of it is where there is ice on earth, there is becoming less and less of it due to warming. Think of how many hurricanes and other weather disasters we've seen last year. Are they getting worse? Yes they are.

Just how bad? I strongly encourage people to see the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which is essentially a video version of Gore's talk. Even if you don't like him or believe any of this, have an open mind and get all the points of view. The profits for this film are all going towards helping the environment, so if anything you are doing some good by going.

I really think we need to fix things if we want our children and future generations to live a good life on Earth. There is a forboding comment Gore made towards the end of his talk, and that is to imagine yourself having a conversation with your children when they've grown. They ask you, "Couldn't you tell what was being done to the Earth after seeing all of the scientific evidence? Why didn't you take action?" Can we confidently answer that question?

The talk made me very uneasy. It makes me want to do my part, however small, to make things better. Small parts add up to big parts, so if more people can do this we really can make a huge difference. So what's the simplest thing? Buy efficient light bulbs. That may sound insignificant, but paying a little extra for compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) will make a big difference in our energy usage, and hence CO2 emissions.

The next thing we can do is to use public transportation, our legs, and fuel efficient vehicles for getting around. I really encourage you to find out more about public transportation in your area. I think many don't even consider this if they have a car. I usually bike to work, but I've also started taking the bus, which is provided FREE from a train station close to my apartment directly to my office! The schedules are flexible, and I can read a book while going to work. The saddest part is how few people I saw on the bus and the number of cars I saw looking out the window.

Something to think about regarding your car:

Every gallon of gasoline burned puts about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, so a vehicle that gets 25 rather than 20 miles per gallon produces 10 fewer tons of carbon dioxide in its first 100,000 miles.

These are just a few things you can do, but perhaps the easiest. Please at least make an effort. I think our society as a whole is becoming lazy in how we treat our planet, and we really need to consider the consequences of what we do, if not for our life, but for the life of future generations.