Discouraged? How you too can be a superhero.
posted by: Dave R. 55 days ago
The trouble with taking action on climate change (and several of the other uber-issues featured on Care2) is that the issue is so big. Unlike giving money to your church, supporting your local schools, or volunteering to build houses or work in a local shelter, it's hard to believe that your individual action is making a difference. If you're reading this blog, you're already conservation minded, meatless or meat-lite, signing petitions encouraging action, trying to use your car less, at least thinking of offsetting or buying green energy, etc. (Unless you're part of the " Climate Change is a Hoax" crowd that occasionally posts here.) What more can you do?
Well I saw a story in my local newspaper that reminded me of the impact we can have as individuals, simply by refusing to accept the stupid things we see around us every day:
A regular commuter on BART (the SF Bay Area's light rail system) noticed that the lights were on all day every day in the parking lot at her local station. It struck her as a huge waste of electricity, even though it was a "drop in the bucket" to BART. She called and and was told that they must be testing the lighting system. Since she works across the street from the station, she doubted that this was the case...the lights had been every day for months.
Rather than accepting a brush off, she enlisted a local newspaper columnist, that recontacted the transit agency on her behalf. A BART crew visited the parking lot and determined that the master light switch had been inadvertently set to manual instead of automatic. The crew simply reset the switches to automatically shut off during the day and fixed the problem.
Parking lots use a lot of lights, and this simple citizen action had 10 or 20 times the impact vs. just reducing her energy consumption at home. By spending a few hours and showing a little determination, she had the strength of ten men...in other words, she was transformed from mere mortal to superhero!
When you speak up, sometimes others listen. It's great to share these successes, to keep us all inspired that we can make a difference. I have a few more stories to share, but would love to hear some of yours. What's your superhero tale? Email me at my care2 address (climatepath-at-care2.com) - or share yours below.
Well I saw a story in my local newspaper that reminded me of the impact we can have as individuals, simply by refusing to accept the stupid things we see around us every day:
A regular commuter on BART (the SF Bay Area's light rail system) noticed that the lights were on all day every day in the parking lot at her local station. It struck her as a huge waste of electricity, even though it was a "drop in the bucket" to BART. She called and and was told that they must be testing the lighting system. Since she works across the street from the station, she doubted that this was the case...the lights had been every day for months.
Rather than accepting a brush off, she enlisted a local newspaper columnist, that recontacted the transit agency on her behalf. A BART crew visited the parking lot and determined that the master light switch had been inadvertently set to manual instead of automatic. The crew simply reset the switches to automatically shut off during the day and fixed the problem.
Parking lots use a lot of lights, and this simple citizen action had 10 or 20 times the impact vs. just reducing her energy consumption at home. By spending a few hours and showing a little determination, she had the strength of ten men...in other words, she was transformed from mere mortal to superhero!
When you speak up, sometimes others listen. It's great to share these successes, to keep us all inspired that we can make a difference. I have a few more stories to share, but would love to hear some of yours. What's your superhero tale? Email me at my care2 address (climatepath-at-care2.com) - or share yours below.
Read more: global warming
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Well done Mary B! 100,000 bottles recycled saved around 7 barrels of oil (according to the American Chemistry Council.) It also kept a massive amount of plastic out of landfills, where it would have sat for hundreds of years. Less than 25% of plastic bottles are recycled....and hopefully others have been inspired by your efforts! Here's a great (short) youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZbTXDkrD1o
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For about the past 5 years or so, myself and another woman who works out at my gym have been taking home and recycling the disposable water bottles that people throw into 1 of 3 containers we have placed around the gym. My estimate is that we recycle an average of 400 plastic bottles a week. It takes 10 minutes of my time to gather the bags containing the bottles each week and the same for the other woman. A conservative estimate says that we've recycled at least 100,000 plastic bottles in 5 years - and it really hasn't taken that much effort on either of our parts. I hope other people will start a program like this at their gym.
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These are some great ideas! As Care2 Causes Managing Editor I just wanted to congratulate you all! This really IS Power to the People. And keep those comments coming.
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Deteriorating air quality/global warming is one of our most urgent issues, and we see government's strongest tactics to avoid action. Every time we gain some traction, they hike tobacco taxes, distracting the public and giving the illusion of actually doing something. Sorry, smoking is a non-issue. Under 18% of us smoke, and restrictions are so stringent that few of us have any exposure to cigaret smoke. The most carcinogenic type of smoke contains oil particles -- from traffic -- and this is the leading cause of all breathing-related disease, and of global warming. It's our addiction to cars, not tobacco, that is killing the rain forests, melting polar ice, adding acids to the atmosphere/water (cycle of acid rain), causing an escalating rate of childhood asthma, etc.
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Diane Y, I strongly agree on population control. We'll get it when we're willing to make ALL forms of birth control available and encouraged, replace tax deductions for kids with birth taxes, "Be fruitful and multiply" with "Make love, not babies", major efforts for life extension with "Right to Die" laws and maybe with more excuses for executions, preferably starting close to the top of the pile. Also helpful would be when we can feel that most others are also concerned about the welfare of Gaia and humanity at least as much as their own.
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Instead of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", think Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Reuse, Redefine, Reuse, Reconstitute, Reuse. Recycling should be about shortening the loop between one reuse and the next.
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I work in an office that creates alot of paper waste. I suggested that we look at changing the printer settings to duplex (double sided) automatically. It was easy to do, and if people need to print something single sided they can still do so manually (takes more effort). This has drastically reduced our paper consumption.
Next to tackle the stuff that gets printed and never picked up ... investigating printers that need you to enter a code before it prints stuff sent to the printer.
To infinity and beyond ....
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Hey, where can I get one of those recycle shirts, shown at the heading of this article? Size mens-large..........
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Costco uses no bags - plastic or paper - they use leftover containers (cardboard) from the stuff they stock on the shelves........other stores should be considering this step. Next, we can stop using cardboard somehow.
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Diane Y: Your sentiments are on the right track but there's no way that 'replacement fertility' is going to be appropriate for the foreseeable future. James Lovelock recently stated his belief that the earth's sustainable carrying capacity, given current lifestyles is probably not more than 1 billion and Richard Heinberg mentions a figure of around 2 billion post carbon fuels transition.
Population remains the ‘elephant in the room’ – we are going to have to figure out how to encourage the majority of the fertile young not to reproduce at all and the remainder not to have more than one child.
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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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