California confronts global warming

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Posted on September 15, 2006
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Fossil fuel dependency, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality, Renewable fuels

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

In my earlier post today, I briefly referenced California for its state-level initiatives to drastically reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.  Then I went to my NY Times and found a very long, quite good article about exactly that on the front page.  It goes on for two pages inside the paper.  I recommend it.  Political pressure like this can indeed contribute towards creating the political atmosphere to force the urgently needed changes in how we do business here in the US.

A couple of tidbits:

“This summer a brutal California heat wave killed roughly 140 people…at the current growth rate of emissions, there would be at least five times as many heat waves in Los Angeles by 2100 compared with current historical standards…”

“…79 percent of 2,051 people surveyed said that global warming was a ‘very serious’ or a ’somewhat serious’ threat to the state’s economy and quality of life.  Those findings mirrored those of a national poll…”  [The message is getting through!]

“…electricity is wasted when people unplug the devices [like cell phones] and leave the charger plugged in…such chargers — along with appliances like [TVs] that draw power even whey they are off because they are designed to respond to remote controls — use up to 10 percent of an average home’s power.”

“California is a big piece of the total consumption in the west - 40 percent…If 40 percent of the Western load will not buy coal, you have less coal.” [Coal is the dirtiest form of energy we have, the biggest contributor to carbon emissions.]

It’s the little things and the big things combined that can make the difference.  Neither the personal changes, nor the big economic, infrastructure, policy, energy changes can be left out of the cure.

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