I thought everyone might enjoy and benefit themselves and the environment by checking out this ‘50 ways to save the planet’ link.
The ideas are simple, easy, and if even a few people adopted these habits we could really improve the environment and live healthier.
Unfortunately, when an individual multiplied by, say, 300 million (the population of the U.S.) follows any of the 50 rules, there is no impact we can measure on the environment. Only when the big corporations stop burning coal or otherwise belching out greenhouse gasses will we see results.
Even en masse, the little guy does not trash the planet that much — even if he’s a slob and leaves his droppings of empty beer cans spread-out like Johnny Appleseed. The little guy’s contribution is so small that any particular little guy, by that I mean “person”, … any particular person’s pollution, life long, amounts to a fraction of a second of what comes out of coal burning power plants, or other oountries, like infamous China. So doing the 50 things that you can, might make you feel good for a moment (or lonoger if you follow the “showever with your partner” advice!), but it won’t help global warming.
First, you’ll never get the kind of concerted effort one has in mind when imagining the impact of these ideas. Following these suggestions more or less simultaneously would not help a whit anyway, for the same reasons as above. People are small, “little guys” whose curtailing of polluting, is ineffectual.
Now, if you could get Russia, China and other newly Westernized, modernized, industrialized countries to curb their polluting, you’ll be doing something. But the idea of individuals doing these things is so wrong its ludicrous. Al Gore, I love you but get real.
Finally, tell my mother not to rinse or how recycling glass is bogus and helps organized crime. What good does going vegan for a day do? Anybody must admit that’s not a clever one. I’m for stopping global warming. I just believe to do it one must deal with corporations (NGOs) and governments. That scale created the mess. That scale if curtailed could help to clean the mess.
montdor1 -
I agree with your assessment that real change will come when the corporations decide to change.
However, I think we will see this happen sooner than later, and in many respects, it has already started happening.
Mercedes, for example, recently announced that they will phase petroleum-powered vehicles out of their product lineup by 2015 — seven short years away.
They may not be doing it out of the good of their hearts, but because it makes good business sense.
Running a sustainable or otherwise “green” business will become the new standard simply because it will be more profitable for corporations to eliminate wasteful processes from all aspects of their operation. The current model which is quite far from a closed-loop seriously affects profit margins, and companies are starting to realize this.
By going green, they can not only help the environment, but they’ll help their business as well.
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