Comments Rob Smith has made

Public doesn't know Urgency of Global Warming

I just ran across a useful piece of work by Dr. Jon Krosnik of Stanford University, who finds that:

Public agrees global warming exists but also divided over severity of problem

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/february21/gwa ...

So-- it seems that urgency should be communicated wherever possible. One key site to do that is the Union of Concerned Scientists, who have an animation showing temperature changes based on current climate models.  View how your state will change: http://www.ucsusa.org/greatlakes/glimpactmigrating.html

The United States is predicted to lose up to 35% of soil moisture with a doubling of carbon dioxide-- at the current rate of pollution this will happen by 2057. That translates into crop failures, dust storms-- similar to the weather in Australia today.
source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, page 121

Fluorescent Bulbs -- Choices we have Today

The choice we make today is not what is a better wavelength for reading, or whether to use a recyclable bulb vs. one that currently is not recyclable.

Our choice today is: can we reduce our carbon dioxide production in time to stop the pendulum of global warming before it has so much momentum we may not affect it at all?

With that in mind, making every change possible to non-carbon fuel sources is required. This is a planetary emergency -- no choice if we hope to survive as a species on this planet.

We can choose to redesign the product to remove/minimize mercury, to set up systems to recycle the bulbs.  Right now, we still have this choice.

We must not delay, or we will find ourselves in the position of Sophie, in William Styron's Sophie's Choice.On They've Had Their Filament posted 2 years, 9 months ago 8 Responses

buy more green gew-gaws of course

I think we should support businesses that truly go green- and give them our hard won moolah.  There is a synergistic win:win effect, and hey, we can feel good when we want just one more thing!On With big biz jumping on the green bandwagon, should activists cheer or jeer? posted 2 years, 9 months ago 13 Responses

Can't blame everyone for believing that!

Given the current environment in which fossil fuel companies join to create a 'nonprofit' organization that then tells the public 'coal is clean' and talks about the 'truth about coal',  it's understandable that story is believable by many.

Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Short on this subject: http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_feature.asp?id=2

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study??

A story was just reported that "Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today."

Full story is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2004230, ...

Big Business acts in its own interest...

and that's not always a bad thing!

But sometimes it is!

1. Bio fuels for example, which Duke Energy plans on developing: there's not enough land in the world to grow corn, grass etc. to create ethanol or other fuels. In fact, growing just to create fuel-- takes significantly away from food supplies for people, as well as the huge monocultures destroy natural habitat for animals and plants.

2. You will see at least one 'nonprofit' website and ad campaign for 'clean' coal. The 'nonprofit' is created by a group of coal companies and their allies. Coal is not clean: burning one ton of coal creates four tons of carbon dioxide. Carbon Dioxide is the number one greenhouse gas pollution we can do something about. Don't expect these industries to tell you that fact, or any related information.