Raymond Collins

The Culture Artist
by Chuck Hall
Chuck Hall is a Sustainability Consultant and author. His latest book, Green Circles, will be available in Spring 2007. You may contact him by email at: chuck@cultureartist.org or visit the Culture Artist Web site at www.cultureartist.org.

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Culture Artist Column, April 7, 2008: Building Ecotopia: Clothes Made of Beer?
Some of the most comfortable natural garments are made of linen. Linen is made from flax. Flax is another plant that needs fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides than cotton. It does well when grown organically. Linen jeans are especially comfortable and durable, and many men’s suits have traditionally been made of linen.
A rather novel new approach to garment making is clothing made from beer and wine! In this process, the bacteria that ferment the wine are left to convert the wine into a vinegary substance. This slimy residue is then painted onto an inflatable mannequin layer-by-layer and left to dry. When enough layers are accumulated, what remains is a garment made of natural cellulose with a texture similar to latex. These garments have to be kept moist, or they become brittle and tear easily. The Bioalloy team at University of Western Australia developed this process and they hope one day to make the material durable enough for daily wear. So one day you could wear a shirt made of your favorite beer!
There are also natural fibers that come from animals. This is a somewhat controversial area, because traditionally the use of animal products has led to the cruel treatment and exploitation of the animals. If you don’t mind using natural fibers from animals that come from farms where they are treated well, you might want to consider some of the options listed below.
When buying organic wool products, check with the manufacturer to see how the animals are treated. In addition to allowing them to roam freely, consider whether they are given any growth hormones or other chemicals in their diet. Also check to see if they’ve been dipped in any chemicals on a routine basis. You can contact many manufacturers of wool directly to get this information. If they are unwilling to talk to you about their processes, you can rest assured that they’re probably not using organic methods for growing and harvesting their wool.
Traditionally, the manufacture of silk requires either boiling or gassing the silkworms to death. If this is an issue for you, there is an alternative. Tussah silk, a product of India, is harvested in the wild after the moths have left the cocoon. This means that there is no killing involved in the processing of Tussah silk. They also carry a great collection of natural dyes, if you’re an old hippy like me, and love to tie-dye.
There aren’t really any sustainable alternatives to natural fur or leather. Fake furs and leathers are petroleum-based, so buying fakes to save an animal is just trading one set of woes for another. Fur isn’t as much of a fashion statement as it once was, as more and more people become aware of animal exploitation, but leather might be more of an issue, especially where shoes are concerned. The good news is that besides being made of leather, shoes can also be made from hemp, cotton, or recycled materials. I have a pair of hemp hiking boots that I’ve worn on Appalachian trails for over a year now, and they’ve held up better than the genuine leather pair I owned previously.
As environmental awareness increases, the fashion industry has begun to respond. Major designers have begun to incorporate organic materials into their designs. Look for this trend to continue in the future. Materials like hemp and bamboo are enjoying increased popularity, but organic cotton is by far the fabric of choice for most green clothing designers. According to Organic Exchange (www.organicexchange.org), a nonprofit committed to expanding the use of organically grown fibers, global retail sales of organic cotton products increased from $245 million in 2001 to $583 million in 2005. This trend shows no signs of waning in the near future. Organic clothing is ‘in!’

Culture Artist, March 08 Global Warming Objections, Part V
Quite often you’ll hear from global warming dissenters that ‘many leading scientists object to global warming.’ This argument is often used to demonstrate that there is no major scientific consensus that human activities are contributing in any significant way to global warming. While it is true that some have dissented, in order to gain a sense of perspective on what the scientific consensus really is, we must first define what we mean by ‘many’ and ‘scientists.’
For example, a recent U.S. Senate report had about 400 ‘scientists’ stating that they did not believe that human activities played a significant part in global warming. A Canadian group of 60 ‘scientists’ also signed a letter to that effect in 2006. However, on closer examination of the credentials of these scientists, many of them were retired, and the majority of them had areas of expertise unrelated to climatology. Asking a scientist in another field to render an opinion on climatology is somewhat akin to going to a pediatrician for advice on how to treat cancer.
Added together, the U.S. and Canadian dissenters who made statements number about 500. In contrast, about 11,000 scientists who are actively engaged in climate science research around the world signed a petition protesting U.S. President George Bush’s stance on global warming. When you do the math, this means that only 1 in 22 scientists object to the consensus that climate change is caused largely by human activities. And of this 1 in 22, the majority has specialties in fields other than climate sciences.
Rendering an opinion is quite a bit different than publishing actual research in a peer-reviewed journal. The process of peer-review means that the article meets rigorous requirements for scientific accuracy. Such papers are examined thoroughly by a panel of experts in the field to ensure accuracy. So what do the peer-reviewed journals have to say on the subject?
In 2004, a study by Naomi Oreskes looked at over 1000 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that referenced global warming in some way. The papers examined were all published in the last decade, and all were subject to vigorous review by experts in climatology. The study found that not a single one of these papers denied that global warming was happening. Furthermore, not a single one of these papers denied that human activities were responsible in a large part of climate change.
In addition to this unanimous consensus in the scientific literature, The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and various scientific organizations of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, all have issued statements in recent years that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.
In fact, the evidence is so compelling, global warming has produced a consensus that is rarely seen in the skeptical world of science. Scientists are trained to be skeptical by nature. So if skeptics worldwide overwhelmingly agree, it is safe to conclude that there must be a reason. That reason is most likely that humans are responsible for global warming

Culture Artist Column, February 2, 2008: Global Warming Objections, Part III
Research from climate scientists all over the world increasingly demonstrates that human activities are playing a part in global warming. Still, there are those who object to the idea that human activities are responsible. These critics of climate change science must answer the question: “If carbon dioxide isn’t responsible for the increase in global average temperature, what is?”
Those who wish to deny the prevailing scientific opinion have attempted to come up with alternative solutions to the question of climate change. Two alternate explanations for global warming seem to be gaining popularity.
The first explanation is that water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and that increases in water vapor across the globe are responsible for global warming. No proponent of this particular theory has yet been able to explain where the sudden increase in water vapor came from, nor why it began in the first place. The second explanation is that sunspots are causing it. In other words, ‘hot spots’ on the surface of the sun produce more heat, and as this heat travels to Earth, it causes increases in global temperature.
Note also that neither of these theories explains why the increase in carbon dioxide emissions in our atmosphere is positively correlated with the increase in global temperature. In other words, both the sunspot theory and the water vapor theory ignore carbon dioxide altogether, even though it is a demonstrable fact that carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has been steadily increasing.
On the sunspot theory, solar astronomer Peter Foukal says, “There has been an intuitive perception that the sun's variable degree of brightness, the coming and going of sunspots for instance, might have an impact on climate."
Foukal says that most climate models (including ones used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) already incorporate the effects of the sun's waxing and waning power on Earth's weather.
According to a study by Foukal (Nature Magazine, September 2006), the difference in temperature caused by sunspot activity is simply far too small to contribute significantly to global warming. Foukal and his team of researchers gathered sunspot activity data from as far back as 1874 and attempted to correlate these records with temperature records gleaned from ice core samples. They found that the data simply did not match up.
The bottom line is that there is an only 0.1% temperature variance in sunspot activity. According to Foukal, this variance is far too small to have any major impact on the overall global average temperature of the Earth. It also doesn’t explain the correlation between increased carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and increased global average temperature. In short, the sunspot theory is not a credible or plausible explanation for global warming.

Culture Artist Column, January 27, 2008: Global Warming Objections, Part II 2-7-08
A question or comment you often hear a lot when talking about global warming is this question: “My local weatherman can’t even tell me what the weather will be like tomorrow. How can I believe scientists when they tell me that global warming is happening?”
To start with, meteorology and climatology are entirely different sciences. Meteorology looks at short-term events and tries to predict the outcome. Even though they can’t nail it on the head all the time, they still have a pretty good average. Climatology, on the other hand, looks at long-range patterns.
Suppose you have a nickel, and I ask you to predict the outcome of a single coin toss. You have a fifty-fifty chance of correctly predicting the outcome. Now let’s say I ask you to predict the outcome over five coin tosses. Let’s say you go out on a limb and predict that all five tosses will be ‘heads.’ If all five coin tosses came up ‘heads,’ it would be unusual, but not outside of the realm of possibility. With each additional coin toss, however, the average would begin to approach the fifty-fifty mark. The more points of data you have, the more accurate the result will be.
Meteorology is attempting to predict the outcome of a single coin toss. Climatology, on the other hand, has much more data at its disposal. Climate scientists now have ice core data from 650,000 years of core samples with which to make their predictions. The more data they have, the more accurate their predictions. This huge amount of data upon which to make predictions over long spans of time is much more accurate than trying to predict a single day’s weather, simply because the amount of data used to make predictions is so large.
NASA scientist James Hansen states that the ‘tilting point’ for global warming is 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Beyond that point, climate change can be demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt to be caused largely by human activities. Scientists studying atmospheric carbon dioxide now routinely observe figures of 383 parts per million or higher. Ice core data on trapped atmospheric carbon dioxide shows that throughout most of the 650,000 year history of the ice core data studied, carbon dioxide levels ranged from 100 parts per million to 300 parts per million, but at roughly the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere began to slowly increase to the present range. It is an established fact that carbon dioxide contributes to the greenhouse effect, so it is only natural to assume that more carbon dioxide equals higher temperatures.
While it is a scientific axiom that correlation does not prove causality, global temperatures have been rising in parallel with the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Those who claim that ‘correlation does not prove causality’ are stuck with providing an alternate proposal. If carbon dioxide isn’t responsible for the increase in global average temperature, what is?

Culture Artist Column, January 20, 2008: Global Warming Objections, Part I
In spite of an overwhelming amount of evidence that human activities play a part in global warming, there are still quite a few people who think that global warming is some sort of vast government conspiracy concocted by scientists. The goal of this ‘conspiracy’ remains unclear. There is still enough opposition to taking action on global warming that it is a major concern for those of us who care about the environment. This week I begin a series of columns examining some of the major objections to global warming and climate change.
Let’s start with this idea of ‘certainty’ about scientific data.
Imagine you’ve gone to the doctor for your annual physical. She runs the usual tests. When the results come back, she has some bad news for you: you have some of the symptoms of cancer.
You ask your doctor, “Can you be one-hundred percent certain that I have cancer?”
She tells you that she cannot be certain without further testing and possibly exploratory surgery. She wants to refer you to an oncologist. You tell her that unless she can be one-hundred percent certain that you have cancer, you’re not going to visit the oncologist, nor are you going to submit to further tests.
Some politicians don’t want to take action on global warming because they say that scientists cannot be 100% percent certain that human activities are contributing to climate change. Yet with each new study, we come closer and closer to the conclusion that human activities are playing a part. Would any reputable scientist come out and say, with 100% certainty, that global warming is caused by human actions? No. This does not mean, however, that there is not an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence. This is just a fact of how science works. Science is not arrogant enough to assume that anything can be known with 100% accuracy. This does not mean that a scientific probability is therefore false.
Let’s look at an example. Suppose I show you a pistol. The pistol appears to be in good working order, and properly loaded. This doesn’t mean, however, that the pistol is 100% guaranteed to fire. The firing mechanism could jam. The cartridge could misfire. A meteor might strike me before I could pull the trigger. There is any number of things that could prevent the pistol from firing. Since you cannot be 100% certain that the pistol will fire, does that therefore mean you would feel safe standing in front of me while I point it at you and pull the trigger?
As more and more evidence on climate change comes in, it becomes more and more certain that human activities are playing a part. Global warming was first conceived of in 1986. Back then they only had slide rules with which to crunch numbers. The supercomputers of today use climate modeling to make increasingly accurate predictions. One of the ways that we know these supercomputers work much better than the slide rules of a century ago is that the predictions made by climate scientists become increasingly accurate over time as the process is refined. In short, while it is impossible to ever know anything with 100% certainty, climate scientists of today are rapidly approaching the 99.999% certainty mark. And the news doesn’t look good.

Culture Artist Column, September 2, 2007: Vegetarians and Vegans
What’s the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan? The crux of the matter is in how you define the term “vegetarian.” To some people, “vegetarian” means that they don’t eat anything that an animal had to die for. The common phrase is, “I don’t eat anything that had a face.” To others, “vegetarian” means that not only do they not eat anything that once had a face; but they don’t eat anything that came from an animal, period. This includes animal by-products like eggs, cheese, and other dairy goods.
The word vegan, usually pronounced "vee-gun," was originally derived from the word "vegetarian" in 1944 when environmentalists and founders of the United Kingdom Vegan Society, Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson, became frustrated that the term "vegetarianism" had come to include eating dairy products. They combined the first three and last two letters of "vegetarian" to form "vegan," which they saw as "the beginning and end of vegetarian." The British Vegan Society defines veganism in this way:
"The word "veganism" denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practical, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."
Incidentally, Donald Watson lived to be 95 years old, so he must have been onto something…
So in modern usage, a vegan doesn’t eat anything that came from an animal (there is some controversy over honey though, which some vegans, including myself, eat). A vegetarian, on the other hand, may eat animal products as long as there is no animal death involved. Such a diet may include dairy and eggs, so a few more terms were coined. A lacto-vegetarian is a person who doesn’t eat meat, but who eats dairy products. A lacto-ovo-vegetarian eats dairy products and eggs. A pescaterian eats fish, but does not eat other animals. Some pescaterians also eat dairy and eggs, while others do not.
Confused yet? I have a theory that most people become vegans just so they don’t have to call themselves “lacto-ovo-pescaterian vegetarians.” But seriously, in spite of all the labels out there, there are a lot of benefits to limiting or eliminating animal products altogether from your diet. Next week we’ll look at some of the studies on the benefits of vegan and vegetarian diets. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more, you may visit the Vegan Society’s site at: http://www.vegansociety.com/html.

The Bottled Water Boondoggle
People are thirsty for bottled water. Plastic bottles of the stuff have almost become a fashion accessory. The world’s taste for bottled water more than doubled from 1994 to 2004, with demand reaching 41 billion gallons per year. At first glance, bottled water may seem to be a healthier alternative to tap water, but according to a study by the U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council, which carried out a four-year review of the bottled water industry, "…there is no assurance that just because water comes out of a bottle, it is any cleaner or safer than water from the tap."
At any rate, if health is a concern, there are dozens of manufacturers who make water filtration systems that attach to your faucet at home to filter out any chemicals or other hazardous materials. So bottled water’s popularity shouldn’t really be due to health issues.
In virtually every location throughout the industrialized world, tap water is as healthy or healthier than its bottled counterpart. There may be health benefits to drinking bottled water in developing countries where the local supply may not be safe, but even so, the long-term solution would be to improve the quality of the local supply rather than to import more packaged water.
So health issues don’t really explain bottled water’s popularity. Could its popularity be explained by assuming that bottled water tastes better? I’ve conducted my own impromptu ‘taste test’ on several occasions, comparing bottled water to tap water. Try it yourself sometime. In most cases, people prefer the tap water. In the cases where people didn’t choose tap water, they often expressed no preference, stating that they couldn’t tell the difference. So bottled water’s popularity isn’t due to the taste.
If it’s not due to the taste, or to the health benefits, what else could account for the popularity of bottled water? The only thing I can come up with is the ‘fad’ value. Drinking bottled water has become the ‘cool’ thing to do. But is it the environmentally conscious thing to do?
Of the estimated 40-50 billion plastic bottles of water sold every year, only about 15% are recycled. This means that the rest, some 35-45 billion bottles, ends up in landfills. These plastic bottles can take up to 1000 years to disintegrate. They are also almost all made of plastics derived from fossil fuels.
So how do we protect the environment and kick the bottled water habit? Prepackaged water is largely a matter of convenience, due to the portability of the container. The secret to kicking the habit is to buy your own container. We water drinkers can learn a lesson from coffee drinkers who carry their travel mugs with them wherever they go. An inexpensive water bottle can be purchased at nearly any sporting goods store. Once you have your own bottle, it can easily be refilled at any public water fountain or any convenient tap. By buying your own bottle, you can reap the health benefits of water without contributing to the waste stream created by billions of disposable bottles

Moon Cocoons 6-11-07
Back in the 1980s, when NASA started planning for a permanent base on the Moon, it was decided that it would be far more economical to use materials already on the Moon than it would be to go to the expense of shipping all the necessary building materials there. So NASA started looking for designs that could be built from lunar materials. Enter Nader Khalili, a California architect. At the 1984 NASA symposium, "Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century," Khalili presented his unique design concept, the ecodome, nicknamed the ‘moon cocoon.’ Ecodomes are made of dirt-filled tubes. If you were to build one of these structures on the Moon, you’d only need to take the cloth tubes with you…you could use moon dust for the rest.
Ecodomes are constructed using tubes of cloth filled with a mixture of sand and clay or concrete powder. The tubes are then stacked, coil-method, in much the same way we made pottery in grade school. Barbed wire is placed between the rows of tubes to hold them in place. Once they are stacked into the shape of a dome, they are covered with stucco, adobe or plaster. Chicken wire can be inserted between the tubes to give the plaster something to adhere to. Windows and doors are incorporated into the buildings by simply stacking the tubes of earth around them. This method of building is similar to the earth bag method, but theoretically more sturdy and stable because you’re using one long coiled tube instead of many bags. You can also build accents into the domes using the coiled tubes. For example, Khalili has built benches by stacking them, like logs, until reaching a comfortable sitting height.
The unique and beautiful result of this method in the hands of a master builder must be seen to be believed. Khalili’s site, www.calearth.org, has a gallery of photographs of a village he designed using this method.
Khalili offers a kit for those interested in building their own ecodomes. A 400 square foot kit sells for $2400, and an 800 square foot kit is $3200. Ordering information for the kits is available at: http://www.calearth.org/EcoDome.htm. Although the kits meet code requirements in his home state of California (according to Uniform Building Code standards), you might want to check with your local building inspector before ordering, just to make sure you don’t have any nasty surprises further down the road.
Although a 400 sq. ft. home is a lot smaller than most of us are accustomed to, one of the principles of sustainable living is simplifying. By getting rid of some extra ‘stuff,’ you may find life in your ecodome quite comfortable. Another benefit of ecodome kits is that they are expandable, if you find you just can’t live in 400 sq. ft., you can always add on.
If ecodomes tickle your fancy, Khalili offers building seminars, open houses and workshops at his village in Hesperia, California. For more information, visit: www.calearth.org.

Building with Adobe 5-22-07
Variations of adobe can be seen all over the world. In fact, most homes today are still made of some sort of earth. In its most basic form, adobe is simply mud mixed with straw, then dried to shape. Adobe is often shaped into bricks by forming it into a brick mold. It is then dried in the sun and used for building.
Once built, the walls are covered with a lime or earth-based plaster. It’s not advisable to use concrete or cement stucco. Adobe walls have to breathe. Plasters allow moisture to escape from the walls, where concrete and cement will not. If the walls cannot breathe, you run the risk of having the stucco crack and fall off.
Adobe has a lot of thermal mass. This means that it retains heat well when it’s warmer outside, and it radiates this heat when it’s cooler outside. Although it has excellent thermal properties, it is not a very efficient insulator, so if you live in an area where there are extremes of temperature, you might want to consider incorporating some sort of insulation in your design. One way is to put a layer of insulating material between two layers of adobe. Another is to trap pockets of air between two adobe walls. A third option is to drywall the interior, putting insulation behind the drywall. This is my least favorite option, because you lose the beautiful feel and texture of an earthen wall by covering it with sheet rock.
How extreme do temperatures have to be before you consider insulation? That depends on a lot of factors, such as amount of exposure to sunlight, thickness of your walls, prevailing winds, and available shade. I have a friend in Canada who manages to make it through Yukon winters in her un-insulated adobe cabin. She says she’s quite comfortable with only her wood-fired stove.
Adobe is the ultimate in earth-friendly building materials, since it is made primarily of earth. You can literally build your home from the ground up, using materials readily available on your property. There are a few drawbacks, however. Many building inspectors aren’t familiar with adobe, although it is covered by many building codes. You may have to have an architect or engineer’s assistance to get your building plans approved. It is also a very labor-intensive process. You have to dig the mud yourself, then form it in molds, then stack it yourself. It helps if you have a lot of family and friends. Building with adobe is a rewarding experience, though, if you have the time. There’s just something about digging in the dirt that touches the child in all of us.

Public Transportation 4-15-07
One way of ‘greening’ your daily commute is to consider public transportation. I know, I know, nobody wants to ride the bus. But have you considered the benefits? Even if you can only commute by bus one day per week, you’ll have contributed by reducing emissions for that day. If every American commuted one day per week, it is estimated that we could reduce our fuel consumption in the U.S. by as much as 40%!
In addition to being a greener form of transportation, buses are much safer than automobiles. You can also catch up on work, read the newspaper or a novel, take a nap, or just chat with your fellow passengers while skipping traffic jams and road rage.
Riding the bus means less carbon emissions per passenger vs. the average automobile. It also means more efficient use of fuel per passenger. Not only that, but progressive communities are beginning to replace the diesel fuel in their buses with biodiesel. This means even less emissions while burning a sustainable fuel.
For an even greener form of transportation, ride the rails. As airlines continue to have financial problems and troubles with security, trains are looking better and better. France recently set a world speed record for a conventional rail train at 357.2 miles per hour. The all-time speed record for a train was a Japanese magnetic-levitation (maglev) train that reached a speed of 361 mph in 2003. Most jets cruise at speeds of 450 mph or less. Trains are catching up to airline speeds! While it is doubtful that trains will ever surpass jets, when you consider the amount of time required to drive to the airport and pass through security, the advantages of travel by train begin to add up.
Unfortunately the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in providing super high-speed train service to its citizens. The only super high-speed trains in operation at the present are in the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston. Political infighting usually kills any bill that would fund such projects at the federal level, but the National Conference of State Legislators (http://www.ncsl.org) has decided to take matters into their own hands. Florida is working on a train system using a mixture of public and private financing. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) began the project on January 1, 1997. Until 2022, FDOT will provide an annual average of $70 million for the development of this project. If Florida is successful, maybe the United States will catch up with the rest of the world in a generation or two.
Another green transportation choice that might not be so obvious is taxis. A regular gasoline-powered taxi has about the same emissions as your own car, but taxis are available at all hours of the day and are therefore used constantly instead of just sitting idle in the driveway. Additionally, as more communities become environmentally conscious, hybrid taxis and pedi-cabs are increasingly popular. Taxicab companies find that when they add greener options, they tend to beat out competitors who do not offer such choices.
Finally, if your community doesn’t offer public transportation, or if your public transportation is inadequate for whatever reason, you can take action yourself to change it. Write to your local newspaper. Notify your congresspersons. Start a grassroots movement. Let the people in charge know that you want public transportation and you want it now!

Green Transportation: Hybrids
Hybrid vehicles were fairly expensive when they first arrived on the market, but as gas prices and environmental concerns continue to rise, hybrid prices are on the decline. Automobile manufacturers are responding to consumer interest by offering more and more hybrid models. There are even hybrid SUVs that get around 60-80 mpg!
Hybrids are good for anyone accustomed to gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles. They have about the same amount of passenger room and performance as their more traditional counterparts. The difference is they use much less fuel. Some hybrids can get as much as 100 mpg on the highway. Hybrids are an excellent choice for consumers who are concerned about the environment but who don’t want to give up luxury and convenience.
Hybrids work by using a combination of electric motor and gasoline or diesel engine. Basically the electric motor works to move the vehicle, assisted by the gasoline engine when more power is needed or when the batteries need charging. For a detailed explanation, the Web site How Stuff Works has an excellent tutorial on hybrid vehicles at: www.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car1.htm.
The major problem with hybrids is that they still rely on fossil fuels. They do use less fossil fuel and have higher emissions standards, but they are not truly sustainable. Manufacturers seem to be catching on, though. Saab is planning to release a biofuel hybrid in the near future. This hybrid will run on E85 ethanol, which is much better than either a vehicle powered totally by fossil fuels or a hybrid vehicle powered by gasoline, but is still not totally sustainable.
The ‘Holy Grail’ of hybrids is the biodiesel hybrid. Such a hybrid would combine the durability and power of a diesel engine with the fuel economy of a hybrid. As of this writing, there are no companies who manufacture biodiesel hybrids, but according to Treehugger’s John Laumer, “DaimlerChrysler's future diesel hybrids will be based on the hybrid technology being developed with GM and would be available in late 2007 or early 2008.”
If we used flexible fuel vehicles alone, the United States would need a farm the size of roughly the size of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Louisiana combined, dedicated solely to the production of crops for biofuels, to meet fuel demands. If we converted to biodiesel hybrids instead, we could meet our current fuel needs with only one quarter of that acreage!
Another advantage of biodiesel hybrids is that they would run on either biodiesel or regular diesel fuel. This means that if you’re traveling and cannot find a station that sells biodiesel, you’re not stranded. You can always use regular diesel, while informing the station owner that he should be carrying biodiesel as well, of course. If you’re the hands-on, do-it-yourself type, you can even make your own biodiesel.
Of all the choices available for green transportation, biodiesel hybrids would be my top pick. If they are truly offered commercially in the near future, you can be assured that I will purchase one for myself, and I will be fueling it with my own homemade biodiesel, recycled from local fast food restaurants. If you ever want to find me, just follow the scent of french fries!

Green Transportation: Biodiesel
Did you know that the inventor of the diesel engine, Rudolph Diesel, intended it to run on pure peanut oil? His original vision for the diesel engine was as a replacement for the steam engine that could be run off of fuels that farmers would have readily available. Peanut oil was one of those fuels. It was later discovered that his engine could run just as well off of what later became diesel fuel, a by-product of the gasoline distillation process. Since diesel fuel was less expensive than peanut oil, Diesel’s original vision for his engine was cast aside.
Diesel vehicle owners worldwide are rediscovering Diesel’s original intent as they search for sustainable fuel alternatives. A sustainable alternative to petroleum-based diesel, known as ‘biodiesel,’ is gaining popularity as more people learn about it. Even celebrities are getting in on it! Woody Harrelson of television’s Cheers is a vocal supporter of biodiesel (www.voiceyourself.com) and guitarist and songwriter Willie Nelson even has his own brand of biodiesel, called ‘Biowillie’ (www.biowillie.com).
Biodiesel can be used in almost any car or truck with a diesel engine. It is non-toxic and biodegradable. Certain types of biodiesel may damage gaskets in older vehicles, so before trying to run it in your diesel vehicle you might want to check to see if yours is biodiesel compatible. You can find a list of biodiesel-compatible makes at the National Biodiesel Board’s site at www.biodiesel.org.
One drawback of biodiesel is that it tends to gel in the engine fuel lines in cold weather. A way around this is to use a heater on your engine in cold weather. This heater assures that the engine remains at a high enough temperature to keep the fuel from gelling in the lines. Another method of dealing with this problem is to mix biodiesel with regular diesel fuel. The problem here is that mixing it with a fossil-fuel based product reduces its sustainability factor, but since you’d only have to do this in the winter months it shouldn’t be much of a problem.
If you’re a ‘hands-on’ sort of person, you can even learn to make your own biodiesel at home from recycled fryer-vat grease! The complete instructions are available at many places online. A good place to start is http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html. I personally know several people who have worked out deals with local restaurants to cart off their used fryer grease so they can make their own fuel at home. A word of caution if you go this route: you might want to let the local sheriff’s department know what you’re up to so they won’t think you’re making moonshine!
Another drawback is that if you’re not the do-it-yourself type, it may be hard to find biodiesel in your area. The National Biodiesel Board maintains a list of filling stations that carry biodiesel, so you can check with them first if you’re considering making the switch. The advantage to burning biodiesel is that if your vehicle will run on biodiesel, it will also run on regular diesel. This means that if you can’t find biodiesel, you can always use regular diesel in a pinch.
If you don’t have a diesel vehicle right now, but are considering purchasing one so that you may use biodiesel, I’d suggest buying an older model first, after checking the National Biodiesel Board’s list of compatible autos. The reason for this is that using biodiesel will void most manufacturers’ warranties. An older vehicle won’t be under warranty, so that won’t be an issue. Manufacturers are slowly coming around, though. B20 (a blend of 20% biodiesel and 80% regular diesel) was just approved under warranty for some makes and models; however, progress is slow and it may be some time before B100 (pure biodiesel) won’t void your warranty. If you don’t mind taking a chance on an older vehicle, biodiesel might just be your key to sustainable driving.

Green Transportation: Flexible-fuel Vehicles
Flexible-fuel vehicles are designed to run on more than one type of fuel; usually either gasoline or E85 ethanol or both. The advantage of flex-fuel vehicles is that they come in the about the same sizes and have about the same performance as their pure gasoline-powered counterparts. If you can’t find E85 ethanol while you’re traveling, you can also burn regular gasoline in flex-fuel vehicle.
Ethanol is a type of alcohol, usually made from corn or other grains in the United States and from sugar cane in many South American countries, most notably Brazil. The designation ‘E85’ refers to the amount of ethanol content in the fuel. The higher the E-number, the higher the percentage of ethanol content. For example, E85 ethanol contains 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. You can learn more about ethanol from the American Coalition for Ethanol at www.ethanol.org.
Ethanol as a fuel is a mixed blessing. While it is sustainable in that it comes from plants that can be grown again every year, the process of converting it to fuel takes more energy than you get out of it. Of course, this is ultimately true of any fuel, including gasoline. The difference in fossil fuels is that the energy used to make crude oil was expended over millions of years. Other methods of producing ethanol and other types of fuel alcohol are currently under development. Many of these new methods have the potential of reducing the energy input required to produce fuel, so ethanol may become more economical in the future. There are also other types of alcohol (methanol, for example) that may be more economical in the long run.
In South America, sugar cane is used to produce ethanol. Sugar cane is much easier than corn to convert to ethanol. This means that the price for ethanol from sugar cane is considerably lower than that of ethanol from corn. Unfortunately there aren’t many suitable places in the United States to grow sugar cane right now. Perhaps one of the very few benefits of global warming is that more of the U.S. may have the proper climate for the growth or sugar cane in the future.
The only way that flexible fuel vehicles would be truly sustainable would be if they could burn E100 ethanol with no gasoline whatsoever. Some flex fuel vehicles can also run on E100 ethanol, but in general it would void the car’s warranty to deviate from the manufacturer’s recommendation of using E85.
Another thing to consider in using ethanol as an alternative fuel is the amount of land necessary to grow enough corn to meet our fuel needs at present consumption rates. The Earth Policy Institute estimates that in order for the United States to meet its current energy needs with ethanol alone, we’d need 250 million acres of land dedicated to growing corn for ethanol production. This is an area roughly the size of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Louisiana combined! Of course, we could reduce this amount considerably by practicing fuel conservation or by producing more efficient vehicles, but even if we didn’t reduce our consumption demands, consider what a boon to our farmers this would be!
An advantage to flexible-fuel vehicles is that they are available right now. In fact, over 70% of the cars sold in Brazil last year were flex-fuel, and the trend seems to be catching on in the United States as well. If you are interested in purchasing a flexible fuel vehicle, or would like more information, visit the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition (http://www.e85fuel.com/). This site also has information on where you can purchase E85 ethanol near you.

Green Transportation: Compressed Air Vehicles
Way back in the 19th century, novelist Jules Verne predicted that cars of the future would run on compressed air. Well, the future is here! Motor Development International (MDI) has developed just such a vehicle (www.theaircar.com). If you drive less than fifty miles per day at less than forty miles per hour, these inexpensive vehicles may just be the green alternative for you. The current prototypes, the MiniCAT and the CityCAT, both run on compressed air. The CityCAT will have a longer range than the MiniCAT, but the operating principle is still the same: a tank of compressed air runs a two-cylinder engine that propels the vehicle. The MiniCAT has a maximum range of about 120 miles and a maximum speed of 40 mph. It runs exclusively on a compressed air tank that may be refueled in about three minutes at any station that has a high-capacity air compressor. It may alternatively be refilled by using the car’s onboard compressor, which runs on electricity and may be plugged into any standard outlet. Using this method requires about four hours for a recharge.
The CityCAT is a duel-energy vehicle. It runs on compressed air for short trips under 60 mph, and when more power and longer range are needed, it can be run on its internal combustion engine. It has a maximum speed in excess of 100 mph and a range of approximately 200-250 miles before refueling. While either of these cars is a bit small for the entire family, they are perfect commuter cars for urban travel.
Either model produces zero pollution when operating in compressed air mode; however, the CityCAT has the same emissions problems as any other internal combustion engine when running on gasoline. The slight advantage here is that since it is a smaller car than most standard production cars on the market today, it would presumably use less fuel and therefore generate less pollution. There is another precaution to consider with CAT vehicles. Whether recharging the tank by plugging into a convenient outlet or by a commercial compressor, the electricity used would have to come from a green energy provider in order for the car to be truly non-polluting. If the electricity used to recharge the tank is coming from a power plant that burns fossil fuels, the pollution is just being transferred up the supply chain. The simple solution to this would of course be to purchase your electricity from a green power facility.
The current projected price for these vehicles is surprisingly inexpensive, at around $7000 to $10,000 each. When compared with the cost of hybrids and other alternative energy vehicles, these minis appear to be an amazingly good value for your transportation dollar.
After several false starts, MDI has cautiously estimated that both the MiniCAT and the CityCAT will be commercially available sometime in 2009. They are currently undergoing a lengthy licensing process to make the vehicles available to the general public worldwide. To chart the progress of the air car, you may visit MDI’s Web site at www.theaircar.com.

Green Transportation: Human-powered Vehicles
In 1817, Baron Karl von Drais invented a prototype bicycle called the velocipede. This was a bicycle without the pedals. He used it to get around his extensive gardens more quickly. It was propelled much like a skateboard, by pushing off of the ground with both feet. Incidentally, the reason von Drais focused on inventing a horseless form of transportation is that the price of grain (used for horse ‘fuel’) had suddenly risen in his native Germany. Could history be repeating itself, considering our current ongoing price increases for crude oil?
The bicycle may just be the most efficient form of transportation ever invented. Even a person who is only moderately fit can make a trip of ten or fifteen miles in less than an hour on a good bicycle. With only an afternoon’s education, even technically inept people (like myself) can learn to do basic repairs on a bicycle. They are very affordable, even for people of modest means. And they are so easy to operate that a child can do it.
One drawback to the bicycle is that while it is excellent for getting an individual from one place to another over relatively short distances, it’s not much help at carrying cargo. If you have to take anything bigger than the average briefcase with you, it’s going to be difficult to do so on a bicycle. Fortunately, tricycles aren’t just for children. In fact, the tricycle was invented for well-to-do adults in the middle 1800s so that bicycle enthusiasts could take passengers along with them. Today’s tricycles are highly efficient, mult-geared and lightweight. Most come with a cargo basket attached to the back, and they can be purchased for as little at $300-$400. There are even four-wheeled ‘bicycles,’ called ‘quadricycles,’ with even more cargo capacity than tricycles. Such vehicles are perfect for those trips to the corner market or just for cruising around the neighborhood. There are collapsible models that can fit on an automobile bike rack too. This makes such vehicles perfect for family vacations. You can use the family car to get to your vacation destination, then use the tricycle or quadricycle to see the sights.
Bicycles haven’t traditionally been as popular in the United States as in Europe, simply because here in the U.S. things are spread out a great deal more, but even in the U.S., if you live in the right location you can replace your car with a bicycle for most close-to-home travel. There are even tricycles and quadricycles that come with roofs so that bad weather isn’t as much of an issue. Ideally a small-town resident could rely on a bicycle to get to work, a tricyle or quadricycle for grocery and shopping trips, and an automobile for those long-distance trips to visit relatives or for vacations. And of course, the greatest advantage of a bicycle is that there are no emissions whatsoever…unless you count a little sweat on those uphill climbs!
If you’re interested in getting back in shape for summer while doing something positive for the environment, think about buying a bicycle, tricycle or quadricycle. Good luck, and happy cycling!

Ecotourism
With summer fast approaching, many people are in the process of planning their vacations. A relatively new idea in vacationing is ecotourism. According to the International Ecotourism Society (www.ecotourism.org), ‘ecotourism’ is “Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.” Ecotourism is about connecting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel.
Ecotourism packages are designed to minimize the impact of travel on the local ecosystem. Instead of tour buses, such trips often use bicycles, hikes, canoes or other non-polluting forms of transportation. Once you arrive at your destination, you get to experience life in the local culture. You might participate in a tribal festival or help with the harvest. You might build a church, school or other needed building. You might use your expertise and training to help the local villagers dig a well, improve their healthcare, or plan their village’s development. Ultimately ecotourism is about learning from and contributing to the local culture; gaining mutual respect, education and maybe even friendship.
Many ecotourism adventures take place in more rural settings in agrarian communities, where people are more in tune with nature and have a deeper appreciation of the growing cycles and seasons of the year. They have learned to take care of the land because they depend upon it for their survival. By vacationing in these locations, you have the opportunity to immerse yourself in cultures that have a deeper appreciation for the benefits of nature. In many ecotourism vacations you will also gain firsthand experience in implementing conservation measures, and the cost of your vacation package will contribute to sustainable development for the people who live at your destination.
Another benefit of ecotourism is the cultural exchange. By participating in the local culture, you become aware of the political situation there. You become sensitive to the political, environmental and economic concerns of the region. With such sensitivity comes awareness. This awareness helps to build community and understanding around the world. You are in effect an ambassador of goodwill, learning about the customs and concerns of other peoples in other nations.
A particular type of ecotourism that environmentalists might be interested in is sustainable travel. Sustainable travel is designed in part for the benefit of the locals. If you have special skills or education that they could benefit from, a sustainable travel package would allow you to volunteer for a brief or extended period to put your skills to work for the local community. For example, if you are a teacher, you might teach a class. If your specialty is construction, you might plan a building for use in the community. If you are a health care specialist, you might set up a clinic. If your specialty is agriculture, you might educate the locals in sustainable crop development. A skilled travel agent can take an inventory of your talents and put them to work in many locations throughout the world. If you don’t have any specialized skills, don’t worry. There are still many hands-on opportunities that require little or no skills. You might find yourself building a home for a needy family, digging a garden, or making a road. The possibilities are endless!
Ecotourism is a hot topic right now, therefore most travel agents have ecotourism packages. Check with your local travel agent for details. If your town’s agent doesn’t offer ecotours, you may also visit The International Ecotourism Society’s site at: www.ecotourism.org.

Raising Green Kids
One of the by-products of living in a throwaway society is that our children spend a lot of time in automobiles eating fast foods from disposable containers. They also spend most of their time indoors in front of the television, computers and video games. Not only do these activities contribute to the continual pollution of the environment, but they also contribute to a more sedentary, less active and therefore less healthy lifestyle.
Our junk food diet can have many negative effects on our children. Hormone residues in commercial beef products could contribute to the early onset of puberty in girls, while bovine growth hormone has been linked to increased risk of cancer. Obesity is an epidemic in the United States, especially among our children. According to the American Diabetes Association’s current estimate, one in three children born in 2000 will be at risk for diabetes. We’ve taught our children to sacrifice nutrition for the sake of convenience, and now we are reaping what we’ve sown.
Diet isn’t the only source of problems for our children. Teen suicide is becoming more common every year in the United States. Could it be that one of the causes of the increase in teen suicide is that our teens have discovered that buying more ‘stuff’ isn’t the key to happiness? Media messages bombard our children with the idea that if they have the right clothes, listen to the right music, eat the right food and drink the right sodas they will be happy and popular. Our children are given the illusion that happiness lies in owning and consuming more. Our children buy more and more material goods in a quest for happiness and popularity. When they discover that these things didn’t make them any happier, the impact can be devastating.
The influence that television and mass media have on our children is so great that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children two years old and younger shouldn’t watch television at all. After the age of two, they recommend a maximum of one hour a day. But in the real world, children go to school and have friends with televisions, video games, and material goods. How can you raise a child to want to live sustainably without becoming a family of hermits?
One way is to teach them to occupy their time with activities that offer opportunities for learning and personal growth. You can find local environmental organizations that offer activities for children. By taking your children to such activities, they’ll meet new friends who have been taught similar lessons about sustainability and the environment. If there aren’t any such organizations in your area, why not start one? What better way to get your children involved in environmental issues than by having them participate in creating a green organization for children!
The more green events you can attend that are family-friendly, the more opportunities your children will have to interact with positive role models and peer influences.
Don’t forget that children learn more by example than by what you tell them. If you want to raise green children, you have to live a green lifestyle yourself. As my children have gotten older I’ve often been pleasantly surprised when they have shown me that they were paying attention after all, even though at times I felt as if I were talking to a post. They’re watching and paying attention more than you know. If they see you expressing concern for the environment, then they will too. Be a good example, and you and your children will reap the rewards!

Ecopsychology: Joining Ecology and Psychology
Last weekend I got a chance to drive through the rural countryside where I grew up. Much of the land has been clear-cut for rural subdivisions and shopping centers. The loss of the forests and fields where I grew up hit me hard. It was like losing an old friend. When you grow up in a rural environment, the nature that surrounds you becomes a part of you. It changes the way you think and feel about yourself.
In March I will be presenting research at the University of South Carolina on the topic of Ecopsychology. Ecopsychology ties ecology and psychology together. The basic theory behind the field of study is that the environment around us impacts our mental health. I first got interested in the subject when I read that people who live in urban settings are twice as prone to depression as those who live in rural settings. Ecopsychology show us that nature has the power to heal us mentally as well as physically.
In researching the many beneficial effects of nature, I discovered that therapists throughout the world have used the healing power of nature to enhance therapy for their clients. Facilitated wilderness trips have been used to successfully treat everything from depression to addiction. Experiencing nature has been demonstrated to lead to enhanced relaxation and better functioning of the immune system. Nature experiences have also been demonstrated to enhance self-awareness and self-actualization. Many people have deep spiritual experiences in the woods.
The benefits of nature are not limited to those who live in a rural setting. Studies have found that patients in hospitals who have a view of a garden heal much faster than people who don’t have such a view. People who decorate their homes with living houseplants are less depressed than people who don’t. Those who have the space for a backyard garden can also reap health benefits from tending their fruits, vegetables and flowers. Home gardens have been linked to greater levels of overall relaxation and reduced stress.
If you don’t have a backyard and don’t have the room for houseplants, you can still reap the benefits of nature. Dr. James Gramann of Texas A & M University, in a 1999 study, demonstrated that simply listening to the sounds of nature (recordings of birds singing, waterfalls, etc.) might significantly reduce stress.
The human race lived for millennia in nature. The urbanization of humankind is a fairly recent development. By experiencing nature as often as possible in our lives we are placing ourselves back into our natural world. Losing our wild places can sometimes be as traumatic as losing a family member. Considering the many benefits of nature, when we fail to take care of the environment, we are failing to take care of ourselves.

The Precautionary Principle 2-26-07
A new approach to sustainable living and the environment is being tried in many cities and states across the country. This new idea is known as the Precautionary Principle. The Precautionary Principle is new in that it doesn’t ask, "How much harm is acceptable?" but instead asks, "How much harm is avoidable?" The advantage of this approach is that it encourages us to set goals, and to consider environmentally sound ways of achieving those goals.
This is an especially effective method for state and local governments to use because it takes a proactive approach to environmental issues. Think of it as using a little ‘preventive medicine’ to prevent problems before they occur rather than trying to play catch-up once the damage has been done. The Precautionary Principle gives us something to be ‘for’ instead of something to be ‘against.’
There are a few basic concepts in the Precautionary Principle. These are:
Preventative anticipation: Meaning that if a policy or action could potentially be harmful to the environment, the burden of proof lies with the industry or institution to prove that it is safe. This means that the government and the public would not have to prove that such a policy is harmful in order to prevent its implementation.
Safeguarding: This of this as ‘erring on the side of caution.’ This principle says that safety margins should not even be approached, much less breached.
Proportionality: Basically this means that the risks of an action should not outweigh the benefits. In other words, if there are a lot of unknowns about the potential harm of an action, these unknowns are assumed to be risks of harm until proven otherwise, instead of vice-versa, as is common policy today.
Duty of Care: The agency proposing the change has the duty to demonstrate that it will not harm the environment. This is more proactive than most current systems, where those who protest an action must prove that it is harmful in order to stop the action.
The basic theory behind the Precautionary Principle is that in complex systems, such as ecospheres and/or biospheres, there may not be enough data to correctly judge the environmental impact of a change. In such a case, the Precautionary Principle states that the best way to ‘do no harm’ is to avoid any chance of risk. While every new technology carries with it some inherent risk, the Precautionary Principle automatically assumes a worst-case scenario before implementing a new technology.
It is a way of looking at things, rather than an absolute hard and fast rule. In general, it means assuming that any new technology could be potentially harmful until proven otherwise, as opposed to assuming that a new technology is safe until proven otherwise. As a general guideline, it is now being considered in environmental legislation throughout the country. If you are active in environmental issues in your local government, ask them about the Precautionary Principle. If they’ve never heard of it, now’s the time to introduce them!

Gambling with the Future
In his State of the Union address on January 31, President Bush stated, “America is addicted to oil.” Although the United States makes up only five percent of the world’s population, we use an estimated 25% of the world’s energy resources. A large percentage of this is oil and other fossil fuels. Clearly there is some truth to the President’s words. We are addicted.
One of the characteristics common to addiction is denial. An addict does not want to admit he has a problem, so he finds creative ways to rationalize his addictive behavior. This may be the case with people who deny that humans are playing any significant part in global warming. Increasingly, scientific evidence demonstrates that human activities are having a considerable impact.
On February 5, 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest findings on global warming and climate change. You may read the entire report for yourself at: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf . The study compared atmospheric samples with ice core samples up to 650,000 years ago. The contents of the atmosphere are trapped in polar ice caps, and by studying ice core samples, the atmosphere may be analyzed for thousands of years in the past. The study concluded that, “The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 parts per million to 300 parts per million) as determined from ice cores. The annual carbon dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years…than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements.”
The report also concluded that it is more likely than not that man-made factors are contributing substantially to the increase in average global temperatures, and that it is very unlikely that the changes in climate during the past seven centuries were caused by natural climate variability alone. In other words, human activities are contributing significantly to global warming.
In the section of the IPCC report on predictions (based on climate modeling), the study concluded that it is very likely that in the future we will experience more frequent heat waves, periods of heavier precipitation, more intense hurricanes and cyclones, major changes in wind, precipitation and weather patterns, and constant rise in sea levels. Even if carbon dioxide emissions were stabilized today, the damaging effects could continue for up to 1000 years.
The IPCC is made up of top scientists in the fields of meteorology, climatology and other related sciences from 113 countries worldwide. Over 90% of the scientists who work with the IPCC are in agreement that human activities are playing a significant part in climate change.
Those who deny that man-made greenhouse gases are making an impact are therefore considerably in the minority. It may be that the majority of scientists in the field are mistaken, and that this small minority is correct in their assessment that humans aren’t contributing to global warming. The majority is sometimes wrong; however, with the world literally at stake, are you willing to bet your children’s future on the outcome?

What if Global Warming Doesn’t Exist?
On January 30, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on government interference in research conducted by climate scientists working for federal agencies. The panelists included Dr. Francesca Grifo, Director of the Scientific Integrity Program, and Rick Piltz, formerly of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. Plitz resigned that post in 2005, citing government censorship of climate change scientists as his reason for doing so.
At that hearing, the panelists continually cited references to the fact that there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists that human activities are significantly contributing to global warming. In spite of this, there are many who insist that global warming is solely a natural phenomenon and that human activities play no significant part in planetary climate change.
You don’t have to be a scientist to know that something is amiss when daffodils are blooming in January. So the question is whether we are contributing to global warming, not whether it is actually occurring.
Let’s ignore the majority scientific opinion and assume for a moment that humans play no significant part in climate change. Granted this assumption, would the proposed actions to curtail greenhouse gases serve any benefit whatsoever? Since the majority of planned action on global warming involves curtailing the use of fossil fuels, consider the following:
Even if humans play no part in global warming, would lessening or even eliminating our dependence on foreign oil by developing biofuels and other fuel alternatives be a good thing or a bad thing?
Even if humans play no part in global warming, would producing more hybrid cars that can get 100 mpg be a good thing or a bad thing?
Even if humans play no part in global warming, would reducing or even eliminating coal burning power plants by replacing them with alternative energy sources that don’t pollute the atmosphere be a good thing or a bad thing?
Even if humans play no part in global warming, would building homes with green technology so that they use less energy and resources be a good thing or a bad thing?
Even if humans play no part in global warming, would eliminating runaway deforestation be a good thing or a bad thing?
There are two possible answers to whether humans are contributing to global warming: either we are, or we aren’t. If we aren’t, but if we still take actions to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases, there are significant benefits to be gained by creating a cleaner environment and minimizing or eliminating dependence on foreign oil. But if the majority scientific consensus is correct, and we are contributing to global warming, yet take no action on it, do the benefits of taking no action outweigh the risks?

10 Things We Can Do to Decrease Global Warming
With both the President and Congress considering legislation on the issue of global warming, many people are wondering exactly what we can do to minimize greenhouse gases. Here are a few proposals:
1. There are 2 billion cars in the world. In the U.S., the average fuel economy is 22 mpg. We have the technology to increase fuel economy to between 30 and 60 mpg. Automakers should consider offering a wider range of more fuel-efficient vehicles until zero-emissions vehicles can be designed and manufactured (see item 10).
2. Decrease car travel through using public transportation, telecommuting, biking or walking. The latter two choices have the added benefit of providing daily exercise.
3. Use energy-saving measures such as compact fluorescent lighting, energy-efficient appliances and added insulation to decrease energy consumption in all existing buildings by up to 25%. Design future buildings using green-building techniques to create no harmful emissions and to be as energy-efficient as possible. The new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification is a step in the right direction.
4. Stop clear-cutting our rainforests. Double the rate of new tree plantings. More trees mean less carbon dioxide. This is something anyone can do. All you need are a few seedlings and a place to plant them.
5. By using ‘conservation tillage’ techniques, soil erosion could be slowed or even stopped in many farms throughout the world. Less soil erosion means more plants. More plants means less carbon dioxide. Encouraging local and organic farming decreases transportation costs to and from distant markets (and therefore carbon emi