An Inconveniet Truth

Here's one of the slides from Gore's presentation in the "An Inconveniet Truth". The slide is actually taken from World Resource Institute (WRI).

You can see how the world is advancing in setting fuel emission standards, even China (they are doing something!), but see how behind the US.


From citymayor.com:

More than 210 US mayors have signed up to Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' initiative on taking local responsibility for carbon emissions in the absence of support for Kyoto from the current US federal government. Attention now turns to what they are doing to meet the challenge with limited powers and resources. Denver mayor John Hickenlooper told City Mayors at the recent 2006 New Partners for Smart Growth conference, held in his city: "In the US our federal government has shown no inclination to address this issue. As cities we are going to conform to the Kyoto protocol. Instead of top down in terms of our climate we perhaps need to tackle it from the bottom up."

Another thing I liked about Gore's presentation, is stating the fact that the environmental problem is not just an environmental problem, but it's a development issue (or even, Gore refers to it as a moral issue).

It's something like the point I'm trying to make when people are surprise that I'm an economics major working for an environmental NGO. people never thought of economics as a development issue (and environment is a development issue)...or people never thought of the economics effect of environment (vise versa).

Simple tips:
Think about how you travel around the town and elsewhere. Could you walk, cycle, take the bus or car share for a couple of days a week?

Reduce energy use by switching off lights, computers, TVs and other electrical equipment when not in use and fit energy efficient light bulbs where you can. [My Mom has been switching some our light bulbs gradually -for her does light bulbs were expensive- with these energy efficient ones. believe me, ..her motive was not reducing global warming, it was economic motives :-) she's the true economist in our house..hehehe]
Use your recycling bin to recycle bottles, cans and paper or take them to your local recycling bank or the Civic Amenity site.

Get a compost bin and a water butt to recycle your kitchen waste and collect water for the garden.

Buy food from local producers to save 'food miles'. Some supermarkets stock local food, otherwise visit your local farmers’ market or farm shops. Shop for other local goods and services too and try to buy products with less packaging and a longer life to reduce waste.