Today is Blog Action Day, and strikingly similar to the first topic I participated in three years ago. And just like then and last year, I still feel as though I don’t have much to say about the topic. I’m not a scientist, I’m not an expert, but I am concerned, so I guess that counts, at least enough.
A few weeks ago I recounted getting off of Route 66 and onto 22 and seeing a giant billboard proclaiming man-made global warming to be “the big lie.” I think at this point you either believe climate change is real, or you have forgone all rational thought. Now, the extent to which the human race has affected climate change is something up for debate, but we do not live in a vacuum, to think that we have had zero impact on the Earth is moronic.
But, more importantly, what can we do? And even more poignantly, what can I do? I said above, probably not much. But I’m going to try, every little bit helps, and is always surprises me how much small actions really do matter. Pittsburgh’s own green iniative, you know, the one with the most ridiculously long URL in history, encourages residents (and those like me who aren’t residents but wanted to see what was going on) to take on small steps. One of the first was to change out old style light bulbs to CFLs as they burn out. This small step saves not only money on energy bills, physical resources as they do not have to changed as often, but tons of carbon emissions from entering the air.
I’ve been fiddling around with the power settings on my computer. It’s been an ongoing process, but I think I’ve almost found the perfect settings. I don’t need my computer on during the day when I’m not there, it just sucks up power, and I only need it to be on a little bit in the morning before I go to work so it can download new podcasts and sync with my Zune. So I headed over to Lifehacker, found a nifty little program and went from there, creating a power schedule that is more robust than what comes standard with XP and allows me to minimize the power consumption of my desktop.
It’s a little step, and took maybe five minutes of work, plus maybe 15 in total since to tweak, but it saves a lot of unnecessary power day in and day out. It’s what I can do. And yes, climate change encompasses so much more than what I’ve talked about here. It brings in economics, agriculture, water resources, politics and science. But those are things that I don’t always understand and nothing that I can really speak to. Sure, I can hope to encourage people to choose clean energy, but I’ve discussed that before, and feel like I beat it to death over the summer, so I’ll stick to simple things.
Will I be able to affect climate change on a global scale? Probably not, my invitation to the Copenhagen Summit must be lost in the mail (or that crazy senator who is going to protest outside might have taken it, who knows), but I can try to do my part and I’ll keep finding small ways to help, and to empower.
Looking for more? Check out Blog Action Day (www.blogactionday.org).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CnIJ19EVMo
