What U Can Do

I tend to have a "tragedy of the commons" take on our future. One person's actions will be insufficient to have an impact on the disaster a'comin' and, in the meantime, that person loses out on the enjoyment that one more last evening spin in the roadster can provide. Without concerted collectively organized action and regulation of the institutions that really do impact our emissions, we'll feel better about ourselves as we sweat and run from tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes. I prefer to call it realism (although I do turn out lights, avoid unnecessary trips, keep the thermostat higher than I would like, and drive a '95 Saturn that still gets better gas mileage than most else sold since).

However, for those of you who want that good feeling and/or still think that individuals by themselves can actually make a difference, Joseph Romm does a nice job describing what he's done to reduce his carbon footprint (after basically agreeing with me about the impact of one person's contribution). He also points us to a Popular Science piece that shows a couple of very do-able ways to develop your own wind and solar power sources. So, if you've been looking for ways to do your part while governments and corporations dither, get to it. (Just don't count on planting trees getting it done.)