After a Warm December, February 3

Daily Courier
by Daniel Hertzler
Saturday, February 3, 2007

After a Warm December

After the warmest December I can remember, we entered January with no snow. Is this global warming? At first some of the weather people said, "No. It is just El Nino."

But then I heard a change in position. It is said that 2006 has been the warmest year on record, and 2007 may be warmer.

In the meantime we are told that the polar ice is melting and polar bears may become an endangered species because of the lack of ice on which to travel while searching for food. It is time for us to take global warming seriously. I have seen the Al Gore film, "An Inconvenient Truth," and I believe that if we do not make adjustments in lifestyle our climate will be changed.

Corporate change and individual change are both important. For some reason, corporations generally wait for the federal government to lean on them before making such changes. The gasoline shortage of the 1970s got the attention of the Congress. They enacted mileage standards and Detroit found they could make the change. But the lawmakers left a loophole in the law large enough for pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles to drive through, polluting freely.

As a result our average mileage has declined in the last 20 years.

While we wait for the government to act there are things we can do. One or two of us alone will not make much difference. We need millions acting together. One of the most obvious and easiest ways to save energy is to replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs. I understand that many are reluctant to make this change.

Why is this? Because fluorescent bulbs cost more? If this is the reason, you can do the math. The fluorescent bulbs take one-fourth the electricity and last roughly five times as long. My wife and I began to change bulbs some 10 years ago and we still have one of our original fluorescent bulbs.

According to the Energy Star Web site, for every American household to substitute five fluorescent bulbs for incandescent bulbs will save them something like $60 a year and "prevent greenhouse gas equivalent to the emissions from more than 8 million cars." You can check on this at www.energystar.gov. Then you should hustle over to the nearest hardware store and ask for screw-in fluorescent bulbs.

The next move is to drive a smaller, more fuel-efficient car. This change takes more drastic action then changing bulbs, but it can be done. Another way to save gas is to drive more slowly. We always assume there is a hurry but is it really so? Mother Jones magazine in the January/February 2007 issue has an article featuring Wayne Gerdes, who is obsessive about getting high mileage. He gets it by driving very carefully, even trying to avoid using the brakes. He follows the white line at the edge of the highway, which gets a car out of the grooves and puddles on the road and makes it easier for the rest of the traffic to pass him since he goes more slowly.

Another energy saver is J. Matthew Sleeth, M.D., who left a job as an emergency room director and moved to New Hampshire, where "we use less than one-third of the fossil fuels and one-quarter of the electricity we once used. We've gone from leaving two barrels of trash by the curb each week to leaving one bag every few weeks. We no longer own a clothes dryer, garbage disposal, dishwasher or lawn mower" ("Serve God, Save the Planet," Page 4). Are these energy wasters really necessary for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Wasting energy is a little like a food addiction. The question of whether there is yet time to save the planet from global warming is apparently still open. It may not be too late to go on a comprehensive energy diet, but the time to start is now.

See the article here