now we can swim any day in november

in light of 2006 being the warmest year on record it seems like a good time to either panic about our impending doom, or start cranking out the homemade biodiesel and put our own stamp on the "fight global warming" movement. while we may not all be able to drive the diesel vw golf of stephen's dreams, there are plenty of pretty easy things to do to help steer our pretty planet back in the right direction. al gore would be so proud.

1. super easy. join terrapass. for a variable sum (for a cr-v it's about $40) you can buy a yearly pass to counteract the emissions of your car and eliminate your carbon footprint, which they'll reinvest in green energy. now you can also buy them for your plane trips and for your house. it's not a ton of money and it makes a measurable difference. they have a third party audit them to verify where the money goes as well. they send you stickers too, and who doesn't like stickers?

2. also easy. buy more local food. yeah, it costs more. but the less time it takes your food to get to you, the fresher it is, the less possessed it has to be to stay that way, the better it tastes and is for you, the less chemicals it contains, etc.

3. even better- eat less meat. know very much about how your meat gets to your table? the way we farm animals has direct consequences on our emissions levels, in particular cows. what to do about it? eat less meat for one, support organic, grass-fed beef for another. there are plenty of farms working towards sustainable agriculture and there are co-op farms you can join or buy food direct from the farm- find them here.

4. not so easy- walk, ride your bike, take the bus. this one depends on where you live. of the many places i've lived over the past couple of years, i can honestly say most of the time you could suck it up and walk, but that bike riding was mostly out of the question due to traffic and lack of bike lanes or sidewalks. buses are practically non-existent outside of university campuses and large cities, unless we're talking europe, in which case all public transport is superior, even in luxembourg. bully for them.

5. install those cool looking fluorescent bulbs, turn the heat down, etc, etc, wash your clothes on cold. you know the drill kids, they've only been teaching us this stuff since the second grade. even the repubs are jumping on the save the planet bandwagon, and it's about freaking time.

you already knew all this, right? right. well consider this a friendly new year's reminder to do your recycling, walk someplace once in a while, and stop being so happy it's 55 degrees in january. cute little penguins in antarctica are losing their homes. or something like that.

and really, none of this stuff will do any good unless there are real changed enacted on a national level. i say national because we're responsible for more of this than any other industrialized nation, and i think it follows that we ought to act accordingly to work to fix it. in all likelihood, the government won't be the ones doing the work here....organizations like terrapass, or the apollo alliance, or even states, will be pushing for change. george monbiot's new book "heat" attempts to present some real-world solutions as well, more than just "drive less", etc,...here's a review.