Here is my reasoning. When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is check email (Yes - it sounds geeky but I really spend at least 15 minutes skimming through my mail right after I wake up). Starting from that every action I do comprises of a threat to the environment.
1. The computers are made of plastic / silicon / ceramics and other heavy metals. They won't run forever and one day they'll have to go. Due to their design its extremely difficult (if not impossible) to recycle them and the most probable place they'll end up is the landfill. The effect is doubled since I usually have two computers running.
2. They consume electricity. My power company (DP&L) primarily uses coal and I contribute green house gases (despite the best efforts to reduce emissions by DP&L) per every clock tick.
done with email! I walk over to the washing basin and open the tap for hot water. The moment I do so warm water starts flowing, kept hot by an electric heater, which contributed much more green house gases than my beloved computers.
Then I walk over to the kitchen, fill a bowl with my favorite cereal (Honey bunches of Oats), pour some milk into it and put it in the microwave to heat for 1 minute.
3. The cereal is made of primarily corn and wheat (and also oats as its name suggests) which has been grown in large farms, farms which were built on natural pastures and add a startling amount of pesticides and artificial fertilizers to keep growth to a maximum.
4. Same goes to the milk - which did not come from a 'friendly neighborhood farm' but the nearest supermarket.
5. The microwave, fridge that kept the milk, they all consumed a hefty amount of kilowatts pushing out more greenhouse gases.
I didn't even walk out of the kitchen yet but I've contributed lot to emitting a bunch of greenhouse gases.
The point of this somewhat funny (nevertheless true) account of my daily routine is to show that the sane way of life is not possible without effecting the environment. Unlike some extremist environment groups who think that progress should have zero effects on the environment, our mere existence effects the environment significantly.
So what ? Is there anything we can do about it ? Obviously we cannot make it zero and some of the counter measures we plan to put in place don't change things a lot. [ This reminds me of something I noted in a public rest room in Berkley CA (yeah - odd place to find interesting slogans ;)). The usual paper towels has been replaced with a electric hot air blow dryer with a boiler plate saying 'save the environment, use less paper'. Next to the boiler plate written in a marker pen 'yeah, and burn a lot of coal to generate electricity']. It is amply clear that we cannot go back to the untouched state of the earth and we should accept the fact that we cannot exist without being a significant effect on the environment. But at the same time we as humans should not act as we don't understand the importance of the earths balance. For the most part of it, majority of us (including me I should confess) did not take this seriously. Yes, I switch off the extra lights and use CFLs everywhere in our house but I did that in thoughts of less electricity cost than less impact to the environment.
However things are taking a slow change (primarily due to the rise of oil prices). Here in US, there is a lot of interest in using power saving appliances. There are plans to do more power generation with environmentally friendly technologies such as geo-thermal or wind power. Wind farms are coming up everywhere (interestingly the state of Texas being one of the leaders)and there is major initiative going on to reduce dependency on oil. Oil companies are now known as energy providers and market themselves as environmentally responsible enterprises [Though I have suspicions about how responsible they are]. All in all we are seeing good changes in the way things are being done. It does not mean by any way that you should jump into everything that has the green label. (Electric blow dryer being a naive example)
If you've cared to read until now and not tired of my rambling, here is the message to take home. 'Save the green but don't go to extremes'!
