Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Interesting piece over at the Tork Better Business Center.

I was raised by parents who lived by the rule "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."  My Da actually made a big deal of how many squares of toilet paper to use!  Most likely this was to do with money - a hangover from being raised during the Great Depression - but as the 70s dawned and my Mama got the "Earth Day" religion, the emphasis was placed more and more on "saving the Earth," as we said back then.

So I am a scrimper and a saver.  I wash my plastic bags, and re-use twist ties, and store leftovers in old pasta sauce jars, and in general drive my husband crazy with old yogurt cartons falling out of the cupboards and paper towels left carefully to dry on the edge of the sink.  (Not the ones that have wiped up chicken juices.  I am frugal, not disgusting!)


Lately, I have been thinking that sweeping, people-driven, government-led/legislated action is the only realistic and viable way to tackle climate change.  But the small stuff has to happen, too.  Tiny changes, summed over large numbers, can produce big results.  I've known that all along, but have lost sight of it.  Have you?

Bassett, Iowa

Draft National Climate Assessment!

Here it is!  This is the draft report that, over at Mother Jones, Chris Mooney seems to think will kick the average American's butt into High Scared Gear about climate change.

Me?  I am not so sanguine.  I hate to sound like Jeremy Clarkson (who, when asked if he'd ever met an American named Jeremy, retorted, "No, it's too complicated - there's three syllables) but I think it needs to come with pictures and simple examples.  I doubt one in fifty Americans will even hear about the report, much less navigate to it, click the proper links and read - really READ - what's contained therein.

And frankly, we mostly don't know enough science to really grok what the report lays out.  Ask the average American what a 10 degree annual temperature rise will do to the climate, and they're likely to answer that it will just make things nice and summery, and ooh! they do wish they were in Florida right now.

I know I sound crabby.  I am crabby.  I am the person you are referring to when you say "Oh ye of little faith."

Folks - if we don't do something now, ONE OF THESE IS YOUR CAR: