How does the issue of "Global Warming" affect your lifestyle?

Question

"Global Warming" has been a main issue everywhere nowadays. As a human being, we all have a significant part in destroying our planet. There's nobody else to blame for the cause of Global Warming but us. And there's nobody else can help our planet now but us.

Instead of finding who's the one to blame, let us all together find ways to help our planet. Small contributions would make a big impact on our beloved mother earth. What contributions have you guys made in order to prevent the Global Warming from worsening?

Let's together make a world a better place to live in. Save our planet! Save our mother earth! ^-^

Answer 1

Hey, this section needs a cheerleader!

Baby steps graduating to bigger, more self-assured steps can add up to the kind of change needed to  mitigate global climate change.

How does it affect my lifestyle?  Well, I'm not far from the beach but we're up on a plateau, so we don't have to worry about flooding.  But the underground aquifer isn't enough to sustain the community in the long term, so if diminished snow pack in the Sierras translates into less water available, we might have to make some changes.  Most of the yard is drought-tolerant natives, so they'll survive, for the most part.  The alder would die for lack of water, if we had to cut corners, but we'd save enough water to keep the fruit trees viable, so we'd have locally grown fresh produce to share with family or neighbors.

And so on.  We'd adapt, but I'd rather join forces with optimists like you than hit my head against the wall trying to convert some of the hardcore skeptics on this site.

We live on a really wonderful planet.  Helping to undo what we've done seems like the least we can do.

Answer 2

I'm reluctant to buy real estate because I believe that global economies are going to crash over the next few years, first by the impact of our failure to conserve gasoline, then later increasingly by the impact of global warming on the price of food and other necessities.

Unfortunately, the things that people can do individually to reduce emissions and impact will be dwarfed by emissions increases from population growth and developing nations.  We also can't count on anyone nation's role.

The part of the solution that has the fastest positive effect is to reduce black carbon (soot) pollution.  We have to influence our governments to pass and enforce much tougher air pollution laws.

The biggest contributor to overall glboal warming however is coal-fired power plants, so we have to stop more from being built.  The most efective things that we can do individually is to educate our friends and families on this issue, and to encourage everyone to influence their politicians to take steps to reduce air pollution and to stop the building of coal power plants.

Here are some letters that contain a lot of good points that should be discussed with the politicians of all nations:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2...

Tipping points exist among people as well as climate systems. The action with the greatest potential to initiate positive feedbacks—to lead to the benefits that will accompany a clean energy future—is a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants until the technology is developed to capture the carbon dioxide and store it underground, out of the atmosphere.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2...

...the urgent, essential action is a coal moratorium.

...solution of the climate problem can only be obtained with an

unambiguous renunciation of coal except where CO2 emissions are captured and sequestered.

...construction of a single coal-fired power plant obviates actions by millions of people to reduce their emissions

Answer 3

I recyle. But that's it.

Answer 4

Why should aiming to prevent global warming at the personal level stop us from examining how the major corporations and our very culture -  of economic growth centred around consumerism - are underpinning the problem.

China and India's growth depends in part on our provision of primary products and our consumption of their secondary products so you are right about needing to avoid the blame game.  

So we:

- need to be both local and global.  

- and to analyse and act.

Answer 5

i dont think it affect me at all

Answer 6

global warming is a dangerous issue..previously we didnt pay much heed as its effects was low..but with increasing time its affecting more and more..i live in india,west bengal..the sea is very near 2 us..with breaking of ice caps water is increasing..which is a real problem..in summer the temperature's rising every year and in winter the temperature

is either too low or too high than usual..this causes an outbreak of diseases very often..in other words..we indians are getting most affected according to my openion..

Answer 7

I make "Greener" choices, i suppose, like buying totes that are recycled and give money to help conserve land and stuff.

Recycle aluminum cans.

I RARELY get new clothes, only for something nice.

& thats about it:D.

Answer 8

Global warming is a natural phenomenom.  The effect that humans have on the process has not been causally proven.  In fact, recent evidence seems to suggest that the mean temperature of the earth has reached a plateau even though so-called "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide and methane have increased.  So how are we "destroying our planet"????

How does "global warming" affect me?  Only through my taxes when some misguided politicians think that they must spend my tax dollars chasing a ghost.   Destroying our economy through such ephemeral ideas such as carbon capping to halt "global warming", especially when other nations such as China and India don't and reap the economic benefit as we go down in flames, is going to very much affect our lives.

You want to make the world a better place?  Work at a food pantry or volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.  I personally work with the Cub Scouts and give blood and platelets to the Red Cross.  Visit the sick at nursing homes.  They would love the company, especially if you bring along a guitar or a book to read to them.  It is best to do something yourself than to tell others they should do what you feel is best.

Do you recycle?  Make sure that the things you recycle actually get recycled and not dumped.  That sometimes happens.  

Save our planet!  Save our solar system!  Save our galaxy!  Save our universe!   They all sound the same to me.  Great rallying cries but otherwise impotent.

For more on global temperatures, please read the essay on  the subject at the link below.

Answer 9

i dont pay any attention to it. i'm convinced that the sole cause of global warming is from Al Gores hot air.

Answer 10

My life is much better because of the warmer climate. My kids can play outside more and I can swim in the pool more. It rocks!

Answer 11

All Global Warming believers please goto:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_o...

Answer 12

Higher grocery bills..... primarily due to the knee-jerk reaction of Ethanol.  

What a shame..... burning food to create something that pollutes more than regular gasoline!!

Answer 13

I have always cared about Mother Earth.

I have always recycled; and my family was composting long before it became "fashionable".  I would rather walk to the shops than drive, because it is better for my health (and lately... easier on the pocket).  I also have been using my own shopping bags for longer than I care to remember.  In fact, I had to crochet my own bags originally, because you couldn't buy "shopping bags".  I don't buy trashy magazines; because I refuse to part with my hard-earned cash in exchange for nonsense.  I have always turned out the lights when I leave the room; and I have never owned a tumble dryer.

Why?  Because I have always cared about the environment.  I believe that it is everyone's responsibility to care for the planet.  Don't litter.  Always leave your campsite cleaner than you found it.

Global Warming?  It's utter rubbish.  Should we quit polluting our beautiful blue gem and treating it like a sewer?  Most certainly.  But as for the hokum being espoused by Al Gore & Co... everyone thought he was a fool when he was Vice President.  And (IMO) he still is.

In the inestimable words of Ben Kenobi... "who's the bigger fool?  The fool?  Or the fool who follows him?"

Answer 14

It has made my life much colder and wetter.  I'm in Idaho, high mountain desert, heartland of potato country.

As a farmer it has also made my life (and the lives of fellow farmers around here) SIGNIFIGANTLY more difficult.  I ran out of hay two months ago.  Hay should have started to be cut nearly a month ago.  The first crop STILL isn't tall enough.  You cannot get hay around here, unless you can buy an entire semi load at at least $220 a ton.  A small semi load holds 25 tons of hay, a hay train load is about 35 tons.  So anyone who has to buy hay for their livestock right now, needs at LEAST $5,500......!!!!!!!

I can drive anywhere around me and see horses that are very close to serrious starvation point (count every single rib kind of thing).  Cattle farmers and dairy farmers are hauling their herds to auction right and left....and getting almost nothing for them.

This of course is going to affect the consumers of beef and dairy goods.  Even if you don't drink milk, Idaho produces most of the powdered milk used in the U.S.A., and a great deal of the cheese.  The powdered milk is of course used in all kinds of products from canned soup, bread, hamburger helper products...all kinds of stuff.  Bottom line, the serrious hay shortage, and the extremely long cold spring we are having is going to make grocery prices go even higher.  

Idaho only has 1.5 million people.  We are an agricultural state, producing much of the food for the rest of the Nation (not everything comes from California!).

So right now we are having to feed our stock (meat goats, and our horses) sack feed, from the feed store, because it's actually cheaper than buying alfalfa hay at the moment!!!  To put that in perspective for a non-farming person, that is like saying it's cheaper to feed the Boy Scout Troop prime rib, than hot dogs and beans.  There's no way sack feed should be cheaper than alfalfa hay.

Our pasture still is only about ankle high on me, and no stock has yet been turned out on it.  

This is one of the reasons we are selling our farm, and moving.  How big a deal is that?  Well my husband's father built this house himself.....so this is a family farm, with not just financial investment, but a great deal of emotional investment.  That's how bad things are in the farming sector.  

I've been trying to drive the idea into peoples head that what is happening with the weather, and the economy IS A BIG DEAL.  Yet all the time I see postings about how "it's not affecting me."

Hate to tell EVERYONE this, but yes, in fact it is affecting you.  Just because you work in a nice climate controlled office and the financial stuff hasn't yet climbed up the ladder to bite you in the butt, doesn't mean it's not going to.

Potato planting season is a month behind.  First cutting of hay is now more than a month behind.  Wheat is doing just fine.  The sugar beets are also behind schedule (the sugar in the U.S.A. comes from sugar beets now, it no longer comes from cane sugar).

When farmers are being this hard hit, eventually it affects EVERYONE, because the farmers are the ones who feed ya'll.

Some states (like Texas) are having much bigger problems than Idaho is.  The "funny" thing is, in a way this is great for us.  We've been in a drought for at least 7 years.  This is the first time in 10 years our local reservoir has been full.  On the flip side, all this water is causing a TITANIC weed problem here.  When all these weeds spread their seeds, and die, it's also going to make for a really BIG rangefire problem.  

Last year Idaho had the biggest fires of anyplace in the U.S.  The Murphy Complex fire alone burned over 1 million acres.  Because the enviromentalists won, and got the cattle and sheep kicked of much of the rangeland the fire hazzard has been growing by leaps and bounds here.  Millions of buffalo use to graze the land here, before the cattle and sheep.  Now we just have a few pronghorns.

This winter the snows were extremely deep.  Many of our raptors (birds of prey) starved to death.  We are having a huge rodent explosion here.  About 20 years ago, everything lined up just right here in Idaho....and the ground hopped.  The rabbit populations exploded beyond anything approaching normal.  The entire ground litterally hopped.  

Men were killing heaping pick-up loads of rabbits every evening, and not making a dent in the rabbit population.  Everything is lining up perfectly for that to happen again.  If it does, the rabbits will completely decimate the alfalfa hay crops, and the wheat crops around here.

So is G.W. affecting my life?  Yeah...you might say that.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 15

Well RECYCLE!!