Like
srkp23 , I attended Gore's Town Hall last night.
Inspired, I took additional steps to becoming "carbon neutral." The surprising thing is that, it's easy, not very expensive, and it makes a difference. I had previously offset my car's carbon emissions, by purchasing a Terrapass (about 50 bucks or so...). Today, I calculated the rest of my carbon footprint (plane travel, home energy use) and offset those costs through investing in wind turbines and dairy farm methane projects. About 25 bucks.
I've also purchased 3 new compact fluorescent light bulbs, which help reduce CO2 emissions by about 1900 lbs., and saves me about $100 over their lifetime. Cost: 10 bucks.
So, for just about $85, I've taken some fairly painless measures to become carbon neutral.
There's certainly more that can be done -- eating locally grown, organic foods is also another thing to do. Tastes great, good for you, supports your local farmers and helps the Earth.
Laurie David, producer of AIT, also had great ideas -- setting up "No Idle" lanes in front of schools, churchs -- anywhere cars sit waiting for people. She simply asked the principal at her kid's school to create one, and he loved the idea and did it. Or bringing a garment bag to the dry cleaners, instead of wasting all that plastic and paper.
Tiny, little, brilliant ideas that add up to a big movement.
While I had religion before, hearing Gore speak last night drove home the point that we -- each of us -- can do more. It takes a small amount of action on our parts, but we can do it.
We've got ten years to change the world.
(Note: most of this post was stolen from myself at TPM Cafe).