This year it’s Climate Change.

So what will I focus on?

Well, it’s a broad topic ranging from greenhouse gas emissions, to pollution, to melting ice caps, to alternative fuel sources.

I think it would be best to present some of my opinions on how to tackle Climate Change.

But put aside whether or not we humans are causing Global Warming, even if we aren’t, take it as a sign that we need to change our habits of gas-guzzling vehicles, atmosphere-destroying factories, and ecosystem-devastating deforestation.

The biggest solution I think is just to raise awareness. Climate Change has gotten a lot of attention recently, and I’ve noticed in particular, a lot of awareness throughout the younger population. President Barack Obama already has placed a lot of attention on the issue.

If people know about how their daily actions are impacting the world, they’ll change.

For Non-Sibi (not for one’s self) Day, one group went through a week’s worth of trash at the school and discovered all that could have been recycled just thrown away. Our dorm did something similar; Retrieving water bottles, paper, cans, etc, from the trash.

Recycling plastics reduce the carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere to create new plastics. It would allow us to make completely new bottles, or even clothing out of these.

You hear about all the “carbon capping”, “carbon trade systems”, etc. but I think rather that focusing so much on limiting our emissions, we should focus on the roots: how we get our energy.

Although I approve strongly of wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, etc, I’d like to point your attention to nuclear power.

Nuclear power has received a lot of bad attention. An accident like Chernobyl changed people’s view of nuclear power drastically. Nuclear bombs don’t help that image either.  But in Europe, nuclear power plants are sprouting up everywhere, yet here in the US, we still don’t like the idea. About 14% of the world’s energy comes from nuclear power, which produces virtually no emissions.

But lets face it. The Chernobyl disaster occurred in 1986. It’s 2009 now. It occurred because of one major thing: human error. The operators of the nuclear plant violated operating procedures and this caused the reaction to go out of control. Now, with sophisticated technology, this can’t happen again. Sensors would detect something wrong, with several levels of redundant protection, and would immediately stop the reaction. There, no Chernobyl.

Also, people worry about a nuclear power plant just blowing up like a huge atomic bomb, but this can’t happen.

So just to wrap it up. We have one Earth, and if we destroy it, we’ll have no place to live. (yes, you can argue about terraforming, but leave that behind you) We ALL need to take action to prevent the devastating effects of climate change. And you don’t have to do much. Start with simple things like switching conventional lightbulbs for fluorescent ones, recycling, and turning off your electronics when you don’t need them. These may seem small, but when multiplied across the amount of people around the world, it makes huge difference.

Happy Blog Action Day!

If you are interested, the promo video for Blog Action Day 2009:

More info:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/BOOK.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power

What poverty looks like (From Anewgreenitude.info)

The Issue

According to Wikipedia, HALF (3 billion people) of the world’s population suffers from poverty. And according to this GlobalIssues.org post those people live on less than $2.50 a day. Just pause now and think about it…

What would you do if you only lived on $2.50? Well first off, you would not even be thinking about that new iPod, or laptop, or TV, or bed, or going out for dinner, or buying a new book, or even living in that house (or apartment) that you live in. Just think…. and that isn’t just for a few people, that is for half of the world.

With only that little amount of money, one wouldn’t be able to get enough food, which results in malnutrition, they can’t have a real home, which leaves them vulnerable to others and nature, and can die because they can’t afford healthcare.

What I Think We Should Do

You, right now, are lucky, though you may not think so because of the current state of the US economy, but you are. You have a computer, you have an education, you have a job (or are a student), and those allow you to have a relatively comfortable life. Now how are you going to get 3 billion people out of poverty and into a better way of life?

I feel that the answer lies in technology. We, as users of the “cloud” can do so much. We can make donations online (Check out http://www.kiva.org/, where you can make loans to entrepreneurs in developing worlds in order to help bring them out of poverty), we can tell others about poverty through email, and we can learn about it through the Internet.

Also, if you are interested in improving your vocab while donating rice, you should check out http://freerice.com/. There, for every word you get right, 20 grains of rice is donated through the UN World Food Program. Though this isn’t poverty, hunger is definitely related to it since if you don’t have food, you can’t work, so you don’t get money.

The OLPC (Topnews.in)

We could also bring technology to developing countries and educate them through the use of them. Projects such as OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) can enable them to self-learn and get better jobs in the future and lifting them out of the poverty cycle. Other techs like the MotoFone, can enable people to bring themselves out of poverty through conducting business on a mobile cell phone.

So do something, whether it is just telling others about poverty, or donating money to poverty combating programs, that difference will help reduce poverty in our world. And by reducing poverty, we not only help those people, but also our entire world by bringing more people to a new level and enabling our society to progress forward.

Thank you for your help!