��This article is a part of Blog Action Day, an initiative where over 14000 bloggers will write something about the environment on the same day.

��I love how it’s Blog Action Day the day that I doubt I will be getting any sleep. So maybe my post won’t be anything of value, with lots and lots of links (and minor errors). Apologies for excluding anyone who does not attend my school in the next paragraph.

But if you’re reading this and have some interest in the environment, there’s a Treehugger meeting on consumption this Wednesday, I believe in Room 31 (or 41, I’m terrible with room numbers).��It’s at the intersection between the foreign language wing and the science wing, and looks a lot like the new wing. It doesn’t��matter if you aren’t in the club or if you can’t come every Thursday morning to the regular club meeting, but as long as you want to talk about the environment, that’s the only reason you need. I personally will not��be attending this meeting as I have a field hockey game but I will be going to the rest of them throughout the year. And if you can’t go, try recruiting people for me =).

So consumption. There’s a rather nifty page on the Sierra Club’s website all about sustainable consumption with quite a few handouts, breaking up the word into several smaller areas. I guess that in providing a bit of a background (so that you won’t feel clueless when you do end up going to the meeting on Wednesday, or just so you can be a bit more informed), I shall do the same.

��Food
Ah, this is one of the major terms we hear when it comes to consumption, with good reason. In fact, it takes about 10 fossil fuel calories in order to produce each food calorie in an average American diet. When you add that up, that’s approximately the amount of energy needed to power our cars or our homes. Especially if you eat a lot of meat.

I’ve decided that I won’t be hyocritical and rant about how everyone in the nation should convert to vegetarianism (like most environmentalists), as I personally am not a vegetarianism. But I can rant about how everyone can and should eat less meat. Remember the ecology unit from Biology class? Think for a moment about the trophic levels and the trophic pyramid, or the pyramid of energy. One gets the most energy by eating low on the trophic pyramid and the least by eating high on the pyramid (or the food chain, if that’s easier to think about), for organisms use much of the energy from their consumption of other organisms in staying alive; very little is actually stored in the organism.

But don’t forget vegetables. Whenever possible, try to opt for unproccessed foods that are organic, locally sourced, or both. I know��they may be��expensive at times, but the amount of chemicals that they put into conventional fruits and vegetables and the distances that they travel are relatively appalling. And the process of processing (haha. pun. not really.) sucks up quite a bit of energy as well.

Links
Eat Well Guide (a guide to sustainable food)
The True Cost of Food: Take Action
The SUV in the Pantry
The Meatrix
Grocery Store Wars (I posted this in an earlier post but I’m not sure if everyone saw this)
Note: The last two links are videos, if for whatever reason they don’t work on your computer, they’re also on Youtube.

Energy
This too is an important topic environmentally (as it is influenced by most of our environmental choices), and has gained quite a bit of attention with both the fossil fuel deficit and global warming.

There’s always a media focus on “clean cars”. Personally, I support��the production of high fuel efficiency cars as opposed to Hummers. However, we need to realize that hybrids still consume energy, and try to walk/bike/carpool/mass transit as much as possible. But efficiency in general is an important step to reducing one’s energy consumption (the ubiquitous compact fluorescent lightbulbs should be reffered to). Do a mini energy audit of your��house to check for leaks and problems that lead to energy being wasted, replace inefficient appliances, make sure the car tires are pumped, etc. (A little side note: you’ll save money if you take these steps as well.) I’m sure you’ve already heard most of these, but if you haven’t, it’s better worth repeating such information��than having people uninformed. It’s a shame when energy is wasted.

Clean energy is something that should definitely be expanded on (with the exception perhaps of nuclear and biofuels, as those are controversial and have social as well as environmental implications). If the money spent on subsidizing coal and oil were transferred to wind, solar, and geothermal energies, then we’d be much farther ahead in such technologies.

Links
How Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Can Fuel Our Future: Clean Power Comes on Strong
Alliance to Save Energy
Home Energy Audits
Energy Star
Native Energy
http://www.grist.org/comments/interactivist/2006/08/07/keane/index1.html

Water & Manufactured goods

Next time I write, I’ll get to this. I promise. But to appease you for now, I’ll give you a link to a page with a Water Footprint Calculator.

So that concludes my Blog Day Post, and I still haven’t studied for AP Euro. I’d just like to finish up with a few links from other blogs participating in this wonderful event (and random, helpful links). And please remember that seeing reusable bottles make me happy, unless of course, they leach. So shun bottled water with me. It will be extremely entertaining, especially when the SIGG bottles come in and our water bottles are many times better than everyone elses (until everyone gets reuseable bottles, then we will all be equal in our coolness). Alright. I’ll stop ranting now.

��20 Simple Ways to Help the Environment by Using Your Computer
The Butterfly Effect and the Environment: How Tiny Actions Can Save the World
10 Simple Ways You Can Save the Planet and Money
Blog Action Day: You the Consumer��(something that’s actually relevent to��my topic; oh my!)
Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Treat the Environment Well
Energy Cures (random charity I found, great cause)
Grist
NRDC
ClimateCrisis.net
Filter For Good, Refill Not Landfill, SIGG FAQ, Reuse Me: The R3ice Plan��(yes I had to include bottled water here and put my own website on the list. You might see this again on the water post)

Here is the speech by everyone’s favorite president,  George W. Bush: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070928-2.html

And here is an interpretation of the speech by Gristmill: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/28/123544/439

But I’d like to make a random comment on a completely unrelated topic. A couple days ago, I was at the Nokia Theatre for a concert, catching my favorite band live for the first time. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience. But ass they did not allow us to bring water into the venue, we were forced to purchase drinks there when we were thirsty, which only consisted of bottled water and drinks such as Vitamin Water and Snapple. What really irked me was how the drinks would be poured out of the bottle and into a cup, and both of which were probably not recycled. This is a completely unneccessary and impractical waste of resources, and I’m sure similar practices are used elsewhere.

First of all, happy Chinese Lunar Festival!

 Second, if you’ve been following the news lately, the UN met yesterday to discuss global warming. The UN secratary general Mr. Ban Ki-moon, as well as Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger and others spoke with a tone that calls for immediate action. 

“The rich nations and the poor nations have different responsibilities, but one responsibility we all have is action. Action, action, action, action.”
                                   -Schwarzenegger

To view a webcast with complete video coverage of the event and transcripts, click here to go to the UN site.Plus you might want to read either of these articles, from the NY Times or the LA Times.

Unfortunately,  I’m a bit tired to offer my own opinion of this, plus I have not finished watching it, and I have some schoolwork that I need to do. I do, however, find it interesting that our president has excused himself from this extremely important meeting.

If you saw/heard about the event, tell me what you think!

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GLOBAL_WARMING_LAWSUIT?SITE=CAANR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 I commend Cali for taking such an aggressive stand on environmental issues. However, I can see why it is under fire for the lawsuit, as perhaps its personal views on the matter do not seem to reflect that of the entire nation, and that of the auto industry (it would be nice if they actually cared about climate change though.)

There was one part, completely unrelated to the rest of the article, that interested me a bit.

The Bush administration has consistently opposed any international treaty - including the 1997 Kyoto Protocol - that would impose cuts on greenhouse gases.

“President George W. Bush opposes the protocol because it exempts developing nations who are major emitters, fails to address two major pollutants, and would have a negative economic impact on the United States,” Jenkins wrote in his 24-page decision. To rule in favor of California would undermine the administration’s position, Jenkins said.

Ah, but if two other polluting and developing (key term, as we are developed) countries are exempt, should we have the right to continue polluting? And on the economics/lifestyle issue, give this blog post a read. It’s a bit interesting, as is the rest of the site (written by a man in NYC who is completely carbon neutral, kudos to him.)

 And just for fun, I have an Ecological Footprint Quiz. My results are rather shameful, so I won’t post them up here, but if you’d like to see how many Earths we would need if everyone lived like you, it’s a great site.

http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index_reset.asp?pid=1967737087472103

http://www.energycures.org/index.php

After randomly surfing the web, for once, something good has come out of it. Energy Cures is a campaign to support clean energy in poverty stricken areas. Take a peek at the site, see what you can do, etc.