Responsibilites

When I was a teen I went to camp in the mountains or N. or S. Carolina. They were in the middle of a drought that was several years old. One morning some friends and I went exploring and found a small, broken, abandoned house sitting beside a totally dried up little lake. We walked across and even in the very middle it was inches and inches thick of dried, cracked red mosaic clay of unbelievable beauty. It was also very frightening. We'd heard of predicted catastrophes and to us this was an example. Later, maybe the next year, it was full of water. The house was even more broken and still abandoned.

I've seen other dry water basins, but none as intimately as the first one. (It was about 20 years later that I saw my first trashed and polluted lake.)

I'm certain that, as with most things, the climate is cyclical. Granted, this shift is more abrupt than I've seen. We've sorta given it a kick-start with out globe-wide carbon-based emissions.

There is an answer, but are we in our immature selfishness willing to pay the extreme price that is required? We must stop, not phase out, at least 50% of all carbon-based emissions. We have to do it now.

If no one drove on the weekend that would make a difference. If all thermostats were set on 63 degrees in the daytime in the winter and 55 degrees at night, and 83 degrees in the daytime in the summer and 72 degrees at night that would make a difference.

I know there are many ways each of us can make a difference, and we've gotta do it.

I know the CFL bulbs do really make a difference in my electric bill, but I find them too cool for winter. Unfortunately, I've found that I really depend to the heat from the incandescent bulb in the lamp by my chair!

Something has to be done about land fills and dumps and trash that each of us create. Not too sure what the answer is there. Eliminating consumer plastics may be a good start.