Fulfilling Ways To Reduce Global Warming

(In addition to practicing these on your own, you might consider suggesting that they be incorporated into new legislation, or even that legislators make their support conditional on some of them):

Instead of startling pedestrians with motion-activated lights, make these less bright, or gradually increasing with dimmers, or keep them off.

Reduced street and park lighting may be beneficial for the nocturnal cycles of plants and animal--and humans. Not to mention making it easier to enjoy the beauty of the night. Those who prefer greater safety or have special needs can always carry flashlights to ensure that they have the light they want wherever they go, and not be dependent on local conditions.

Same for noise pollution, such as alarms that beep every ten seconds or that wake the neighbors in order to alert drivers with poor vision that their doors are locked.

Ban gas-powered mowers and blowers, and don't strain the treasury by buying them up. (If you personally find this inconvenient or unfair, or are challenged by someone who would, ask whether those who troubled to use quieter, cleaner equipment with no thought of reward are any less deserving, and whether those who bought the gas versions didn't know they were making a choice that part of them might now prefer to redeem themselves of.)

Bring your own pathetic bags to restaurants for leftovers. (I had to do this once when a place I wanted to take out from would only serve dine-in rather than to-go after a certain time at night; I hope the restaurant learned its lesson about arbitrary rules as I inelegantly purloined my mess in front of the other customers like a homeless person).

To bolster law enforcement against corporate polluters, don't set a bad precedent by tolerating amnesty for other groups in society; people crowding here for a good life instead of having it spread out in other countries isn't what the environment needs, Senator Kennedy.

Beware of feelgood laws, like the one that required cities to reduce water pollution by a certain percentage; since Anchorage's water was so clean, it had to pay fish processors to dump offal into the water so it would have something to remove (anyone have the citation on this?)

To prevent cognitive dissonance/hypocrisy: If you block new refineries and don't want to drill in the barren Arctic, and you support current gas tax levels and the law that required a Wisconsin service station to stop offering discounts to seniors as it made prices too LOW--then proudly defend those decisions instead of complaining about gas prices. (Note: this does not mean gas taxes should be temporarily reduced or fluctuate such as to give anyone an incentive to raise prices in response.)

Green arrows instead of left turn signals; fewer lights burning, and cars don't have to spew in idle during the whole signal cycle which assumes we're too dumb to turn when there's no oncoming traffic.

Fewer four-way stop signs; they increase stop-and-go driving, and lull people into assuming cross traffic will stop when it won't.

Expand park hours rather than limiting them (i.e., giving in to criminals dictating public usage) if you want people to be in touch with nature (maybe some of the crime is deportable instead?)

To maintain a sufficient proportion of yard space and undeveloped space, again--the whole world shouldn't be moving here, we should help them elsewhere.

Once when I was eating outside there were fumes and noise from a stopped car for several minutes because the driver was under the impression that leaving the engine running would keep him from getting a ticket if parking wasn't allowed, or required a nickel he didn't have. I don't know if this is true, but at least one person thought it was--tell them it won't work.

Launch a website to report ongoing inefficient traffic flow and its perceived causes (signal timing, poor signs, inappropriate speed limits, inefficient lane dedication, inconsiderate parents and kids by schools, etc.)

Revert to the nine-month school year to reduce driving and school energy usage (maybe if we had fewer people crowding here, which would reduce inefficient slow-and-go driving in general?)

No superhighway for foreign trucks which don't meet our emissions standards.

Government should get with the millennium and not mail things to everyone just because a few people still don't have computers.

Avoid paper use and prevent electronic voter fraud by assigning an ID to each voter (based on the nanosecond the ballot was cast) so that voters can check that their own votes were recorded properly (and tallied properly by importing them into a spreadsheet program).

Instead of driving to the gym for your paid workout, walk your manual mower and rake around the block and get paid for using them. :) Use of Saudi-oil-dependent devices is one of the "jobs that Americans 'won't' do" that we can do without--unless you have a quiet hybrid leaf blower that gets smog checks.

Don't collapse into a survival mode where we deprive ourselves of what those who came before us enjoyed. If incandescent bulbs can, as predicted, be made more efficient, they should be preserved for their aesthetics.

New Age suggestion: In addition to visualizing such things as peace and prosperity, you might find it inspiring to look forward to car buffs finding ways to preserve their old styles regardless of new need--even if you can't imagine how, we need not give up such pleasures no matter how much we feel survival is at stake.

Trees have purifying power--we don't have to cut them to fix sidewalks; to preserve them, consider sending this to someone.

If none of the above interest you, can we at least ask those leading the charge in favour of global cooling to address the concerns of skeptics, so that their crusade doesn't come across like ill-founded hysterias of prior centuries?

Please forward this to those who'd like good news regarding climate.