What can you do?
That's the question behind the Daily Press "Green Challenge": What can you do to reduce your contribution to greenhouse gas emissions? The tips start today, focusing on saving electricity in the home. Over the next several weeks, they'll take you out of the house: into the way you get around, the way you shop and consume, what you do in the lawn and garden, and so on.
The "how to" part is pretty straightforward. Some of the things are easy: turn off lights, adjust the thermostat, unplug appliances (even those juice-wasting cell-phone chargers) when they're not in use. Taking it to the next level could involve more effort, more change in the way you live. Maybe you want to trade in your SUV for a hybrid, or your standard-issue home for a "green" house. Maybe you want to try something in between, like adding some solar panels.
The question that follows "What can you do?" is "Why should you do it?"
Monetary savings aside, who should you try to reduce your carbon footprint?
Because the way this country produces the energy demanded by individuals and industries and all the other users plugged into the grid fouls our environment, in ways that may have long-lasting and far-reaching consequences.
Most electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, and the by-products include pollutants and carbon dioxide. The pollutants can cause serious, even deadly health problems, like breathing difficulties and, in the case of mercury, neurological damage and retardation in infants. The carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by power plants is, most scientists are convinced, a major contributor to global warming.
Coal-fired power plants are the worst. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, one mid-sized coal plant emits as much carbon dioxide as 600,000 cars. Partly because we burn so much coal, partly because we're profligate with power, the United States contributes one-fourth of the carbon dioxide to the planet's atmosphere. We can do better.
It's a global problem, but the effects will be felt locally. Tuesday evening, Roger Mann, a research scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, gave an audience in Hampton a run-down on how climate change could affect Virginia's environment and economy, its trees and fish and humans. Among the possibilities he ticked off: disrupting the agriculture that is still the mainstay of Virginia's economy, distorting natural environments - forests, wetlands, the bay - and stressing their inhabitants, opening the door to invasive species whose effects we can't predict, even, in concert with a slow sinking of land, threatening to flood low-lying communities.
One of the biggest things we can do to cut our contribution to climate change is to reduce electricity usage. That will reduce the demand for the 100-plus new coal-fired power plants now in the plans, including one Dominion wants to build in western Virginia. Their advocates may claim they're "clean," but they're not, and won't be until they use technology that captures carbon dioxide and keeps it from going into the atmosphere. Until then, coal is dirty, and it's a threat.
What else can you do? And why should you do it? If you have a business, you can turn out the lights at the end of the day. Drive down a local street after business hours, and it's amazing - and alarming - how many establishments and signs are still lit up. Urge your local government and college to do the same, instead of bathing their favorite landmarks in light. Try pressuring VDOT to think a little more green when it orders streetlights - do we really need all those lights on I-64 near Jefferson Avenue (of course not).
You can urge your representatives in Congress to get serious about producing more energy from alternatives sources, like wind and nuclear power, and about finding the combination of incentives and regulation that will actually make a dent in consumption. Urge your state legislators to do the same.
We may be at a tipping point. If we act now, decisively, we may head off a possible crisis. If we delay, or take refuge in half-hearted measures, our children and grandchildren will live with the consequences.
But that's the big picture, the hard-to-predict future. As they say, even the longest journey begins with a single step.
So read the Green Challenge in today's Life section.
Then go unplug something.
ONLINE EXTRA: Go to dailypress.com/gogreen.