Times They Are a Changing - Environmentally Speaking Anyway - 2

In my previous post, I discussed some very negative current issues focusing on some local pollution problems in the Pensacola Florida area. So with the understanding that there are significant problems and that these problems are systemic to the Country and the World as a whole, the question remains: What do we do about it?

That is a question that the world is currently struggling with. However, as a member of one of the better developed countries and one of the larger polluting countries in the world, there are some simple things that each and every one of us can do. Now you will hear people talk about how one individual's effort to reduce their discharge of pollutants will not reverse or slow the destruction of the world. But, I firmly believe that if everyone just took some minor steps in their everyday lives to reduce their pollution, then the World would be a better place; if for no other reason than to ingrain pollution control and reduction into the social consciousness (the zeitgeist). But I do believe that an individual effort by everyone will produce tangible results (albeit the results may be minor in comparison to the reduction of pollution that could be made if the World governments just began enforcing the pollution control standards that are currently in place).

I was listening to a National Public Radio (NPR) story (I believe it was on Fresh Air, but could be mistaken) a few weeks ago. The individual being interviewed was talking about the pollution that farms produce and the pollution control measures that are in place. Apparently, the way the current system is designed is to monitor large farms (I do not remember the specifics so I am just going to give some examples using made up numbers to illustrate the gist of the conversation). Farms of say 90 acres or more are monitored for pollution levels. However, three farms of say 30 acres apiece owned by the same farmer in the same general area which together produce the same amount of pollution as the single large farm, are not monitored because each farm is individually below the large farm threshold and thus the pollution produced goes unregulated. Additionally, the interviewee was discussing how companies are required to report when they illegally pollute, but the government doesn't do anything other than file the report. Instead of investigating the pollution and fining the company (which by the way, the fines could be used to reduce the tax dollars spent cleaning up Superfund sites and other areas of pollution as well as serving as a deterrent for polluting), the reports are filed and nothing is done. The companies are left to continue to pollute.

So how does each individual making an effort to reduce their pollution footprint help prevent the large companies from polluting and help force the government to rethink the current pollution control laws, regulation, monitoring programs, law enforcement programs (i.e. fines and repercussions for polluters)? Simple, the more each individual focuses on their own actions, the harder it will be for the corporate machine to justify its actions to the people, and more importantly, the more the people doing the polluting on behalf of the corporate machine will feel obligated to speak up and stop the atrocity of corporate pollution. Each individual's actions will have an effect on the current social consciousness and if enough people have similar actions and beliefs, society as a whole may have a paradigm shift. Just look at the "hippy movement" or the "tree huggers" of yore, these are now mainstream beliefs. So lets all just do our part individually and get involved in our local governments to let our local governments know where we stand on the issue of pollution.

Some Additional Resources I Have Found:

•  Earthtrends - Interesting website with some really good tables and charts, a good place to start some basic research 
• Think you don't pollute when take your kids to the park? Take a bicycle to the park next time. 
• Green Living - Interesting site with some good information 
• European Pollution 
• Interesting report on the world's energy 

How Do I Reduce My Personal Pollution Levels?

• Some simple tips from Oregon 
• Some tips from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
• Being from a coastal community, here are some boating pollution tips from the EPA 
• Some simple tips from Colorado 
• Interesting site - be sure to click the links on the left in order to find the information 
• Each year an average of 2 gallons of paint per person is sold each year in the US - pollution control!!! 
• For those of you with older vehicles or vehicles sitting in the yard awaiting repair or disposal 
• What Can We Do? 

Personally, I am working on a solar water heater to pre-heat my water before it goes into my current gas water heater. I hope to keep you posted as to my progress as I begin building the heater and place it into service. Since this is my first heater, I expect it will take me some time to  save up for the parts and refine the materials to maximize the efficiency of the system. But once I have it completed I hope to post the schematics for you. But don't wait for me there are plenty of books and online articles to get you started. I also hope to use a second solar heater to heat my front porch and garage which are currently not heated (rather than installing a gas or electric heater). Projects like this are fun to many and a great way to have fun and create something useful to you (energy cost savings) and useful to the environment (reduces pollution) and to make you feel good about creating something with your hands.