Thursday, June 28, 2007

Wherein I'm suddenly passion about something and start berating you all and telling you how to live your lives

Do you ever feel like the universe is trying to send you a memo?

Two days ago, Joel and I were in need of a flick, so we borrowed 'The Day After Tomorrow' from our landlords because I had seen half of it four years ago and remembered it being good. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's about what would happen if global warming suddenly took off and the whole world froze over *pfft!* in minutes.

Last night, we watched 'An Inconvenient Truth,' because we'd both been meaning to see it. For those of you who haven't, it's 'Al Gore lectures on Global Warming and seeks to Advance his own Agenda and Make Himself look Awesome' and it's kind of smarmy and scheming, but he has a number of good things to say that seem to be scientifically sound. You know he's dumbing it down, but you also know that he's speaking to the general public, and that the general public is dumb.

This morning, Joel and I sat in on a lecture on global warming in some random biology class which basically reiterated 'An Inconvenient Truth,' only with less politics and slow-motion shots of Al Gore with his now-dead sister, and more legitimate facts.

Clearly, God wants me to know that we are trashing the planet. Not 'we' as in you and me (although we really aren't helping) but 'we' as in the collective, by which I mean oil and gas companies. The thrust of it is that when carbon-based fuels stay trapped beneath the surface of the earth in the form of oil, gas, and coal, the earth's atmosphere is balanced. When we burn these things for fuel, we're throwing CO2 into the air, skewing the balance, and it's getting dangerously close to the point where the balance will tip too far, too much heat will be trapped in the atmosphere, the ice caps will melt and we will all burn or freeze, depending on where we live.

Turning off lights you're not using and running the dishwasher only when it's full will only help in microbits (although right now we can use every microbit we can get, so by all means do those things, plus it's cheaper). Making it financially unappealing to mine coal and drill oil will force the powers that be to find alternate sources of fuel, helping in macrobits. Most people don't go green because environmentally-friendly appliances and the like are hard to find and expensive to buy. Cars used to be hard to find and expensive to buy. So did computers. When things become common, they become cheaper. If more alternate energy sources find their way on to the market, they will become more accessable to the public.

Ok, this is something I'm passionate about, but you might not be, so I'll more or less shut up now. Alls I'm saying is, if you care about whether or not your kids and grandkids and etc.s can live on this planet, go here, read this information so that I don't have to bore you anymore, sign this petition, write your MP and tell them to start taxing carbon as it comes out of the ground, or as it is imported in.

Also, eat more chips. Eating chips lowers the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, I tested it.

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