Monday Morning Motivation

Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture…we all get lazy (we know it’s not just us) and that little devil on our shoulder tells us “Just toss out those cans, it’s easier than recycling”, “It’s okay to keep the lights on all over the house, you don’t need to get up from the couch”, or “Low-energy bulbs? But they’re $2 more…maybe next time.”

So to paint the big picture of why we need to try so hard to combat global warming, we give you what we call…incentive. As reported on The Grist late last week:

If you are one of the 634 million people worldwide living in a coastal zone, be advised: you may be in deep trouble. New research using population models and NASA satellite data estimates that one in 10 people in the world -- some 75 percent of them in Asia -- live in coastal regions that will be at risk of being affected by flooding and intense storms brought on by global warming. The low-lying coastal areas, defined as less than 33 feet above sea level, are found in more than 180 countries and include some 70 percent of the world's large cities, notably New York City, Tokyo, Mumbai, India, and Shanghai, China.

(This was also reported in: The Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, 28 Mar 2007 and the Houston Chronicle, Associated Press, Thomas Wagner, 28 Mar 2007)

This is NASA research, not a scare tactic by some fanatic green group—populated areas of Northern Alaska and elsewhere have already begun flooding. Whole towns have needed to relocate further inland. In the sparse wilderness of Northern Alaska, that’s hard, but not nearly as catastrophic as relocating the entire cities of New York or Tokyo…..really scary when you think about it.

Just a little food for thought from the team at Green is the New Pink (aka the angels on your other shoulder….). Go do something green today—recycle, get Green Energy for your home, replace a few more bulbs in your home with low energy ones, take one more serving of meat out of your weekly diet……in the small picture of our everyday lives it seems hard, but in the big one…it’s worth it.