THE US REPORT

Get into a discussion about global warming and the congregation rises up as dramatically as animations of the sea level shooting 20 feet into the sky once west Antarctica or Greenland melts. Both are gonna blow soon according to Al Gore’s movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ Gore measures time a bit more radically than most because the general consensus is that it will take those icy lands thousands of years to melt. But try to question someone who is convinced last week’s unusually warm temperatures are the result of human beings and you will more than likely be called an idiot. After all, Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbara Streisand thump the global warming holy book every chance they get. Problem is these GW theologians cannot possibly practice what they preach. Otherwise their celebrity brand, dependent on all sorts of environmentally unfriendly practices, will blow as well. Then who’ll listen to them or worse, who’ll pay them hefty speaker and performance fees?

Celebs and global warming
The Daily Mail (UK) has a great article about who is practicing vs. who is preaching, and it’s worth a read if for no other reason than to make you ponder how on earth Streisand might cope without those thirteen 53-foot semi-tractor trailers, 4 rental vans, 14 buses and limo she needed while on tour last year.

Al Gore’s 10,000 sq. ft. home in Tennessee blew through approximately 191,000 kilowatt hours in a single year. A typical home in Nashville uses about 15,600 kwh per year. We know these facts because CBS News cited the Associated Press who published them originally. But wait! Gore purchases green power too, so all is not lost since he’s offsetting his impact. But wait! Does that keep the carbon monoxide from the 191,000 kwh from shooting into the atmosphere, possibly melting a sizable percentage of Greenland as we speak? But wait! Gore is pumping bucks into green technology. That ought to count for something and it probably will, namely, fattening up Gore’s wallet.

Here’s the rub from an admittedly cantankerous environmentalist, one who preached a long time before I first learned the earth was gonna freeze followed by news the earth is gonna fry. Live long enough and I reckon someone will decide the earth is gonna flip itself upside down. But the fact is you cannot be a true environmentalist and engage private jets, semi-tractor trailers, limousines, and 10,000 square foot mansions. For one thing, how many species of flora and fauna do you think that 10,000 square feet displaced (not to mention the pool which I somehow doubt is a peanut or above ground type)? What happened to all those Tennessee rabbits and possums and other critters who probably liked having a little foliage to forage in? What about the lichens and the native plants, the snakes and tortoises?

What's the real problem?
In my experience, the single greatest harm to our environment is deforestation. Trees =oxygen. Forests=wildlife habitat.

The next greatest harm is our dependence on hundreds of items that can neither be recycled nor disposed of in an eco-friendly way—cell phones, computers, certain plastics, the plastic rings that hold your beer bottles in place, those tiny little contaminating containers your dog’s anti-flea treatment comes in. What, I wonder, do you do with a container Botox comes in?  We’ve got pharmaceuticals in our public water supply. You’d think people would be concerned, but after a brief newsbreak, no one’s saying a word about it.

What is completely lacking in the scientific battle that will cost the American consumer a far larger percentage of income than a millionaire like Al Gore? Common sense. The lack of common sense has already cost your average homeowner—check out the increase in your home heating and cooling system replacement costs, and this cost will continue to climb.

You can buy all the carbon credits you want but part of the big solution requires doing something about deforestation. You can observe this on a local level. The green space that’s there today will not be there tomorrow. Someone will pop up a strip mall or a restaurant or maybe some of those cookie cutter houses on property completely scalped down to the last twig.

Missing: common sense
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development predicts Africa and South Asia could have an additional 1.8 billion people to feed by 2050.  Considering the desertification in those regions, you’d think we’d be looking at that population projection and the cultural factors that produce more children than a culture can possibly feed. We could also do something about agricultural practices. We could also take a hard look at how the United Nations spends our American money because this American would really like to see that money go to the people who need it instead of into the pockets of certain high-ranking officials. But wait!

Common sense has run out the door and melted into the fictional runoff from Antarctica. The human impact on global warming may be real or not and the cause may still be debated, but real solutions for healing the environment are getting nowhere other than a high profile bio note on some celeb’s press release and maybe an increase in their net worth. (filed by Kay B. Day)