I have been guilty of this for years.
Recently I finished reading Heat by George Monbiot, which was a real eye opener. I heartily recommend it!
When you have read it you will realize (if you don't already) that one of the largest contributions any of us make to generating CO2 is through flying. Every flight across the Atlantic or the Pacific put tons and tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
If we are going to change our ways and really contribute to fixing the problem we have to start being part of the problem. We have to stop flying. And that is just the beginning. (Ironic that as I write this there are rumours that the MacQuarrie Bank is making a play to buy Qantas).
We have to seriously understand that if we are going to fix global warming it is going to mean that we have a severe curtailment of our standards of living. That means you don't get to switch the aircon on in your house when this summer it hits 40+ degrees. Because if you do - along with everyone else - the grid will probably go down. And then we will be in worse crap. We are going to have to pull back.
We are going to have to stop driving everywhere. We need to start walking. And we need to catch the bus.
Check out this article:
Here is an excerpt:
During the last 50 years, global human population more than doubled, from 2.8 billion people to 6.5 billion (in round numbers). The U.S. Bureau of the Census estimates that global population will reach 9.4 billion by 2050, a 44% increase in 45 years. It might even grow faster than that, doubling in 35 years to 12 billion, but even 9 billion would surely stress the planet's already-stressed ecosystems mightily.
Where will we put 44% more farms (with their fertilizers and pesticides and demand for fresh water), 44% more mines, more roads, highways, parking lots, airports, cars, trucks, buses, ships, trains, planes), more cities, hospitals, prisons, ports? And of course more wastes at every step.
All this will require at least 44% more power plants, which produce their own unique wastes (among them toxic or radioactive sludges, solid residues, and global warming gases).
We're already at a point where we've had to acknowledge there's no place left to throw things "away" -- there is no "away" -- the planet has been thoroughly doused with toxicants. Fog, rain and snow now contain measurable levels of toxic waste.
