New Year's Resolution: Stop Global Warming

Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You! by Laurie David (2006, Fulcrum Publishing, $9.95). To purchase this book, visit our books page here.

After an abnormally warm weekend during which temperatures topped 72 degrees F here in the Northeast, I'm certifiably freaked out about global warming. "Are we in danger of losing an entire season?" I worried Saturday morning as I wandered around a local farmer's market—in a tank top—fearing also that I'd lose some of my favorite cold-weather staples like squash and maple syrup. My New Year's Resolution suddenly became "stop global warming."

I'm probably being a bit reactionary; after all, scientists have been sounding warnings about global warming for decades, and the environmental evidence they've presented is even more convincing than what local weathermen are calling simply "a mild air mass" unrelated to global warming. But the weekend's absurd, unseasonal weather just compounded the scientific evidence, as did a report released last week by Britain's Meteorological Office that said there was a 60 percent probability that 2007 would be the hottest year on record, due to a combination of human-generated greenhouse gases and a Pacific Ocean El Nino pattern (a.k.a. a "mild air mass"). Only 60 percent? It's 70 degrees in January...

It also didn't help that, Friday evening, I'd just finished reading Laurie David's newly released guide to activism, Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You! (2006, Fulcrum Publishing, $9.95), a concise how-to for getting you, your family and your friends off the couch and onto the anti-climate-change bus. David, who produced Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth, has been speaking out on what she calls "the most urgent problem of our lifetime" for 12 years, convincing everyone from right-wing politicians and conservative religious officials to country singers and NFL teams to curb their greenhouse gas emissions. Her book is a short, digestible compilation of unnerving statistics (including the fact that warm Ohio winters have caused maple trees to bud too early, preventing proper maple syrup production in that area of the country) followed by empowering actions individuals can take to reduce their carbon footprint, which, of course, you can always get by reading The Green Guide, as well. Beyond the obvious steps people can take at home—line drying clothes and using compact-fluorescent bulbs—she encourages young adults in college to pressure universities to follow the lead of the University of Georgia and the University of Florida at Gainesville, both of which require new school-owned vehicles to be hybrids or to run off biofuels. And she advises professionals to convince their companies to offer incentives for hybrid car owners, whether premium parking spaces, or, as Google has done, by offering a $5,000 cash incentive to employees who purchase one.

But perhaps the most important message her book has to offer is that one person can effect change on a global scale, and not simply by donating money, but by pressuring the people closest to you and getting them to pressure their friends. Don't just read the newspaper, she advises. Write letters to the editor and forward important articles on to your friends. By the end of the day, you've started a "butterfly effect" to reverse climate change.

The weathermen are predicting possible snow flurries this week, signaling a return to normalcy, but my resolution still stands, and my family and friends might be well advised to brace themselves for a flurry of e-mails encouraging them to change light bulbs and read The Green Guide. To quote one of my father's favorite sayings: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."