Simple Ways to Help Stop Global Warming

Over the summer of 2006, I went to see a movie at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and while waiting for the film to begin, they showed the trailer for a docudrama called An Inconvenient Truth. It's about the depletion of our precious and very necessary friend, the ozone layer.

The ozone layer (or ozonosphere layer) is the part of the Earth's atmosphere that protects us from the sun's ultraviolet rays, which, if overly exposed can cause things such as skin cancer. More recently, the ozone layer is beginning to rot away due the mass production of greenhouse gases such as CO2 (or carbon dioxide) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

According to former Vice President-elect and global warming guru Al Gore, who was the "star" of the film, the rapid decay of the ozone over the last few decades is starting to cause incredible phenomena in our atmosphere. Drastic changes in our weather (i.e. 70 degree days in January in New York City), the melting of famous places such as the Snows of Mount Kilimanjaro and the North Pole, and the potential extinction of the wildlife that reside in cold-weather areas such as these are all the result of global warming. Another result of this crisis is the increasing strength of wind currents on our oceans, which can increase the likelihood of wind-based natural disasters such as tsunamis and hurricanes. Now the chance of another tragedy like Hurricane Katrina is becoming higher and higher.

Now who is to blame for this crisis that we now face? The corporations who put products for all these years that contained CFCs and released carbon dioxide that steadily ate away at the ozone layer? Of course we can. The first rule of solving the world's problems is to blame greedy corporations. But can't we also blame the federal governments that took their sweet time to create laws against the mass production and mass consumption of the parasitic pollutants? Well, when isn't a global crisis the government's fault?

But, of course, there's another party that deserves the blame for this - us. You, me, the person next to you, even the bouncer at the 40/40 Club. Yes, we are also to blame for this predicament. "Why, me", you ask? Well, I'll tell you but first let's take a trip back in time - to the early 1990s to be exact.

George Bush senior was the President of the United States, The Partnership for a Drug-Free America thought every drug dealer was a Black guy sporting a black leather jacket and a very bad fade, and Saved By the Bell was viewed religiously by pre-adolescent Americans nationwide. There was a cartoon that used to come on every weekday afternoon with a superhero. Nothing special about that but this hero used to warn us everyday about the importance of recycling, the dangers of oil spills, and even about racism in one episode. That's right. You guessed it. Our friend, Captain Planet.

Planet, and his five ethnically-diverse friends known as The Planeteers, used to run around the Earth in a funny-looking carplane vehicle of sorts, trying to stop villains like Dr. Plight and Hogg Greedly from destroying the environment. I remember, as many of you probably do, that at the end of each episode, Captain Planet would give us one (or two if we were lucky) Planeteer Alerts, which were kiddy-versions of Public Service Announcements that gave tips on how to help keep our planet Earth clean. He inspired us to become more environmentally conscious folk. And he was cool. (You laugh to yourself now but I know you were just like me; itching for a Planeteers t-shirt and an Earth ring.)

Among his many PSAs, he once warned us about the dangers of CFCs, carbon dioxide and other pollutants that cause the depletion of the ozone layer. But for all our shouting out the famous slogan, "Go Planet!!", during recess, did we listen to him? Only when it came to cutting the rings of plastic soda cases so ducks wouldn't strangle on them.

We let Right Said Fred wannabes continue to keep their hair moist with hazardous hairsprays and let those reckless hip-hoppers continue to use spray paints to produce their art. And now we sit here in the midst of a global crisis that potentially means no more polar bears and penguins in those Coca-Cola Christmas commercials; all because we didn't take that green-haired, blue-skinned Superman knock-off seriously.

Now, for all you people out there with your PhDs (Planeteer-hating Degrees) here are some ways that you can use to help stop global warming:

1. Use compact fluorescent light bulbs. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), if every American household replaced 5 of their current light bulbs with 5 compact fluorescent light bulbs, it would save as much energy as if we took 8 million cars off the roads.

2. Turn lights and other appliances off when you're not using them. Even though a light bulb doesn't generate greenhouse gas, the power plant that generates the electricity used by the light bulb probably does.

3. Buy toilet paper made from post-consumer waste paper - that's recycled paper!

4. Consider the shower. With showers accounting for two-thirds of all water heating costs, shorter time sudsing it up can save up to 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Installing a low-flow showerhead saves another 350 pounds of carbon dioxide.

5. Air dry your clothes. Line-drying clothes during the non-rainy months instead of using a dryer can save 700 pounds of carbon dioxide, and, as a bonus, $75 a year.

6. Recycle! Garbage that doesn't get recycled ends up in a landfill, generating methane; plus, recycled goods require less energy to produce than products made from scratch. Also you should give unwanted gifts and clothes to a charity shop.

7. I'm pretty sure none of you out there does this but don't burn garbage. This releases carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.

We all must do something to help stop this problem before it's too late and we have no planet left. Remember, the power is your's...

*Here's an extra bit of information I found during my research:

"At the international level, the Kyoto treaty was written to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Thirty-five industrialized nations have committed to reducing their output of those gases to varying degrees. Unfortunately, the United States, the world's primary producer of greenhouse gases, did not sign the treaty."

*For more information about the global warming crisis, you can visit: