Blogger Action Day

Am I worried about global warming? Yes, I am. I am a baby boomer and when we were growing up most people didn't give a thought to the environment. When I think about it now, I feel guilty. To be honest, I was too busy being a teenager and young adult to care; too wrapped up in my own life. Global warming and damage to our environment caused by humans was not on my radar. I'm ashamed to say that, but I just didn't have wisdom then. Now, our kids have so much information available to them that they do have wisdom. They have the ability to question practices that are bad for the environment.

I just learned last year that drinking purified water out of plastic bottles is bad. We should be using glass instead. I think that my awareness began when cigarettes came with a printed warning on the pack. I believe we are in serious trouble at this point and I get frustrated because a lot of people refuse to accept that we have to do everything we can to stop or reverse global warming. Books have even been written that support the idea that there is no such thing as global warming. I don't think anyone can dispute that there is climate change occurring; the ozone layer is in bad shape; even humans emit personal pollution which adds to the deterioration of our environment. Did you know that if you eat less red meat your personal pollution goes down? I know that sounds funny but it's true. That was news to me. If you look up "global warming" on Google you will get nearly 30,000,000 pieces of data. That's a lot. I have faith that those of us who have freedom, as we do in the United States, know that we are in serious trouble; we have done things to contribute to global warning, but we still have an opportunity to stop it, even reverse it (according to data that I have read). Typically, in the United States, we do go all out to right a wrong, but we still have a long way to go. My biggest concern is the other countries that are huge polluters. Naturally, China comes to mind first; even Hong Kong suffers from horrible pollution, but all of this is another story.

The point I want to make is this: if we all do something now, we can make a difference. I have faith that the younger generations in the United States have the information that my generation missed, and they are already taking action and so are we. We are building a home in San Carlos, Mexico right now. Bruce designed it and, together, we made a lot of "green" choices. In fact, we did everything we could afford to do. Our decision to go in that direction was reinforced when we moved to San Carlos last May. Our rental house is completely electric; no gas whatsoever. It's expensive and inconvenient, especially during the many summer storms that take the power out. We're going to try and produce over 10 kilowats of power using solar panels. That's not quite enough to be totally off the grid because of the need for air conditioning in the summer. We're also building a rain water collection system. Our calculations show that we will be able to store approximately 30,000 liters if our rainy season is normal. We will have three tinacos (cisterns) to store the water. We'll have a series of filter systems to get the water as clean and bacteria free as possible. To do all of this, we've had to cut back on other things in the house, but not drastically. Right now, solar is expensive, but it won't always be that way. One thing we're not cutting out is the pool and the heater will be solar powered. It's very cool here in the winter and I want to be able to use the pool year round. I wish we had made these choices years ago, but the important thing is that we can do it now and we are proud of the design of our new home. It makes us feel good to have a home that's not hurting the environment.