When Will Global Warming Galvanize You To Action?

When Will Global Warming Galvanize You To Action?

We all have our limits. 

Ira Flatow the host of the well known “Science Friday” on NPR gave a talk at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History Explorer series a couple of years ago.  Before his talk, he held an informal “hand raising” poll of the audience, wanting to know when they would change their driving habits, (car pool, public transit, hybrid car purchase, etc) based on the gasoline prices at the pump.  He started at about $2.00 (as the current price then was $1.75 or so).  He got a couple of hands raised (of the 400 or so attending).
Ira worked his way up the price list, in increments of 50 cents….  He got a few more hands at each increase in price, but the majority of us raised out hands during the $4.50-$5.00 per gallon range.  His comment was that the current rate that we were paying for gasoline must indeed be “cheap” ($1.75), as the oil companies were telling us. 
He also reminded us who we were, and where we were, pointing out that we were generally conservation minded, nature oriented people, and that this simple poll was a far cry from a “person on the street” poll.
…..So, what might your trigger be???  More killer hurricanes?  Gasoline at $5.00 per gallon?  The extinction of the polar bears?  The Gulf Stream shutting down, and Europe entering an Ice Age?

….all I know is that this drought situation has some people I know very worried:

            Nevada is adding 80,000 new residents every year; Arizona is the fastest growing state- Tuscon and Phoenix will probably merge in the next ten years. Yet as the map shows, these are also the areas of America going through the worst drought in years. In the southeast it is just as bad. In Florida, Lake Okeechobee has receded so much that parts of it caught fire. Worst of all, the Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee has warned it may have to reduce or suspend production, because the spring waters on which it relies are flowing as much as two-thirds below normal.

From: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/the_dehydrated.php [1]