You Are Contributing to Global Warming and Miserable Doing It

No one likes being stuck in traffic, but sadly this daily unpleasantness is necessary for millions of people to get to work. If you are an automobile commuter, then you are intimately familiar with frustrating delays and reckless drivers while your vehicle issues pollution, including the global warming carbon dioxide. Freeing yourself from the colossal polluting waste of time that comes with long commutes would greatly enhance your life and reduce your carbon emissions.

According to the book "Simplify Your Work Life" by Elaine St. James, millions of Americans spend two hours or more every day traveling to work. For a five-day work week, this calculates to a staggering one month per year spent commuting.

Furthermore, the frenetic effort given to getting to work is followed by long working hours. The stereotypical hardworking American who is praised for productivity continues the unchecked energy consumption started during the commute.

The Spring 2007 issue of OnEarth magazine reported that long working hours equal higher energy consumption. The famously lackadaisical French worker is on the job 22 percent less than American counterparts, but OnEarth magazine went on to state that French workers are 9 percent more productive each hour. This makes sense because you really would need to squeeze some work in between your multiple vacations.

A recent study from the Washington D.C. think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research asserted that energy consumption in Western Europe would rise 30 percent if its citizens worked longer hours like Americans. Even without studies, it is easy to guess that long hours and long commutes add up to voracious energy consumption.

Apparently the American work culture that demands long hours and little or no vacation is not the most productive model when you factor in energy consumption.

If you are struggling in this exhausting system, you would benefit by pursuing alternatives. You could move closer to your job and perhaps try to shorten your work hours. You could even change jobs to an employer with flexible scheduling, telecommuting opportunities, or one that is simply closer to your home. These lifestyle strategies will make your happier, more productive, and reduce the amount of environmentally destructive pollution you generate.

Cultural change starts when people adopt new methods of living. If companies begin to have trouble obtaining qualified workers because they do not want to commute, then pressure will be created for more flexible schedules, telecommuting, and public transit.

If you do not seek a new lifestyle, then you will be sucked dry - along with our planet - by the proverbial rat race. Consider that, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, peasants did not flock to the factories because they longed for grueling toil. The people went to the factories because the lords had kicked them off their estates, where the peasants had farmed the land, so that the land could instead be used to graze sheep - to produce wool for the textile factories.

The lesson is that if you do not attempt to exert some control over your circumstances and lifestyle, then your lifestyle will be chosen for you, and not necessarily to your benefit. Your health and happiness will suffer along with your environment.

What is the U.S. Doing to Control Global Warming?

The success of the documentary cinema The Inconvenient Truth, starring former Vice President Al Gore, coupled with major weather related disasters the world over in the last few years has once again brought climate change and global warming to the fore front.

While United States has long remained the world's largest contributor of green house gases that lead to global warming, the Bush administration has yet to sign the internationally heralded Kyoto Protocol. In fact, it has been caught in some blatant controversies trying to disprove a body of scientific evidence regarding the matter.

Many politicians and journalist have concluded that this has happened not because they don't believe climate change is taking place, but rather because of the powerful lobbying groups mainly from the auto and oil industry that supports them. Cars and fossil fuel use, along with coal based electricity, remains some
of the biggest source of carbon emission the world over.

With recent hubbub about global warming, and polls showing immense public concern over the issue, President Bush has spoken publicly many times about slowing down the effects of global warming, mainly by using technology to cut carbon emissions.

In his State of the Union address last year, he explicitly endorsed the Hybrid car technology, one that would run not just on gas but also electricity.

After the Democratic Party won control of the House and the Senate, the U.S Government has also steadily endorsed many pro-environment causes such as the development of alternative energy such as bio fuels for automobiles, and is actively drafting bills that will require Detroit to produce cars that give better mileage. This April, the Supreme Court voted 5-4, giving the federal government the authority to regulate vehicle' carbon emissions under the country's Clean Air Act.

While the environment has already become a major Presidential campaign agenda for elections '08, true leadership on global warming has so far come most effectively form local authorities across the United States. Almost two hundred cities have taken to the cause, designing and implementing their own campaigns to slow down the effects of global warming as much as possible. California's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York City's mayor Michael Bloomberg have both take the lead and made fighting global warming a primary objective during their time in office.

While California plans to plant over 11 million trees in its urban space within the next two decades, New York recently hosted one of the world's largest summits of the mayors with a focus on cities and local authorities taking the lead for this cause. Trees are natural air purifiers, and today there is a serious public effort across towns and cities to build greener space.

There has also been a massive grassroots campaign to fight global warming from religious groups as well as celebrities. And saving the world itself has become a financially sound decision for investors the world over. Wall Street, too, has taken to the cause, and Goldman Sachs has already invested billions in clean energy.

The people of America seem to be increasingly geared up to take responsibility for their part in causing global warming, which will affect countries that were not major contributors of the greenhouse gases the most. And it's forcing leaders in the Republican and Democratic Party, as well as the business and scientific community and religious groups to do what it takes to neutralize the global warming effect.