Almost all ecological problems in United States have one origin, namely the fossil fuels. Fossil fuels like oil and coal are traditional energy sources in United States, and as many of you probably already know fossil fuels when burning release harmful greenhouse gases, most notably CO2, that are mostly responsible for climate change problem. The United States are world's largest industrial force, and has been this for almost a century now, meaning U.S. CO2 emissions have mostly contributed to current global ecological problems like climate change.
Despite being in new millennium, old habits apparently still take some time to die, and money is in America still much more important than our environment, and the current ecological condition of our planet. With president Obama many environmentalists started feeling wind of change but things are still not going in the right direction, and fears that precious industry will perhaps experience short-term losses are still preventing immediate environmental action, meaning even more delays, and even more political promises are on agenda.
The biggest ecological problem in United States is really the lack of ecological conscience. American society is very much based on American dream, meaning money is all what matters in the end. Money and ecology are sadly two completely different things, and very small number of Americans would choose ecology and health of our planet before money and profits.
Though going green is currently very popular trend in United States good old Uncle Sam is still anything but green, unless by green you mean the color of the money. The best way for America to go green would be the quick development of renewable energy sector, but sadly by the current looks of it fossil fuels look very likely to dominate U.S. energy market at least by the end of this century.
Most American still haven't realized the magnitude of current ecological problems, and this is what gives politics opportunity to delay actions that should have been done long time ago. Media coverage of ecological problems, though increasing, is still not sufficient enough to change the global American mentality, and ecology is still forced to play the second violin to almighty industry. If U.S. really wants to go green then this will have to change very fast. Or else...
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI agree that a lot of people needs to be awakened.
In Finland the biggest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, had the "Footprint test" (a little bit adapted though from the international one), on their net-version, on the first page. The test gave a huge response. It was some 6 months ago and now everyone here seems to know what the Carbon Footprint means.
That is good. We area bunch of guys that tries to "copyleft" all kind of "How to"-stuff, in order to make the footprint lighter. Mostly about building homes from waste and natural materials, how to make the logging of woods and the saw-mill process as light as possible, how to build a sawmill from waste, save electricity in production, amusement-parks without tech etc.
Our blog http://provillage.wordpress.com has free drawings and the blue-prints will also be free for everyone. We aim to begin to build these very sustainable objects a.s.a.p. and hope that we would get many others thinking (and publishing) how to produce from waste, local materials and with a minimum of transportation.
Most of the information about DIY-stuff we get from USA, through the net. On the other hand, we get much of the environmental info from Europe. WE hope that the trans-Atlantic cooperation will be stronger and it really seems to do so in a very fast pace, and we would like to greet all the Americans as we need you and your skills and expertice in many fields.
Henry