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Going Carbon Free Today
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Recently scientists have announced that the world must go carbon zero by the mid-century to avoid the dangerous effects of global warming. After years and years of environmentalists fighting to get their voices heard the world is now finally conscious of this frightening phenomenon. But how does one go carbon free, let alone a nation? I remember in my Global Environmental Politics class one student pronouncing that if we want to go carbon free, we must revert back to village societies.


Yet this is not practical to the average world citizen. With increasing urbanization, people are flocking to the city, whereby their water is pumped, their food is imported,and the concrete landscape is expanding. We need to find ways to create sustainable living in our modern day environment. This means in some cases adapting traditional technologies, and in others using high tech development. In battling global warming, we must take examples of sustainable living from both rural and urban, the north and the south.

With the United Nations Climate Conference in Bali, we must air our laundry out, so to speak, finding different ways to look at our own practices and see where there is room for change. Communities and henceforth businesses are starting to respond to this demand. Organic and vegetarian food options, car and bike sharing, farmers markets, sustainable fabrics, recycled clothing, carbon offsetting, and solar power are all making waves by revolutionizing options for consumers. I think that by embracing village values, we can encourage local businesses, locally produced food, and find ways to reduce, reuse, recycle our way to a carbon zero future.

March 10, 2008 | 10:55 PM Comments  1 comments

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gringuitica Erin
March 11, 2008 | 8:29 AM

Reading your suggestions, it's interesting to see how "ahead" Costa Rica is in the battle for carbon neutrality. As you well know, public transportation (buses) is probably the #1 way to travel, both locally and nationally, many people shop for massive quantities of veggies every week at the farmers' markets, our major national airline is completely carbon neutral, and we even have biodegradable vegetable bags (not plastic) at our major grocery store now...

I think that to achieve these goals, the world (Costa Rica included, because we have a long, long way to go, too!) needs to really accept that we're in an environmental crisis that calls for immediate -- NOT future -- action. Then, we need to make the conscious decision to be less consumerist and embrace, as you said, some of the ideals and lifestyles of the past. I just hope that enough people will be willing.
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