A personal planetary to-do list

Sorry about not blogging last week. There was a technical glitch, and I didn't have time to address it because I was at a climate change conference I'm at a climate change conference for journalists at the University of Maryland.

Our opening presentation was about what has been happening in recent decades (you know: temperatures rising, sea level rising, snow cover falling, animal populations decreasing). Plus, some of the things we should be doing about it.

What was especially interesting, in the context of this blog, was that the NASA scientist giving the talk, Robert F. Cahalan, head of the Goddard climate and radiation branch, included as part of his power point presentation a personal list of things citizens can do.

After talking about trends over 150 years, and comparisons to 140,000 years ago, and charting data from our far, far-away sun, he still brought things home.

The point was that, even against this seemingly bigger-than-life backdrop, individual action still matters.

Here are some of the things he recommends:

— Support wise policies.

— Support non-coal alternatives like solar and wind power.

— Calculate and control your energy use and carbon footprint.

— Talk to your neighbors to help you community work with nature.

— Shop local and consume wisely, finding products that do good, or at least less harm.

— Adopt a species (the bog turtle would be an example) to help pull it back from extinction.

— Educate your children to adapt to and change the world they inherit.