DFA Meeting Monday 2/12/07

Written by: Marcia Bollea on Feb 18, 2007 9:51 PM EST

A few of us were fortunate to be at the DFA meeting at Torino's on Monday (2/12/07) night to hear Trish from the Sierra Club give a presentation about Global Warming.  Trish trained with Al Gore and is giving this very professional and informative presentation to groups in our area.  Trish was invited to speak at this DFA meeting by Theresa.

While seeing all the scientific evidence about Global Warming and the effects that are happening world-wide even as we read this, it is heartening to know that people are slowly beginning to pay attention to this pandemic and potentially catastrophic problem.  Something of this scope obviously requires nations and global corporations to work together for solutions and we should all work toward that goal by using the power of the people and the power of the purse to force change in the international board rooms and in the halls of government.

There are some simple things each of us can do in our daily lives to effect change:

• Change a light.....replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb will save 150 lbs of CO2/year
• Drive less.....walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit; you'll save one lb of CO2 for every mile you don't drive
• Recycle more.....save 2,400 lbs of CO2/year by recycling just half of your household waste
• Check your tires.....keeping your tires properly inflated can improve gas mileage by more than 3% and every gallon of gas saved keeps more than 20 lbs of CO2 out of the air
• Use less hot water.....install a low flow showerhead (350 lbs of CO2 saved every year) and wash clothes in warm or cold water (500 lbs saved/year)
• Avoid products with a lot of packaging.....save 1,200 lbs of CO2 by cutting your garbage by 10%
• Adjust your thermostat.....2 degrees down in winter and 2 degrees up in summer could save 2,000 lbs of CO2/year
• Plant a tree.....one tree will absorb one (1) ton of CO2 in its lifetime
• Turn off electronic devices.....turning off TV's, DVD players, stereos and computers when not in use will save thousands of lbs of CO2/year (lights, too!)

An Inconvenient Truth became available on DVD on 11/21/06.  See www.climatecrisis.com

Also, we discussed the solar paneling of roofs in the Clark County School District.  A couple of schools are doing this as a pilot study, but people need to let the governor's office and the school district know that this is a priority when building new schools and revamping old ones...there is also an issue about carbon dioxide credits which are capped and can be a disincentive to using solar energy...the legislature needs to change these capping policies to make it easier and more cost effective to use solar energy in government facilities.  Call or write to your state representative!

"Divine Strake" (the 700-ton fertilizer and fuel oil explosion planned for the Nevada Test Site) was briefly discussed.  The governors of Utah and Idaho are vigorously protesting this upcoming event, but the silence in Nevada is deafening.  See "From Our Readers in the R-J, 2/11/07.  While the Sierra Club cannot officially take a position on this issue, Trish stated that by and large the membership opposes this test and she referred us to other organizations which are more involved:  Western Resource Advocates (WRA), Nevada Clean Energy Coalition (NCEC), and Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN).  Also Citizen Alert and various peace and Indian Rights organizations are taking a stand about this.  There will be an event in protest of "Divine Strake" at the Test Site in a couple of months...more later.

All in all, a interesting and informative meeting.

Marcia Bollea

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Location: Las Vegas, NV 89101