March 20th marked the first day of spring, alas the end of a long and awfully cold winter season. Unfortunately, this was not the case this year. Instead of being greeted by blooming daffodils and singing birds, we, New Yorkers, received an unexpected and frigid snow storm. How cruel of Mother Nature to inflict this on us when we’ve already had our fair share of tundra-like conditions. I’m sure most of you are having similar thoughts and are wondering what is going on with the weather. You may have even considered moving to Florida, I know I sure did! Quite frankly I’m sick and tired of wearing UGGs and a Northface fleece every single morning just to take the subway to work. Is this sudden change in climate due to global warming? If so, isn’t it supposed to be getting warmer and not colder? Not necessarily.

Al Gore has devoted his efforts and time to raising awareness on this worldwide epidemic. He has gained the respect of many, including NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies which has conducted intense research on this topic and confirmed that the rate of warming is rapidly increasing. The last two decades were the hottest in 400 years. As a result, artic ice, glaciers and coral reefs are decreasing in staggering numbers. According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) humans are the main cause of global warming.

Over the past few years, many organizations have devoted their efforts to tackle global warming. On March 28th, 2009 between 8:30pm and 9:30pm, the earth was a few shades darker due to “Earth Hour”. This worldwide endeavor against global warming was a grand success and proved that together we can really make a difference. I highly recommend you go to their website: www.earthhour.org/news/ and learn more about it.

Here are some simple energy saving tips that you can try at home to help make a difference:

• Change your light bulbs
Replacing your old incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs will help increase your energy efficiency. This small change will help stop global warming by reducing air pollution caused by power plants.

• Reduce – Reuse - Recycle
Yes you’ve heard this since grade school, but recycling is huge! Instead of using paper or plastic bags at grocery stores, bring your own reusable bag. According to 'An Inconvenient Truth,' it takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce the plastic bags Americans use each year. In addition, about 15 million trees are cut down to produce paper for paper bags.

• Become Green!
If you are able to switch your energy source to wind or solar do it! In some areas, you can even get refunds by the government if you choose to switch to a clean energy producer.

• Install a programmable thermostat
This will allow you to lower your heat or air conditioning at night and raise it again in the morning. A small change like this can save you $100 a year on your energy bill. Tax credits on energy efficient heating and cooling equipment make now a great time to upgrade.

We don’t need to wait for the government to come save us, we may not be able to stop global warming but we can slow it down if we all act together.

Maria
Maria.Athanasopoulos@gmail.com