Global warming is all about science, and science is all about numbers. So our October SNCA newsletter gives you numbers to ponder. Contributors this month are Bonnie Nickel, June Cussen, Lea Hall, Demetra McBride, and Vesna Petrovich. But before we do the numbers, let's look at local action:

Sarasota County is a hotbed of climate action these days:

1. HOORAY! The Venice City Council unanimously endorsed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement this week! The resolution includes membership in ICLEI for implementation. The resolution will be read again in two weeks as all resolutions must pass t wice. Big thanks and congratulations to Bonnie Nickel and her Venice posse.

2. The City of Sarasota now holds monthly Environmental Management Task Force meetings, with representatives from each City department. This group is charged with implementing the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement for Sarasota, as Sarasota signed the agreement last spring.

3. Greenpeace is in town to encourage Rep. Vern Buchanan to take action on climate change.

4. National Environmental Trust is here to do the same with Senator Mel Martinez.

5. Environmental Defense has come to address market-driven solutions.

6. Students at New College are working on solutions through the Southern Energy Network.

6 solar technologies to power the world. From "solar trees" in the Mojave Desert to heliostat concentrators in southeastern Australia to microdishes in San Francisco, here are 6 new ways to use sun energy to power electrical grids.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/biz2/0705/gallery.solar_tech.biz2/index.html (JC)

15 facts about the paper industry, global warming and the environment. (Courtesy of a report by the Environmental Paper Network, via The Daily Green, The Consumer's Guide to the Green Revolution—which is a great source, worth checking often.) Here are the first seven. See http://www.thedailygreen.com/2007/10/02/15-facts-about-paper-industry-and-the-environment/7447/ for the rest.

1,000,000 CFL light bulbs sold by Wal-Mart. Some nations (Australia and Britain) have banned incandescent bulbs, a top-down approach. The U.S. has opted for a free-market approach, with Wal-Mart leading the way, stocking them at eye level in big displays. The EPA is drumming up support with a 10-city tour of "Change a Light, Change the World." Have you changed your bulbs yet? Consider these facts (courtesy of The Christian Science Monitor and Wal-Mart):

• Nearly 20% of all home electric costs stem from lighting.
• Changing a single conventional 60-watt bulb to a 13-watt CFL, which produces the same amount of light, saves an average of $30 in electric costs over its lifetime.
• Installing one CFL, because it will last so much longer than a conventional bulb, prevents 10 conventional bulbs from being produced, transported, and discarded in a landfill.
• By using less energy, it prevents as much as 220 pounds of coal from being burned, and 450 pounds of greenhouse gases from reaching the air, and about 10 milligrams of mercury (more, by the way, than is contained in the bulb itself).
• Wal-Mart's 1 million bulb goal will result in $3 billion in household electricity bill savings, and prevent pollution equivalent to that produced by 700,000 vehicles. (JC)

2% Solution. The Sierra Club has started the Be Part of the 2% Solution campaign to fight Global Warming. The idea is that if we cut carbon emissions by 2% a year over the next 40 years we will have met the goal of 80% by 2050. So cutting carbon 80% by 2050 is still the mantra, still what we have to convince Congress to address, but now we can make it sound a little simpler and doable by saying we need to cut carbon 2% a year. (JC)

Climate change may be just 1 of 3 global crises , all of which need to be confronted now. From a September, 2007, conference on "Confronting the Global Triple Crisis -- Climate Change, Peak Oil, Global Resource Depletion & Extinction "
How to Address Humanity's Global Crises? Challenge Corporate Power, Embrace True Democracy
By Vandana Shiva, AlterNet
October 1, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/63541/  (LH)

5 worst excuses not to go green. Global warming is starting to hit the pocketbook so even the banks are getting in on the green info act. At bankrate.com you can find the 5 worst excuses not to go green. They say: "Going green is a lot like losing weight. Many of us talk about doing it but when it comes right down to it we come up with myriad excuses." Here are the worst ones:

            It's too expensive.

            I can't make a difference.

            It doesn't fit my lifestyle

            Green products don't work.

            I don't know where to start.

Go to http://www.bankrate.com/nltrack/news/energy-environment-2007/environment_worst_excuses_a1.asp?caret=2a for the arguments against all these excuses. (JC)

$2.4 billion pledged by Florida Power and Light through 2012 to create new solar plants in Florida and produce new solar-energy and energy-efficient products. FP&L made the pledge during the recent Clinton Global Initiative, an annual event led by former President Bill Clinton to fight global problems. (VP)

Junk-in-the-Box. Americans receive almost 4.5 million tons of junk mail per year, or about 100 million trees-worth – that's one and half trees per person per year.   Think of the environmental cost of all that ink! For all that destruction, nearly half of junk mail is never opened. (DM)

Tripping the Plastic Fantastic!We produce and use 20 times more plastic today than we did 50 years ago. Americans throw away enough plastic bottles each year to circle the earth 4 times. 5 plastic bottles can be recycled into an adult-size fleece jacket. (DM)

Paper Trail to the Forest. A 12-foot high wall could be built from New York City to Los Angeles with all of the office and writing paper thrown out in the U.S. each year. Americans use more than 67 million tons of paper each year (or 580 pounds per person).  Recycling a single ton could save as many as 17 trees.  If we recycled only half of what we throw away each year, we might save over half a billion trees! 1 tree can filter up to 60 pounds of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from the air each year. Each Christmas, it's estimated that the citizens of Sarasota County wind up throwing away approximately 620,000 square feet of wrapping paper and cards.  That's enough to cover over 11 football fields, or 5 baseball fields! (DM)

Talking Dirty! On average, adults throw away their own body weight in garbage every 7 weeks. The average household produces more than a ton of waste every year. Every year we produce about 3% more waste than the year before. This might not sound much but, if we carry on at this rate, it means that we will double the amount of waste we produce every 25 years. Most of the world's waste is produced by people from the 'developed' world (which includes the United States), even though these people only make up about 5% of the world's population. (DM)