Activist offers Vermonters ten tips to slow global warming

By Sheryl Glubok | Special to the Vermont Guardian

Posted November 30, 2006

BURLINGTON — It’s as if Laurie David planned it, a high of 54 degrees Nov. 29 in Vermont.

Had the environmental activist and film producer’s talk been postponed just one day, she could have delivered her message on how to become a global warming activist on a day more like May than November — the high today neared the high 60s shattering yet another seasonal record.

On Nov. 29, 2005 the temperature in Burlington hit 68 degrees, a record high.

Vermont is not the anomaly, David stressed. The 12 months from July 2005 to July 2006 were the hottest recorded since we started keeping track in the United States.

David, greeted with the enthusiasm often left for rock stars, talked to a standing room only crowd at University of Vermont’s Ira Allen Chapel Wednesday night. She rattled off statistic after statistic as evidence that the consensus is in — global warming is a reality and the only thing left to do is to try to slow it. Reversing it is probably impossible at this stage.

At the current unchecked rate of carbon gas emissions, the average planet temperature may warm as much as five degrees. If we aggressively start to curb our output, we can slow that increase to perhaps only two, she said. One degree of warmth, David states, is the difference between the food in your freezer being frozen or completely melted on your floor.

Citing climate scientists, “the most cautious group of people on the planet,” David argued that we have a 10-year window to slow this process. Hence her urgency — we cannot wait for our leaders in government and business to pave the way.

"We need serious U.S. leadership — the U.S. is the biggest cause of the problem and we're doing the least about it,” David said.

Yet, she argues this has to be a personal movement. "The fight against global warming starts here,” David said. “We must ask ourselves what is it we're doing, and is it enough?"

That is the core of her message, and is the title of her book — Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You – An Activist’s Guide. The book sold out before her talk was finished.

Despite the dire predictions of how global warming will affect every Vermonter personally — as we are asked to imagine our state without Sugar Maples, fall foliage, and skiing — David’s message was uplifting. The solutions exist, people need to implement them on a personal scale while pressing Congress to step up to the plate and tax pollution.

She argues that people can do 10 things right now, everything from changing your light bulbs to buying more fuel-efficient cars and goods that contain more post-consumer, recycled content (see full list below).

The Vermont Regional Alumni Board sponsored David’s UVM talk. And, it apparently took some convincing to get David to come since many of her university talks have not been well attended.

As the producer of the wildly successful documentary An Inconvenient Truth starring Al Gore, the HBO documentary Too Hot Not to Handle, the comedy revue Earth to America!, and numerous profiles in many major magazines, it seems hard to believe she would not pack any house.

Even the fact that she’s married to the creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David would seem to be worthy of drawing a crowd.

As it turned out, David had nothing to fear in Vermont. It was clear from the cheering that greeted her as she took the stage, and to the standing ovation at the end of her talk, she was in front of a sympathetic, and eager, crowd.

From the front row, tears could be seen welling in her eyes as she surveyed the packed house driven to its feet by her message. She was even approached by several people for her autograph —the first time that has happened on her tour.

"It's time for a clean, green industrial revolution — become an activist. You sacrifice only if you do nothing.” David concluded. “You don't have to do everything, but do something."

10 things Laurie David argues people can do to help slow global warming:

1. Unplug your cell phone, iPod, laptop, and PDA chargers from the wall when not in use - they draw a current as long as they’re plugged in.

2. Replace five regular light bulbs in your home with compact fluorescent ones (they’re available at Home Depot and Costco, are not expensive and last longer). If every U.S. household were to do so, it would be like removing eight million cars from the road for a year.

3. Buy post-consumer recycled paper towels and toilet paper (and support local Vermont company Seventh Generation in the process). Again if every household in America replaced just one virgin forested TP roll, 500,000 trees would remain standing.

4. Join the Virtual March to Stop Global Warming at www.stopglobalwarming.org— a group David founded along with Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose goal is to have one million members “march” carbon free to show Washington how people are serious about climate change — all you need is an email.

5. When you buy a car, make sure it’s the most fuel efficient one you can find.

6. Join the Natural Resource Defenses Council — which costs $15 and helps them in their lobbying efforts.

7. Remove your name from the list of as many mail-order catalogs as possible. These companies send out 17 billion a year, and almost none use post-consumer, recycled paper.

8. Buy two canvas bags to bring with you to the grocery store, or any store for that matter. One hundred billion petroleum based plastic bags are made every year and only 1 percent are recycled. Paper bags are even worse as they take four times the energy to make and only 20 percent are recycled.

9. Convince a family member, neighbor, or close friend to do just one of these things and see your impact grow.

10. Buy a copy of An Inconvenient Truth for each person on your holiday gift list.