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Global warming heats up local debates |
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Tuesday, 30 January 2007 |
by LINDSAY TIGAR
Lifestyles Intern Reporter
Global warming has become an apparent issue both nationally and in our local area.
Non-profit agencies such as Appalachian Voices are working to lower the risks of global warming.
“We believe that humans have a large effect on our climate,” J. Benji Burrell, Appalachian Voices program coordinator, said. “We encourage people to watch their level of electricity usage because that effects, greatly, carbon dioxide output.”
Earth is an ecosystem that is constantly changing due, in great measure, to globalization and man.
More carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere than there has been in the past 650,000 years and it remains in the atmosphere holding in heat, according to stopglobalwarming.org.
Appalachian Voices aims to “empower people to defend our region’s rich natural and cultural heritage by providing them with tools and strategies for successful grassroots campaign,” according to Appvoices.org.
“Our projects have three main areas, “ Burrell said. “To eliminate air pollution, stop mountain top removal and restore Appalachian forests.”
Appalachian students can help to stop global warming by volunteering at Appalachian Voices and other non-profits or by taking informative steps in their daily lives to save energy.
Some suggestions provided at stopglobalwarming.org are to use recycled paper, take shorter showers, buy organic and local products, reduce garbage, carpool when accessible, unplug unused electronics and air dry clothes.
At Appalachian Voices, many volunteer opportunities are available especially in reaction to its campaign against mountain top removal.
“Just in the states adjunct to us, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, there are very large scale surface coal mines,” Burrell said. “These mines are growing and sometimes 10,000 acres long. Miners are using explosives to blast the tops of the mountains to expose the coal mines and using the coal to sell and burn for electricity.”
After the miners are finished removing the tops of the mountains and getting what they need for profit, they deposit the remainders into local streams, Burrell said.
“There should be a law against mountain top removal,” Burrell said. “We are working to help pass the Clean Water Protection Act, which would outlaw waste material into local streams.”
Efforts to eliminate global warming and mountain top removal, which puts out a large amount of carbon dioxide into the area, are efforts to help protect not only the earth, but also the people living in it.
A study by doctors at Harvard Medical School linked recent U.S. outbreaks of dengue fever, malaria, Hantavirus and other diseases to climate change.
“An Inconvenient Truth” returns to Appalachian’s campus today at I.G. Greer Theatre.
The screening is free and is sponsored by Appalachian Popular Programming Society, Student Government Association, Renewable Energy Initiative, and the Physical Plant. A question and answer session will follow the film.
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