Saturday, February 21, 2009

Back in Bethlehem

When I arrived home yesterday I was treated by my husband to the last two paragraphs of the book he had just finished reading, The Long Thaw, by David Archer:

"If we add up the total amount of energy trapped by the CO2 from the gallon of gas over its atmospheric lifetime, we find that one gallon of gasoline ultimately traps one hundred billion kilocalories of useless and unwanted greenhouse heat. The bad energy from burning that gallon ultimately outweighs the good energy by a factor of about 40 million.
The enormous world-altering potential of that gallon of gasoline has taken the reins of Earth's climate away from its natural stabilizing feedback systems, and given them to us. May we use our newfound powers wisely."

The Long Thaw is one of many books on global warming and climate change listed on the website of ICE (Initiatives for the Climate Emergency), the group here in the Lehigh Valley that I joined as it started up in September 2008, convened by Len Frenkel due to his immense concern about global warming.

I recommend the website for its information on global warming, its proposals and the lists of books and further websites. Check it out at www.iceworks.org. I have listed it in the sidebar as a permanent link on this blog.

1 comment:

natalie said...

It is frightening to think about just how much we drive in the country and around the world when presented with the figures about 1 gallon of gasoline.