Writing the contracts for this week I came to the conclusion that a brief brochure would help my project. All along I knew that I not only wanted to make a piece that would inform people about global warming but also show people how they can help. However this is much easier and useful in writing than on a presentation. It is hard to display this type of information during a short presentation. Too much text would distract the viewer from the overall meaning. So I decided to include a short brochure that would show what steps “YOU’, individually, can do to help and what steps “WE”, together as a society, can do to help reduce global warming. The brochure will primarily take a listing format. This form will allow the reader to quickly look over the brochure’s information without becoming intimidated. Each step will be easily visible so that it sticks in the readers mind as a valuable piece of information. The brochure will also include a section containing resources on global warming so that the reader can find out more information if they choose to do so. I intend to use the most valuable steps that I have found throughout my research. As the brochure opens, on the left flap will be the “YOU” steps, the right flap will contain the “WE” steps. The front will be simple, calling for the reader to open the brochure with further inquiries. Once I get the information in the brochure I want to take it to a printing facility like Copy Solutions, or Office Depot, etc. to see if they can put it in a brochure format on a thicker weighted paper. The brochure could be distributed to local coffee shops, book stores, posted on campus bulletin boards, libraries, and even at various business lobbies. The nice thing about distributing the brochure is that it would be easy to do.

Enough of talking school work, how bout them YANKEES! They don’t have the best record but they are playing great baseball and they aren’t even fully healthy yet either. Soon they play a series with Boston which will be a good series. Then we will get to see how good Dice K is really going to be when he goes up against their line-up. I love this time of the year, there are more baseball games on than I have time to watch, which is a great problem to have.

The other day at work, lying on a table in the break room was a wonderful article about what else, global warming. I read through it and found out some really interesting stuff. Probably the best part about this article was that at the end it offered many things we can do to help this cause. Many articles and information that I have found about global warming has been just reports about various things either affected by global warming or indications of its existence. This article goes into that but it also lists fifty-one things we can do. I will share but a few.

6 Steps YOU can take to Reduce Global Warming

Step 1: Use Energy Star recommended Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFL)

A typical CFL uses only 25 percent of the electicity of an incandescent bulb to produce the same amount of light. If every U.S. household replaced its incandescent light bulbs with CFL’s, electricity usage for lighting would be cut in half, eliminating about 62.5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Step 2: Insulate and Weather-strip Your Home

There are a number of things one can do here. Weather-stripping and caulking, insulation, heating water efficiently and using double-pane windows are just a few. Total these combined would annually save our planet 13,300 pounds of global warming pollution.

Step 3: Buy Energy Star recommended home appliances and electronics

According to the U.S. EPA, if just 10 percent of the population used energy star appliances it would result in the reduction of carbon dioxide pollution equivalent to planting 1.7 million acres of new trees. As for electronics, if we used energy star models the reduction in pollution would be like taking over three million cars of the road, millions of tons annually would be saved.

Step 4: Walk, Ride a bike, or take public transportation

A neighborhood of 50 people driving 20 miles round trip to work releases 118 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Step 5: Drive Your Car Efficiently

You might be asking how do you drive efficiently, well one answer would be to inflate your tires and keep them inflated. Properly inflated tires would improve fuel efficiency by 3.3 percent per year. This accounts for:
· 4.6 billion gallons of gas
· $13.7 billion (at $3/gallon)
· 45.8 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution


Step 6: Buy the most fuel efficient car you can

Your car releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution into the air for every gallon of gas used. The most fuel efficient cars are hybrids. The average hybrid can cut carbon dioxide pollution by 1.2 tons per year and with federal tax credits, hybrids are becoming cheaper.

More interesting facts on global warming:

Only 5 percent of the world’s population lives in the United States, but we produce almost one-fourth of the world’s carbon dioxide pollution. Of our country’s immense contribution to our planet’s current state, some states are worse than others. It may come as a surprise to some but the Midwest; Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin in particular are responsible for 20 percent of our country’s carbon dioxide pollution and about 5 percent of the world’s.