From the monthly archives: February 2008
You have heard the threats: if we don’t do something about climate change we will experience something akin to apocalyptic collapse. Climate change will increase the number of diseases, catastrophic storms, wildfires, droughts and floods. With climate change becoming more popular in recent months, companies are starting to take actions to ensure our children do not inherit a ruined earth. However, it is questionable whether some companies care more about their image and profits versus sincere desire to help the environment.
I have noticed more and more commercials by companies that cause huge environmental harm touting small ecological improvements. There are the plastic water bottle companies expounding how kind they are to the environment because they have reduced the amount of plastic in their bottles. The problem is, buying a plastic water bottle, using it once and throwing it away is not helping the earth.
Also, there are the car companies bragging how their environmentally friendly cars are going to save the world. Have you seen the commercial where the little boy asks the father, “Why did you buy a hybrid daddy?”
In an effort to reduce water usage, in 1999 Las Vegas began to offer $1.50 per square foot of lawn removed from residential and commercial properties. The Water Smart Landscapes program estimates that every square foot of grass replaced with water-smart trees, shrubs and flowers saves an average of 55 gallons of water per year, also saving money on monthly water bills. In the first eight years of the measure, about six square miles of grass have been eliminated, saving 18 billion gallons of water.
Despite these efforts, if Las Vegas does not further cut water usage, there is a 10 percent chance that Lake Mead will run dry in six years, and a 50 percent probability it will be completely gone by 2021, absent other changes. These figures are based on a recent study by two researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.
