Salamanders are sensitive to their environments; environmental scientists use them to determine the health of their homes.  When the salamanders are sick, the habitat is sick too.  Plus, salamanders are easy to draw.

What, really, is causing climate change?

No one can say for certain, but all the evidence is consistent with what environmental scientists have predicted for years.  Basically, heat-trapping greenhouse gases, including the carbon we emit in our everyday activities, have been accumulating in our atmosphere since humans industrialized.  For all you English majors out there (holla!), remember Hopkins?

          “All is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil

          And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell….”  (1) 

Or, for you non-English majors, everything's yucky.  

In the pre-industrial world, carbon dioxide levels were at 280 ppm (parts per million).  Since industrialization and, now, globalization, that number has increased to 383 ppm in 2007. (2)  Holy Macanoli, that’s a 137% change!!  If you are a climate-change skeptic, ask yourself this:  Would you hang out in a garage with the car running and the doors tightly shut?  Probably not!  

Why is it important to go on a carbon diet?

There are a variety of reasons, such as environmental destabilization:

          Rising sea levels as frozen areas warm and ice melts,

          Increased number and severity of storms,

          Increased drought and heat waves,

          Changing ecosystems,

          Endangered and extinct animals, plants and organisms.

In turn, these changes will lead and have led to loss of animal and human life in a variety of ways:

          Famine,

          Disease,

          Water and food shortages,

          Political upheaval.

The World Health Organization estimates more than 300,000 deaths each year due to climate change. (3)  The golden toad, by the way, is recognized as the first species to have become extinct due to climate change.  And everyone’s seen the pictures of the polar bears swimming in once-frozen seas, we wouldn’t want them to be next!!

What would daily life on a carbon diet look like? 

It would look great!  Have you ever wondered why life today sometimes feels empty or meaningless?  That’s in part due to increased anonymity and isolation.  As Philip Larkin bemoaned:  “None of this cares for us.” (4)  We drive far away to buy things we don’t need from strangers who irritate us. 

For years, happiness has been associated with material gain and wealth, but it actually stems more from being involved with others.  Drive less.  Buy less.  And buy locally.  As we do, we’ll develop stronger bonds with our neighbors.  We’ll grow closer to our families.  When we conserve electricity, we’ll spend less time watching TV and playing video games.  As we support locally grown produce, we’ll eat fewer additives and reduce ADD and ADHD in our children. (5)  We’ll learn to play the ukulele and tetherball.  We’ll whittle. 

So to picture life on a carbon diet, simply imagine yourself, super sexy from all the walking, shopping at your neighborhood market, stopping by the local café for coffee with neighbors (okay, I mean local brewpub for beers), and returning home to cook a healthy, mainly vegetarian meal with your blissfully close-knit family, all of whom have fantastic calf muscles. 

Is it too late to stop climate change?

Well, it’s already “too late to avoid trauma but not too late to prevent the worst,” according to David Orr, author and chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College (6).  Circle the chairs and call the teevee people, we need an intervention!  Unfortunately, it will take some time before we see any real impact from the daily changes we need to make, because the Earth is large and climate change is slow.  However, if we want our kids to enjoy the pleasures of the planet as we did, this is a call we cannot ignore.   

What is individual carbon trading?

Individual carbon trading is based on the carbon trading system that “37 industrialized countries and the European community” (7) already engage in under the Kyoto Protocal.  Each country aims to reduce emissions and stay under their carbon caps.  The U.S. is, of course, the most industrialized nation not to ratify the treaty, which means it’s up to grassroots efforts and concerned individuals like you and me to encourage lawmakers, businesses and individuals to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

With grassroots individual carbon trading, you determine your carbon cap—50 Salamander Points per day is ideal, but 100 or 200 might be more realistic for now. Remember, every little bit helps!  So, if you go over your cap, either cut back the next day, or buy your nearly-sustainable friend—you know, the one who zips around town on that supercool 21-speed roadbike that she got for $45 second-hand—a couple beers and take some of hers!  She’ll come crawling for your Salamander Points when she realizes Phish is having a reunion show this summer and she didn’t stock up on enough points to get her clunky van down to Virginia. 

How many points should I cap myself at?

Well, we need to aim for an individual carbon footprint of 2 tons per year, or 44 Salamander Points per day.  To make that easy to count, because counting’s hard, cap yourself at about 50 Salamander Points per day.  If you need a few points to do laundry on the weekend, save a couple each day during the week.  Or trade them with a friend—that’s individual carbon trading.  Another option is to offset your carbon output, but we didn’t include those numbers on our web site.  If 50 is too few points for you to use realistically, and it probably is, analyze where you can cut back each day, and maybe aim for 100 or 200.  See “Ways to Save” tab for more info.

Remember, the average American uses 20 – 22 times what’s sustainable per year, and that’s just too much! Its like eating 40,000 calories a day when you should be eating around 2,000!!   Cut back wherever and whenever you can.  Just like caloric dieting, it gets easier as our habits change.  Soon, we'll all be lean, mean and green!

Doesn’t checking my Salamander Points use electricity?  That’s bad, right?

Okay, smartie-pants, that’s true.  But imagine if we were using clean energy—wind or solar power, for example—to supply our electricity.  Then checking Salamander Points every day wouldn’t add a single point to your carbon total.  Also, that pesky addiction to Facebook?  (Stop counting everybody else’s friends—popularity contests are so "Facts of Life"!)  That too wouldn’t add anything to your point totals! 

That’s the kind of thing we need to aim for—getting rid of our carbon addiction and looking for cleaner alternatives.  Contact legislators, local and national, and tell them you want them to support clean energy.  For example, congress just passed an extension of the solar investment tax credit; this happened because people contacted their Representatives and Senators.  Use this website to find your congressperson:  http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ .  Also, the market for hybrid cars has grown incredibly fast, 960% since 2000. (8)  We have the power to create change with every dollar we spend.  Why else would McDonald's have a Dollar Menu?  Let's harness this power to learn to harness other power / energy sources! 

What else can we do?

We should aim to eventually reduce our individual carbon footprints to 2 tons per year, or 44 Salamander Points per day.  Additionally, we need to spread the word to our friends and family and encourage lawmakers to support environmental legislation.  Also, we need to vote with our dollars. Simply don’t buy anything you don’t need.  And reduce, reuse, recycle.  Finally, vote with your dollars.  The market for hybrid cars has grown incredibly fast, 960% since 2000, (8) entirely due to consumer demand.  We have the power to create change with every dollar we spend.  If you don't believe me, remember McDonald's Dollar Menu?  Every greenback counts.

          Reduce:  don’t buy anything you don’t need or drive anywhere you can walk or bike. 

          Reuse:  shop at second-hand or consignment shops. 

          Recycle:  buy reusable goods rather than disposable, and try not to buy products that have been overpackaged. 

As our economy and our laws change, the infrastructure and habits will follow, so that even people who are not carbon dieting will reduce their carbon footprints.  Soon, we’ll all be carbon sexy!

What’s the salamander’s name?

Sally, of course! 

What is the purpose of Salamander Points?

Salamanderpoints.com is a grassroots effort to encourage individuals to cut down on their daily carbon output.  Carbon emissions are reaching a truly devastating level; and as other countries emulate more and more the American lifestyle, these emissions will continue to grow.  But if we can cut back, then the rest of the world might follow:  “Among the developing countries that are seeking to increase per capita consumption rates at home, China stands out. It has the world’s fastest growing economy, and there are 1.3 billion Chinese, four times the United States population. The world is already running out of resources, and it will do so even sooner if China achieves American-level consumption rates….  We Americans may think of China’s growing consumption as a problem. But the Chinese are only reaching for the consumption rate we already have. To tell them not to try would be futile.”  (9) 

Remember, quality of life has very little to do with consuming more; in fact, the more we consume, the more disconnected we feel from the things that do improve the quality of our lives.  Our goal at salamanderpoints.com is to raise awareness that everything we consume, ride in, turn on, etc., emits carbon, and to promote a carbon-conscious lifestyle.  It’s up to us, since we have long led the world in consuming, to lead now in conserving. 

Plus, don't you want to be carbon sexy? 

How are my personal actions going to effect global warming?

That’s like asking why we should vote (for the President or the American Idol)! 

We can’t control a lot of things in this world:  taxes, gas prices, the Superbowl, Britney Spears.  But we can control ourselves.  And the good / bad news is that individual emissions count for a great deal: “Individuals and households generate roughly 30 to 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and is a potential source of prompt and large emissions reductions.”  (10)  Here’s our chance to make a real difference in something that’s really important!  As Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”  During World War Two, he called on the British people to stand against an incomprehensible threat.  And they sacrificed, they endured, they fought.  History calls them heroes.  Now it’s up to us to rally as well.      

Why doesn't the government step in and do something?

This country is founded on the ideals of self-governance.  Thomas Jefferson once noted, “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.”  So there it is: we need to inform people’s discretion! 

But still it’s a good idea to promote environmental legislation.  Contact legislators, local and national, and tell them you want them to support clean energy.  For example, congress just passed an extension of the solar investment tax credit; this happened because people contacted their Representatives and Senators.  Use this website to find your congressperson:  http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/   

Also, the Sierra Club tracks legislation so you know what’s going on:  http://www.sierraclub.org/legislativetracker/  

I’m using tons of Salamander Points. Why even bother?

If you imagine the Earth as a big house we all live in, then you’re the roommate who sticks his grubby finger in the communal peanut butter, leaves underwear on the only comfy recliner and piddles on the carpet.  In other words, you’re leaving a big mess that others are cleaning up. 

Just like a diet, you’ll shed carbon weight gradually by making small but important decisions.  Check “Points System” and “Ways to Save” to make these small changes: drive just a little less, eat a little less meat, and unplug a couple things.  No biggie!

What are Vampire electronics?

Vampire electronics use energy just by being plugged in.  The TV, for example, couldn’t turn on by remote if there weren’t something on to respond to the remote.  Check out “Points System” to find out what the vampires are in your house.  Because unlike on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, vampires are never sexy. 

Why is eating meat so bad for carbon emissions?

Yes, one cheeseburger is 40 Salamander Points.   That means 10 lb. of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  For a burger.  Unbelievable?

There are a variety of reasons that eating meat is harder on the environment than eating veggies.  For one thing, the animals emit methane.  As the demand for meat grows, these emissions are more problematic:  "The trillions of farm animals around the world generate 18 percent of the emissions that are raising global temperatures, according to United Nations estimates, more even than from cars,  buses and airplanes." (11)  Also, land is needed to raise these animals--often from razed rainforests.  In addition, there's the feed transportation and meat processing, resulting in a devastating impact:  

"Producing a pound of beef creates 11 times as much greenhouse gas emission as a pound of chicken and 100 times more than a pound of carrots." (11)

Do you have to give up meat to be green?  Well, it certainly helps. But if you can't, cut back.  Americans eat too much meat anyway.  And balance your carbon diet by cutting back in other ways to keep your Salamander Points low.

Sources

1.  Hopkins, Gerard Manley.  “God’s Grandeur.” 

2.  Hansen, James.  “Tipping Point:  Perspective of a Climatologist.” 4 Oct 2008             <http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/StateOfWild_20080428.pdf>.

3.  “Protecting Health from Climate Change.”  World Health Organization.  4 Oct. 2008

<http://www.who.int/world-health-day/toolkit/dyk_whd2008_general_public.pdf>.

4.  Larking, Philip.  “Talking in Bed.” 

5.  “ADHD: 7 Suspect Food Additives.”  The Daily Green.  4 Oct. 2008 <http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/6390>.

6.  Orr, David.  “Some Like It Hot…. Lots More Don’t:  The Changing Climate of U.S. Politics.”  Roland Park Country School.  1 Oct. 2008. 

7.  “Kyoto Protocol.” UNFCC.  7 Oct. 2008 < http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php>.

8.  "Hybrid Cars Sales Rose 81% Last Year."  USAToday.com.  10 Oct. 2008 http://www.isecorp.com/ise_news/ise_press_articles/pdf/usatoday-news.pdf.

9.  Diamond, Jared.  “What’s Your Consumption Factor?”  New York Times.  2 Jan. 2008.  6 Jan. 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html?_r=1&oref= slogin&pagewanted=all.

10.  Vandenbergh, Michael P., Jack Barkenbus, Jonathan M. Gilligan.  “Individual Carbon Emissions: The Low-Hanging Fruit.”  UCLA Law Review, Vol. 55, 2008.  25 Jul. 2008. 21 Oct. <2008 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1161143>.

11.  Rosenthal, Elizabeth.  "As More Eat Meat, A Bid to Cut Emissions."  NYTimes.com.  3 Dec. 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/science/earth/04meat.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=eat%20meat%20carbon&st=cse&scp=1>.