2.  What can we do as a nation to reduce CO2 emissions?

   The best hope we have is to network a wide array of civic, scientific, environmental, religious, student, and other organizations with enlightened business leaders, concerned families, and engaged communities, banded together, marching, protesting, demanding action and accountability from governments and corporations, and taking steps as consumers and communities to realize sustainability in our everyday lives.

   Together, we can:

·        Subsidize Renewable Energy (Perhaps we could use the $750 billion of our tax dollars now subsidizing auto and oil industries.)

·        Stop tropical deforestation via legislation that 

1)      Forgives national debt in heavily forested Third-World countries.

2)      Bans import of rainforest timber.

3)      Provides incentives to third-world countries to provide their rural populations with economically viable alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture.  

Tropical deforestation annually accounts for about 8 billion tons of CO2 - as much as the combined fossil fuel emissions of the US and European Union. Therefore, preservation of tropical forest is the arguably the single most effective means of abating global climate change.  Go to Rainforest Facts  

·        Eliminate coal plant pollution

·        Legislate to replace obsolete transformers that step down power to household levels (savings: 12 billion kilowatt hours annually).

·        Establish revenue-neutral tax changes (like Al Gore’s idea to eliminate the payroll tax and replace it with a pollution tax) to create market mechanisms to drive down emissions.

·        Manufacture Cleaner Cars

·        Fund and expand Mass Transit

·        Build High-Speed Rail

·        Step up to the plate and assume our logical place as World Leader in Clean Energy Technology.