Submit to

Today is Blog Action Day. This means that I’m taking a day off from my normal portrait photography related articles and joining more than 7,000 other bloggers in talking a little bit about the environment.

I’m willing to bet you’ve already heard just about anything I could possibly say on the environment. Which is why I’m not going to go on a rampage trying to push an environmental agenda. After all, while I do care very much about the environment, I wouldn’t want to be a hypocrite. I drive a 3/4 ton Dodge Ram with a diesel engine in it (for good reason of course, like towing our RV). But I do my best to help out the environment as best I can in other ways.

So I thought I would instead point you to some resources that you might find useful if you want to find new ways of helping out our big blue home.

Here’s something that will scare you. The Breathing Earth simulator shows you in real time how much carbon dioxide each country is pumping into the atmosphere. Very cool.

The Make Me Sustainable web site is loaded with tools to help you find ways to trim the CO2 emissions from your life. I found that by implementing some simple changes to my lifestyle, my family has trimmed more than five tons of CO2 emissions per year. That’s impressive, considering my behemoth of a truck doesn’t weigh that much, and it’s made of steel.

Here’s another cool calculator. The Nature Conservancy has put together a really cool CO2 calculator that will compare you to others like you. Feeling competitive? See how much less CO2 you can dump into the atmosphere than your neighbors!

Did you see An Inconvenient Truth with Al Gore? There’s a new global warning flick produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio. I haven’t seen The 11th Hour yet, but when it comes to Austin, I’m there.