[Coral-List] How green are we?

[shashank Keshavmurthy]

Dear Listers,
Hello (after a long time!!)

Recently National Geographic and GLobeScan has released what is called Greendex for year 2009.
I hope many of you might know about this report, if not you can see it at, http://www.nationalgeographic.com/greendex/

It reports how much green are people in 17 countries around  the world and for year 2009 Indians rank 1st followed by Brazilians and Chinese

Americans rank last (17th) and Australians and Japanese are 12th and 13th respectively.....

We coral researchers are worried about the climate change and increasing CO2 and blame governments for not taking actions to make a nation greener...

but, I think while there is obligation of a Government towards taking measures to reduce global warming.....

Individuals matter most......

We need to ask questions to ourselves that how many of us are making effort to contribute to our city, state, nation and finally to the world to make it greener?

Individual contribution makes up for that Nation's contribution.....we cannot blame our governments for its policies when we ourselves are not making any effort.


How many of us are still dependent on disposable things? (cups, mugs, plates, plastic spoons)......

I know many of us do not like to use things made of plastic and has made us to depend on paper cups, paper bags, paper plates etc....

but, it is time to even stop depending on things made of paper

How many of us use our own cups, mugs, spoons or plates when we eat or drink everyday? when we go to buy Coffee everyday morning in Starbucks
or any other coffee shop, how many of us ask the coffee to be put into our own mugs? how many of us still buy bottled waters, when there is availability of 
filtered water which can be put into our own water bottles and used? How many of us carry our own water bottles? for that matter?

As an Indian, I think it is not surprising the Indians have made it to the top of the list of green people, as i know, it is not by choice, but we have to live like that

But, looking at the pace at which India is developing and  the mindsets of people are changing, it will not be surprising, that in next few years, the rank will drop and we will no more be
greener...

What I want to say is, We need to start changing ourselves first, then ask people around us to change and finally if everyone follows green lifestyle, we can ask the Governments to make right policies 

Or else, whatever laws Governments make, Climate will continue to change, will become more and more warmer and we will not have time then to change anything....


Just a thought

Regards
Shashank

=================================================================Whether our efforts are, or not, favored by life, let us be able to say, when we come near the great goal,I have done what I could - Louis Pasteur


Role of Infinitely Small in Nature is Infinitely Large - Louis Pasteur
===============================================================
Keshavmurthy Shashank
NSC Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Chen's lab
Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica (BRCAS), 128 Academia Road Sec. 2, Nankang, Taipei 115 Taiwan, ROC.
My WebPage: http://web.mac.com/coralresearch/iWeb/shashank/Welcome.html
Lab WebPage: http://coral.biodiv.tw/Default.aspx
Alt. E-mail: iamshanky15 at yahoo.com, coralresearch at mac.com

 ===============================================================
Whether our efforts are, or not, favored by life, let us be able to say, when we come near the great goal,I have done what I could - Louis Pasteur


Role of Infinitely Small in Nature is Infinitely Large - Louis Pasteur
===============================================================
Keshavmurthy Shashank
Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Chen's lab
Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica (RCBAS)
128 Academia Road Sec. 2, Nankang 
Taipei 115 Taiwan, ROC.
My WebPage: http://web.mac.com/coralresearch/iWeb/shashank/Welcome.html
Lab WebPage: http://coral.biodiv.tw/Default.aspx
Alt. E-mail: shashank at gate.sinica.edu.tw, coralresearch at mac.com