Sunday, April 20, 2008

The Pope's Envinronmental Action

The Pope spoke at the UN in New York on Friday and emphasized the need for environmental change and education. I think this is great since there are so many people still out there who do not believe in global warming. As the National Geographic article explains, about a fifth of the world’s population follows the Roman Catholic Church. This means he is encouraging a huge population to become more educated about climate change, and become environmentally conscious.

Here are some of the steps the Vatican has already taken and is currently implementing:

1. 1. Installation of photovoltaic cells on the roof of the Basilica

2. 2. Planting trees in Hungary to offset the Vatican’s carbon footprint.

3. 3. Altering the modern deadly sins to include “environmental pollution”

I am not sure if anyone posted about the third one back in March, but I think it is pretty neat.

According to the article, the Vatican aims to be the first carbon neutral country. I think this is a bit ridiculous considering how small the Vatican is. I know that the Vatican is technically a country, but counting it to be the most carbon neutral is a bit absurd. In my mind it just does not make any sense, but then again I’m not Catholic and I bet many people would think otherwise.


Random occurrence:

Listening to the radio for hours while driving home to Houston this weekend I noticed that every single car dealer commercial emphasized "fuel efficiency" in their new 2008 vehicles. From what I remember, the 2 makes which advertised their cars in this fashion the most were Toyota and Ford. I found this pretty amusing since the gas prices are actually affecting the way dealerships advertise their cars.

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