Let us take a moment to identify global challenges that are emerging and converging in our planetary home. Of course, this is a partial list to which other threats to human and environmental health can be added.

1. Unregulated human overpopulation of Earth
2. Unwelcome human-induced effects of global warming in particular and climate change in general
3. Human-driven pollution of Earth's environs
4. Reckless dissipation of Earth's resources by the human species, with particular attention to the challenges posed by peak oil and peak soil.
5. Relentless expansion of the unbridled global political economy.

These distinctly human activities appear to be overspreading the surface of Earth on such a gigantic scale and at so astounding a growth rate that scientists can make projections indicating a noticeable risk to life as we know it and to the integrity of Earth, perhaps in these early years of Century XXI. That is to say, Earth cannot much longer sustain unrestrained human population growth, unrestricted per human consumption and unchecked economic globalization without running the risk of precipitating some kind of global ecological catastrophe.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, est. 2001

Here is a single page of good, eco-friendly ideas for individuals, cities, and communties. Pass it on!
THE WHITE ROOF PAPER
A single page of action you can adopt to combat global warming. Pass it on!
THE WHITE ROOF IDEA: Install white or light roofs. Replace or repaint dark roofs. Dark roofs absorb heat. White roofs reflect heat off the planet. Paint things white.
THE THICK WALL IDEA: Build homes with thick walls able to withstand heat, cold & high wind.
THE WHITE ROAD IDEA: Change to white or light-colored materials for all paving. Asphalt pollutes. Dark roads act like hot wires in car windows that melt ice—heating the planet.
BURY UTILITY LINES: Have your city bury utility lines, reducing outages from storms, live wire hazards & animal deaths, saving tree trimming & tree cutting costs & utility poles made of wood.
THE CISTERN IDEA: Have your city dig covered cisterns to gather runoff water to provide drought insurance & water for public & private gardens, trees, game fields &parks.
THE RAIN BARREL IDEA: Provide cheap, covered rain barrels for homes, apartments & buildings to collect rainwater for lawns, gardens, ponds, fountains, & pools.
THE PAPER PRINTING IDEA: Use both sides of the paper for printing whenever possible.
THE COLORED SACK IDEA: Use color-coded/marked sacks to recycle, world-wide. Glass, Plastic, or Metal = Black (marked “G,” “P” or “M.” ). Other Sacks: White = paper, Green = organic, lawn & general garbage. Red = dangerous materials (batteries, poisons, chemicals, etc.).
THE DOUBLE-WINDOW IDEA: Have your city require double-paned windows & efficient insulation in new construction, & make cheap insulation kits available for older buildings.
THE SAVE-WATER TOILET IDEA: Install 2-button toilets (uses less water for liquid waste).
THE CO2 ABSORPTION IDEA: Make your city require all new construction & paving to set aside an equal area (on-site or close by) for trees and/or install giant CO2 absorption towers.
ROOFTOPS: ALL urban buildings must cover 50% of rooftops with solar panels or live plants.
THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT IDEA: Carry a list of clean, green companies & buy from them.
THE SHOP & WALK IDEA: Have your city create free parking centers with handicap-friendly bike/walk shopping zones, & bicycle lanes on roads & highways. See #20, below, for surface ideas.
THE SMOKY EMISSIONS IDEA: Smoky emissions from trucks & cars will get ticketed.
THE AIR CONDITIONER IDEA: All commercial buildings to re-route heat from air conditioners into hot water heating systems & electric generators. ALSO: (1) 25% of side-or-roof surface areas of new construction to have solar panels. (2) Develop geothermal energy. (3) Use pipes under drives & pavement to heat water. (4) Duct heat from clothes dryers & refrigerators into water heaters. (5) Lay brick instead of pavement over utility lines buried under/across roads, thus easy to find & repair, reducing road repair time/repaving/traffic delays. (6) Ban products raised on destroyed rainforest acreage. (7) Ban meat from mass feedlots. (8) Buy “free-roam” eggs & poultry. (9) Eat no big fish, incl. whale, shark & dolphin. (11) Create nature preserves in your area. (12) Protect natural predators for wildlife health & control. (13) Ban all wild animal products. (14) Buy organic foods. (15) Plant varieties of trees. (16) Teach ecology & conservation in schools. (17) Ban coal electric plants. (18) Use big signs showing O2, CO2 & CO levels in traffic areas. (19) Recycle chopped plastic & tire bits into low-impact pavements for sidewalks, bike trails, roads. (20) To develop: catch lightning & create giant batteries from wet phosphate pits, etc.). For fun: use the ampersand (“&”) in informal printing to save paper.  PASS IT ON! For more ideas, contact JVB at voice4vindication@yahoo.com

sounds wonderful
now how do those of us not living in a city close enough to ride a bike to shop or work change our lives? I watched as the frenzy of oil drilling was distroying north dakota. those truckers NEVER turn their rigs off... where is the key???
so try and make a difference....
there are trains leaving a coal mine every twenty minutes with one hundred and ten cars, which I was told can continue for the next three hundred years.
so paint all you want and plant lots of trees.
what will you do when we have drained the great lakes to feed the lawns on the tops of the buildings? think before you just speak.... everything is linked. I am just surprised that the pacific ocean hasn't been tapped for the las vegas water shows.
no one will stop
not till they can't continue and even than they will cry and whine for someone to fix life back to what it was. they already are...
it sounds more like a bandage not reality.
go travel the world first before you speak.