Two Earth-friendly Events today

Two events occurred today that support my efforts to keep on pedaling my bike to work instead of taking the car.

The movie "An Inconvenient Truth" was released on DVD today. As Roger Ebert said, "In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to." Although I've been following the science depicted in this documentary for years, I've never seen such a clear presentation of the summary findings on global warming.

Also on today, an announcement was formally made to fund ITER, the research tool for producing energy from a fusion reaction. This international effort to produce clean energy (zero carbon emissions) is a major step forward in reducing our dependency on fossil fuels. I've followed this research for more than 25 years hoping that it would not be too late.

Both of these events would have occurred sooner if politics had been less of a factor than education. In both cases, mis-information has been used expressly to raise doubts in public opinion. Education is the way to keep moving forward. The movie is easy and interesting education. It may get you hungry for more info. The Wiki article on ITER is interesting to a narrower audience, but still provides straightforward information regarding one of the most important new technologies of this century.