Global warming is a big issue. Our tendency when we face big issues is to feel overwhelmed. It doesn't have to be that way. Since Global warming is not caused by one of us in isolation but by all of us together, our individual action really counts. You might think, "I am just one person. What difference does it make whether I buy carbon credits to offset my travel pollution, or change my light bulbs to energy efficient ones, or drive a hybrid car?" It makes a big difference. A lot of people making small, easy-to-do changes create big results.

For starters if a family utilized more natural sunlight from windows during day light hours and used less power to run lights that family would be greatly reducing possible future affects of Global warming. A lot of the power companies today burn coal to produce power for us. If we are not using as much power less coal gets burned, and less carbon dioxide is released into the Earth's atmosphere.

Many travelers are unaware of how much carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere from airplanes. For example, for an airline company to fly just One person in an overseas jet from London to San Francisco, 2.47 tons of carbon are produced. Airplanes put billions of tons of carbon into the upper atmosphere each year. It's obvious that people need to get around the world, they are not going to stop flying in planes.

So, we're all busy people, what can we do about climate change? The first thing is to take a common sense approach: Do what you can with the time and money you have available. For example, here are some straight forward action steps you can take given different amounts of available time. For example:

5 minutes:

Plant some trees at the American Forests website (http://www.americanforests.org/planttrees/)

30 minutes:

Change some light bulbs in your home to more energy-efficient compact florescent (CF) bulbs

Calculate and offset your auto travel carbon emissions.

DriveNeutral (http://www.liveneutral.org/calculator/)

TerraPass (http://www.terrapass.com/road/index.html)

Calculate and offset your airplane travel carbon emissions.

FlyNeutral (http://www.liveneutral.org/flyneutral/)

TerraPass (http://www.terrapass.com/flight/index.html)

1-2 hours:

Calculate and offset the total carbon produced by all aspects of your lifestyle

American Forests: Personal Climate Change Calculator

(http://www.americanforests.org/resources/ccc/)

Carbonfund

(http://www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/carbon_calculators/)

TerraPass (http://www.terrapass.com/index.html)

3-4 hours:

Educate your family members, friends, neighbors, and community about these issues and what they can to do to reduce climate change.