Eaarth Ch 2

For the most part Americans chase after expensive cars and big houses. If every country had culture similar to that of the United States, global warming would be happening at a much faster rate. McKibben brings this up by comparing the U.S. and China. "if the Chinese, say, ever owned cars at the same rate as Americans, the number of vehicles on the planet would go from 800 million to almost 2 billion". 

Oil Companies brought in a trillion dollars during Bush's presidency. They then took 4% of those earnings and invested them into clean renewable energy. Even some oil companies see that renewable energy is the future.

A huge factor in global warming is money. It takes a lot of money to create clean energy. A lot of money that some people and even countries can't afford. Not only is it expensive to try and put these green initiatives into action, but repairs also cost governments and individuals a lot. 

Hurricane Katrina and hurricane Ike that struck Haiti in 2008 are examples of disasters caused by global warming. 

Obama's idea behind his economic stimulus plan was good. Invest the money into schools roads, etc., but when I read that some of the money was going to help those areas that are projected to be flooded or completely submerged due to the rising sea level it made me upset. Researchers have been able to project what areas are at future risk. Why invest money into something that is going to be gone soon? We may as well have just thrown out that money. With that said when I read there was a very popular book published with predictions similar to what we are currently experiencing hurt. We as a society should have taken the book much more serious. We had a warning of what was to come if we continued our ways of living and yet we did it anyway.