Saving the world, $10 at a time

My colleagues Randi Kreiss and Alfonse D’Amato each published year-end lists two weeks ago, with Randi offering a holiday shopping list and Alfonse, a list of all the political issues he’d like resolved. I thought, how’d I miss the memo? Where was my year-end list? I must have been too busy looking back on the decade that was.

So I figured I have a little catching up to do. I needed my own year-end list, but what? Randi had the holidays covered, and Alfonse had the issues spectrum down.
Then I thought, how about a plan for the New Year? Not an egocentric blueprint about saving yourself, but one for saving the world.

Randi, always the pragmatic one, looked at ways to give to others at the holidays without going broke. Soooo . . . how about a prescription for saving the world without losing your shirt?

Yes, we’d all love to run out and install solar paneling on our roofs and drive around in brand spanking-new hybrid vehicles (at least I would), but these days, who has tens of thousands of dollars lying around (or in equity)?

So, if you’re looking to be a superhero on the cheap in 2010, here are a few of my suggestions:

1. By now, it’s apparent that the Earth is warming, and that’s not good, because Greenland and Antarctic ice is melting and flowing into the oceans, causing sea levels to rise, which could eventually spell gloom and doom for Long Island. We know that deforestation — particularly of the rain forests — is a major contributor to climate change. Poor farmers slash and burn the forests, sending millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while destroying an important carbon-sequestration “sink.”

For a mere 10 bucks donated to the Rain Forest Rescue program, run by the Nature Conservancy and the Arbor Day Foundation, you can preserve 2,500 square feet of land in Mexico, Guatemala or Belize while supporting local farmers. For $25 you can save 6,250 square feet, roughly the size of your average Nassau County home plot.