environmental impact?

environmental impact?

it's the first day of summer and we have fresh snow on the mountains and Lake Wakitipu is 30cm away from flooding Queenstown. oh yes, and there's the icebergs floating along the coast of the South Island. now I'm not an avid global warming believer, it's hard to know what's just natural variation and what's human caused effects, but combining the above events with watching 'the day after tomorrow' and the publicity Al Gore's making have made me consider how fran and I are living and what impact we have on our world a little more seriously. I figure if we could actually see the impact we'd have on future generations right now we'd change our ways sooner. this is my little effort:

• I already recycle (NZ is generally good for this as recycling is free but you have to pay about $1.30 for each official council rubbish bags - so who wouldn't want to recycle?) ...though I could put more effort in to recycling all bathroom and bedroom waste.
• once we've sold rose we'll have 1 car and I'll mainly cycle - if fran fulfills his motorbike dream that will cut our fuel consumption a lot.
• I figure change my bulbs to energy saving ones - costly in the short term but great for electric bills.
• try harder to remember my cloth shopping bags not bring home lots of plastic ones.
• I have no idea if it's better to put veggie waste in the landfill or through the waste disposal in the sink?
• can't insulate my house better 'til I get one, or install a solar panel or wind turbine, but the one we're in is pretty good and we have a storage heater for winter.

any more ideas?

I'd quite like to write to Mr Bush and suggest instead of following oil around the globe they put some of that war money into alternative energy research so that they can lead the world in excellent technology when the oil does run out/become economically unviable. and I found out recently australia won't sign CO2 emissions agreements - in a country with so much 'desert' and sunshine hours why on earth aren't they using solar power like you see in mediterranean countries where every roof has a solar panel? by 'eck, I know I have no idea about the world of politics and country running, but surely some of these things are obvious to the powers that be?