One small step for the company, One giant leap for me

I realized yesterday after writing about the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, that I really have to write about the issue in English, more than Japanese.
I really need to address this problem to the people in US, more than people in Japan.
Simply because this country is responsible for more than 30% of all CO2 emission to the atmosphere, largest percentage among all...
if we can change the way here in US, it will be a huge compensation.

An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary film about a global warming. A former vice president, Al Gore, studied and researched the material and traveled around the globe to inform people about this climate crisis. Because of high CO2 emission in past 100 years or so, the earth is in crisis now.

CO2 was trapped in the atmosphere, causing the greenhouse effect.
The average temperature increases rapidly and abnormally,
which caused such as hurricanes, typhoons, floods, droughts and so on.

The film shows many footages of how the earth was affected by it.
The Antarctica and the north pole region are shrinking;
permanent snow is disappearing from the mountain so it's no longer permanent;
mountain glaciers are receding every single year;
lakes are disappearing because the air sucked all the moisture.
Those images were vivid and heart-breaking.

Nature is not the only one affected by it.
Many species are endangered because the ecological system is becoming out of norm.

For us, human beings, we suffer from many unusual storms, including Hurricane Katrina.

If we do not change anything right now, it will get worse and worse.
All scientists agree on that, but how many are listening to them and recognizing the truth?

It is sad that we are not serious about this crisis yet.
Because we do not see any inconvenience in our lives.
The temperature is a few degrees higher than usual, but then what?
Nothing to worry about... we think.

We must foresee that this environment will not last too long
if CO2 emission level stays or increases.
We may not see a big change in our lifetime, but for sure,
our children's and grandchildren's generations will pay for our irresponsible acts.

We must change now. One person by one person, little by little.
It will accumulate, and it will not be a waste.
There are so many things we can do to contribute to the solution.
Please visit this site, which shows what we can do at home.

I wondered last night what I could do personally to solve the problem besides doing small stuff at home. Then I found it. Recycling at the office.

Our office does not do recycling.
We use tons of computer/copy papers, cardboard boxes and we are throwing them away.
Such a waste... so I talked to some people today, found that one of colleagues actually tried to introduce recycling 2 yrs ago but at the time, it was not approved because of an extra cost.
This time, she and I talked to our vice president of the company directly and we submitted our proposal. We found the way to cut the overall cost, makes the company happy while creating the environmentally responsible office space :)

I am just an engineer here and never took such an action before, never took an initiative like this. It was the most fulfilling and satisfying action I ever experienced.
For the company it is only a small thing, but for me, it was more than a leap!! Such a incredible feeling!!

I hope anyone who is reading this will wake up and realize what is happening right now, and become a part of the solution, no matter how small or big it is.

Each effort won't be wasted, and the return we'll earn will be more than we can describe...