[Reef Goddess]

All of these tough problems. I think the main way to solve them is if more people demand a change, just like giving companies tax rebates for being more "green". Right now we are stuck with an adminstration that doesn't care about the environment and is happy to give breaks to major polluters.

You should see how few people on my own block recycle. Its not tough, they give you a big blue thing to throw glass, plastic, newspaper, etc into but I think 2 other people on my whole block actually put it out. Unfortunately, I don't think most of americans will change unless it hits them in their wallet just like with gas prices, but there's still a lot of people that buy hummers that will never see an off road trail. Why?

I think most people just aren't aware of their impact on the environment. Our garbage and wastewater is taken away to places that we don't have to see on a regular basis. Semi treated sewage is piped out into the ocean 100 ft under the water.

Even in our own hobby there is so much loss of life. Maybe if people saw how many fish and corals die each week at suppliers from shipping transit, poor collection practices, lack of care, they would take more care in setting up their reefs. Its like my husband says, they're not like flowers that you can just replace every few months.

I try to do my part at least by growing what I can in corals and not purchasing corals/fish that I know won't do well. I try to recycle as much as possible and buy from companies that have good environmental practices. Hopefully my next car will be a hybrid if they ever come out with anything good.

Regime change starts at home, if you want to preserve the enviroment you need to be proactive about it.

FWIW ethanol does not pollute as much as gasoline, but the process of raising corn to produce it is much more inefficient than raising sugarcane, etc. They are even looking into growing special types of algae as biofuel. There was an interesting article on biofuel in nat'l geographic a few months back.