You're right, steam vehicles aren't the way to go. The only way to truly reverse ecological decline is to abandon most industrial technology and reduce the density of civilization to the point where mechanized transportation becomes unnecessary or exceedingly scarce.

Random geek remark..."greenhouse effect" has a bad connotation, but it's actually a natural phenomenon crucial for life on earth. Without a natural greenhouse effect the earth would be some 33C colder than it is now. (Though the term as usually used refers to today's apparent increase in the pre-Industrial Revolution level of the effect).

Because water is a green house gas, and I believe a pretty potent one too.

Yes and no...Other gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and (especially) CFCs are far more potent, molecule for molecule, but water vapor does account for much of the greenhouse effect just by the sheer volume of it in the atmosphere.

...but since steam is a greenhouse gas... should we use it to replace oil and gas or would it not help at all?

I'm not sure how that would work. Water, by virtue of its molecular structure, takes a lot of energy to bring to a boil ("a watched pot never boils" ), so some energy source would be needed to make the steam. In the old days of steam engines, wood or coal were usually used - but those would release carbon dioxide so that wouldn't help things. Were you thinking of geothermal heat perhaps? I don't know if that would be available to the scale needed, but I also don't know that much about it.

I actually watched an episode of Penn & Teller's show where they debunk a lot of the myths about organic farming. They show that no organic farms are completely pesticide-free; instead of using synthetic pesticides, they use natural ones, which are actually more toxic and more dangerous for people to consume. It is not more beneficial to the environment, as more land is needed to sustain organic farming to feed larger populations, which would lead to deforestation, and ultimately still leaves a good portion of the populace to starve. And in a (rather unscientific) demonstration, they invited people to sample an organic and a non-organic piece of fruit without knowing which was which, and all said that the non-organic fruit tasted better, and automatically believed it to be the organic one. And in a similar demonstration, they did label one half of a banana as organic and another as non-organic, and asked which one tasted better. Everyone said the organic banana did, but what they did not tell anyone was that it was in fact two halves of the same banana.

Their show shows how this can be a politically sensitive topic. They actually used "experts" from the Hudson Institute for that program. The Hudson Institute has a bias towards helping commercial agribusiness and pesticide and
GMO-favoring companies, such as Monsanto. Am not going to go into any depth as that then starts to discuss politics...which I'm trying to avoid.

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/organicfood/index.htm

How to Know if Your Produce is Conventional/Organic/Genetically Modified
http://www.plantea.com/genetically-modified-foods.htm

Article on GMO food:
Genetically Modified Food (GMO-genetically modified organism)
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php

Thanks so much for these links stateofgreen. I especially like the first one.

So I know this has come up already but I haven't posted my thoughts on it yet, and that's recycling and composting.

Lots of people mentioned recycling already and it's something that I'd say I do decently. I used to only recycle aluminum cans until I saw this news story last year....
http://www.kgw.com/home/Trash-Free-for- ... 65329.html
.... so feeling inspired, I'm recycling a lot more than I used to, though nothing compared to this couple. The one thing I purposely don't recycle for fear of identity theft is junk mail. Thankfully I can burn it out at my parents-in-law's farm rather than just throw it away.

The other thing I do a lot of is composting. I haven't seen much mention in here of people composting, so I'm wondering if anyone else does it? And to what extreme do people compost? I've heard everything from grass clippings to table scraps to animal waste (ick) and even human waste (don't wanna go there LOL) but since I use my compost on my garden, I stick with plant remains only.

I've taken to burning some of the papers I've accumulated around here too. But I do try to recycle junk mail after removing my name, address, and any other identifying marks, such as "RSVP numbers" on those omni-present credit card offers (if there are too many identifying marks on mail, I just burn or shred it ).

We do compost, but I know some avid gardener friends who have a pretty big composting operation (for a suburban family, anyway). They compost yard waste such as leaves and cut grass, but burn tree branches and the like (there are county-level compost sites here that accept all yard matter for those unable to dispose of it otherwise).

Shredded paper can be composted. We also compost table scraps, but vegetable matter only, such as apple cores or potato and banana peels (we've read that things like meat scraps are more likely to attract animal pests such as raccoons). Animal or human waste? Not gonna go there...

I used to compost which included grass clippings, left over non-meat food, wood mulch and small sticks, and rabbit droppings/ used newspaper bedding. We never used it on the vegetable garden though, but the grass nearby sprouted up so green and fast that if I ever start gardening instead of fertilizer I'm using compost. As for the reason I say used too... it became infested with some sort of nematode... though probably harmless, my lack of arthropod species info meant I wasn't taking any chances. I'm currently looking for a few suitable large containers, one of which to start composting in the other for a new aqua-terrarrium since my last one suffered a similar fate as the compost pile... (though the container I was using was also a bit on the small side)

And yes you can compost some animal waste- so long as that animal is strictly a herbivore and is healthy. In other words no dog/cat droppings. No meat either.

I know someone who did worm composting in large Rubbermaid bins (good if you don't have a backyard and live in the city). She mail ordered her worms and placed them in layers between newspaper in the bins and put the food scraps in there. The worms eat most of the food scraps (veggie food scraps, definitely no meat allowed).

The apartment building I live in has a large composting bin (just like a regular trash bin). We're all given our own little 3 gallon size pails to put food scraps in and then we're supposed to dump them in there. Getting used to it. Before I'd throw everything away. I didn't even know they made compostable pail liners http://www.amazon.com/BioBag-Waste-Comp ... B002FC6JZG Those liners definitely make disposing of the food scraps less icky to handle. Though the fruit flies do love the bin. I think the reason they tell people not to put meat is that it will definitely attract rodents and raccoons. I wish I had my own yard so I could start growing veggies in it.

They even have composting bins at work.

I don't mind going organic here and there for my bod's sake. But it's usually more expensive so I don't strictly eat only that.

I don't mind trying to be 'green' either, just as long as hypocrites aren't telling me to do it. The guilt trip never works. I'll go to great lengths to recycle, but I certainly won't be installing any solar panels on the roof.