Happy Earth Day, everyone!
Contrary to some beliefs, Earth Day is not about hippies coming together and swearing at the administration. It is about making everyone aware of how we are abusing the planet and we may somehow survive, but the future generations will not, if we continue the abuse. If the conservatives are so strict about abortion, they should be worried about the environment also, since it is going to destroy the same generation they are trying to save presently.
The weather patterns are changing, which I hope no one can deny – why else would the San Francisco Bay Area be called Seattle by the Bay or San Seattle, etc.? Why else would we have bigger and worse hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico? Why else would there be absolutely unseasonal and unexpected rains in India in March? Why would it be so much colder every year in Northern California in winter (almost no spring) and so much warmer in the summer (almost no fall)?
And please do not show me the 12 “scientists” who claim there is no such thing as global warming. There’s 10 other knowledgeable scientists for each of those 12 who will tell you why the earth is getting warmer every year and how that impacts the changing weather patterns.
And as for tips on what we should be doing to save the planet, I saw an excellent post (read the tips towards the end) at Sepia Mutiny.
Romit's Stream 
FYI if you are interested about hurricanes at all, I would know, hurricanes go through 30 year active and inactive periods. since we are coming off a thirty year inactive hurricane period naturally we are now going to a 30 year active period. The last two hurricane seasons have followed a pattern set in the 1930s of five hurricanes hitting florida one year and there being a large number of hurricanes hitting the gulf coast the next year. From the same pattern that happened back in the 1930s the national weather service has predicted a major hurricane will hit the east coast this year. The increase in hurricanes cannot all be from global warming due to the fact that the same thing happened in the 1930s. How much it is contributing is something nobody is completly sure of. Hope i didn’t write too much.
@katie: No, there is no such thing as ‘write too much’ on this blog :-)I appreciate the point you are making, but I referred to the increase in the intensity of the hurricanes rather than the frequency. The sudden and unseasonal rise in temperature of the water creates the intense pressure difference which causes hurricanes to increase their intensity. And of course the mention of hurricanes was just one example of how our habits are causing the planet to undergo large-scale changes.