Our local newspaper, the Northwest Herald, is running a "climate challenge" for the month of October. They kicked it off today. Visit www.nwherald.com/climatechallenge to participate. You can take a pledge where you commit to taking certain actions that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

For instance, buy a 3-pack of compact flourescent light bulbs (cfl's), install one, and give two away! Ask the folks you gave the two bulbs to to do the same.

Each incandescent bulb that is replaced with a cfl results in the elimination of about 100 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year. There are 300,000+ people in McHenry County. If every one of them installed just one cfl, that would mean 30,000,000 pounds less CO2 released! That's a lot of CO2. Plus, the bulbs use about 1/5th the energy of incandescents, so the household electric bill is cut too.