Resort goes into action on emissions

That's the equivalent of planting 89,500 trees, or not driving 8.5 million miles in your car.

Individual homeowners can't prevent as much pollution as a 3,300-acre major ski resort, of course, but that doesn't mean they can't make a huge difference.

To illustrate just how huge, Giles trots out the startling stat that if every household in America — there are 110 million of them — would change just five of its most-used incandescent lightbulbs to the more efficient CFLs, we would collectively save a trillion pounds of carbon dioxide.

That's the equivalent of taking eight million fossil fuel-using cars off the road, or shutting down 20-plus power plants for a year.

Or — my favorite — a trillion-pound CO2 reduction would mean halting the growth of carbon emissions in the U.S. entirely.

"The lightbulb example always gets to people," says Giles, who says he often has people at his speeches tell him they're going straight home and changing their lightbulbs.

"I hope they really do," he says.

In the course of trying to save a ski resort, Brent Giles is doing his bit to try to save the world as well.

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Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.

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