While I’ve had my share of…uncomfortable…subway rides in which I could never be sure if I was being groped intentionally or accidentally (did the offender lack control? Or just coordination?), the idea of segregated subway cars never crossed my mind. Poking out the offender’s eyes with my umbrella did cross my mind…however I digress. The feminist, indeed the civil libertarian in me, never saw the value in segregation of any kind. Until now. As one rider of Mexico’s buses so subtly put it: “A woman could enter a metro car a virgin and come out pregnant.” Apparently the rush-hour cars are a gropers’ paradise, leading many women to avoid public transportation. While I’m not sure these fed-up women would rely on less eco-friendly alternatives, such as driving Hummer H2s or anything like that, I maintain that this is an issue that affects Mother Earth, if only because these accidentally pregnant subway riders are burdening the planet with more hungry mouths. Which is why I’m delighted with the notion of women-only buses on 15 of Mexico’s City’s busiest routes.
Women are reportedly pleased by the plan and look forward to a jeer-free, gropeless trip from A to B. Read more here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/01/24/international/i122219S49.DTL

In a twist that seems sadly typical, a group in the U.S. has revealed that, while bottled water is losing fans in the western world, it’s gaining ground in many communities around the world where water quality is increasingly a concern. (Check it out at http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/01/14/climate-change-good-for-sales-of-bottled-water/)
Citi reports that bottled water companies might actually stand to gain business from global warming as higher temperatures negatively affect water quality (and availability) in many developing countries. So while we curb our consumption of water out of petroleum-based plastic bottles, others are forced to increase their reliance on them. Sigh…

I’m a sucker for a new beginning. I love anything that reeks of the possibility for change – better change. Whether that’s a new continuing ed class, a new lipstick, or a new year, I’m all for the hope that – this time – things will really be different. So it’s not surprising that I embrace new year’s for all its worth, calling forth promises to self that I’ll eat less cheesecake, join a health club, read Dostoyevsky (or at least learn to spell his name). However, since so many of those annual resolutions inevitably come to naught, I thought I’d declare resolutions this year that I actually have hope of achieving. Call them my green revolution resolutions. And here they are:
•I refuse to adopt a bottled water habit. I’ve always been too cheap to pay for bottled water – and even with Jennifer Aniston hawking bottled water that promises to boost my IQ, I won’t relent. I’m already smart enough to not pay for something packaged in a petroleum product that comes out of my tap for free.
•I will continue – despite my husband’s thinly veiled threats to “erase” my favourite books – to turn off all power bars in the house, even if it means the television programming is wiped out each time. Phantom load is a menace and I refuse to cower in the face of this formidable energy-sucking (some say as much as 75% of the energy used by these appliances is when they’re turned OFF!) foe.
•I will not back down in my efforts to turn my children into environmentalist freaks who shriek when the fridge door is kept open too long, who blanche at the Golden Arches, and who understand that “phantom load” does NOT mean that someone forgot to the flush the toilet.
•I will aspire to live a year without “Made in China”.
•I will play more and work less.
•I will read more and watch TV less.
•I will walk (and bike) more, and drive less.
•I will be kind more and judge less.
I think I’ve got these resolutions nailed down. Well…except for that last one.