I just read this article on the Great Barrier Reef suffering irreversible damage from climate disruption. It moved me so much that I just had to quickly post an appeal to anyone who happened to be reading this blog:
The changes happening to our environment are real, massive, and definitely caused in very large parts by human action (e.g. burning of fossil fuels for transportation, and energy, deforestation etc.) and made worse by inaction (e.g.: governments twiddling their thumbs and ignoring the problem, or afraid of shaking up the status quo).
There is some good news to all of this too though: Since it is humans causing this problem, it is also up to us to do everything in our power to fix these problems. And since Earth Week is also coming up, I would like to appeal to everyone to move to action.
The actions you take can have many forms. At a small scale, it can be as simple as:
- actually bringing and using your own grocery bags. Every bag you don't use, does not need to be manufactured which takes resources (oil) and energy (most likely some fossil resource).
- more generally reusing things over again (bring your own cup at work, and "dump" that use-me-once plastic cup (even if it is recycled or bio-based plastic).
- establishing a car-pool and car-pool and commit to car pooling at least once a week (more = better).
- committing to eating more veggies and just a little bit less meet.
- committing to buy more locally sourced food to reduce the demand on meet which is also a major source of green house gases.
- committing to buy just what you need, and eliminate throwing away food. This has the dual benefit of saving money and not releasing methane from rotten food sources.
The thing about these small things is that they don't cost much and may even save you some money. Because they don't cost much, they just require one thing: YOUR willingness to question and change your behavior.
At slightly larger scale, small investmenets can have a large effect:
- Replace all your light bulbs with LED light bulbs. If you have already done that, gift someone a set of LED lights who has not made the switch yet!
- Replace your showerhead with a more water-efficient showerhead.
- Buy a smart surge protectors that are either on a timer or turn-off zombie power for all attached devices based on a master switch.
- Are you thinking of buying a new smart phone (like I am)? Consider finding ethically sourced, or more sustainable phones (which is extremely hard). Or even better: consider a refurbished phone!
At even larger scale, when you make big purchases:
- Chose the most efficient appliance.
- Consider choosing a hybrid car, or at this point perhaps even a plug-in hybrid or electric car.
- Consider putting solar panels on your roof with perhaps even a battery storage.
- Consider putting in a grey-water recycling system that can even extract energy out of your waste water.
Even more importantly:
- Organize! You and every friend you can mobilize can make an even larger impact, be it at beach clean-ups or getting votes to get the government to actually do something.
So this is by no means a comprehensive list of things to do but just a starting point to challenge you to rethink everything you are doing and find ways to do things in a more sustainable way!
The changes happening to our environment are real, massive, and definitely caused in very large parts by human action (e.g. burning of fossil fuels for transportation, and energy, deforestation etc.) and made worse by inaction (e.g.: governments twiddling their thumbs and ignoring the problem, or afraid of shaking up the status quo).
There is some good news to all of this too though: Since it is humans causing this problem, it is also up to us to do everything in our power to fix these problems. And since Earth Week is also coming up, I would like to appeal to everyone to move to action.
The actions you take can have many forms. At a small scale, it can be as simple as:
- actually bringing and using your own grocery bags. Every bag you don't use, does not need to be manufactured which takes resources (oil) and energy (most likely some fossil resource).
- more generally reusing things over again (bring your own cup at work, and "dump" that use-me-once plastic cup (even if it is recycled or bio-based plastic).
- establishing a car-pool and car-pool and commit to car pooling at least once a week (more = better).
- committing to eating more veggies and just a little bit less meet.
- committing to buy more locally sourced food to reduce the demand on meet which is also a major source of green house gases.
- committing to buy just what you need, and eliminate throwing away food. This has the dual benefit of saving money and not releasing methane from rotten food sources.
The thing about these small things is that they don't cost much and may even save you some money. Because they don't cost much, they just require one thing: YOUR willingness to question and change your behavior.
At slightly larger scale, small investmenets can have a large effect:
- Replace all your light bulbs with LED light bulbs. If you have already done that, gift someone a set of LED lights who has not made the switch yet!
- Replace your showerhead with a more water-efficient showerhead.
- Buy a smart surge protectors that are either on a timer or turn-off zombie power for all attached devices based on a master switch.
- Are you thinking of buying a new smart phone (like I am)? Consider finding ethically sourced, or more sustainable phones (which is extremely hard). Or even better: consider a refurbished phone!
At even larger scale, when you make big purchases:
- Chose the most efficient appliance.
- Consider choosing a hybrid car, or at this point perhaps even a plug-in hybrid or electric car.
- Consider putting solar panels on your roof with perhaps even a battery storage.
- Consider putting in a grey-water recycling system that can even extract energy out of your waste water.
Even more importantly:
- Organize! You and every friend you can mobilize can make an even larger impact, be it at beach clean-ups or getting votes to get the government to actually do something.
So this is by no means a comprehensive list of things to do but just a starting point to challenge you to rethink everything you are doing and find ways to do things in a more sustainable way!
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