It’s blog action day, and as the theme this year is climate change it is a no-brainer for me to participate.
First of all, if you are one of the people who is sceptical about humans causing climate change, get yo’ baddass over to the sceptical science website. It’s a website of scientists who are spectical about climate scepticism. (You might want to read that last sentence twice before you get it.) Also, be aware that the ‘business as usual’ lobby, made up of coal, petrochemical, tobacco and other serial polluters have poured millions into persuading people that either (1) there isn’t a problem, (2) the science isn’t clear, or (3) there is nothing we can do about it anyway. Want to know more about how they committed the crime of the century? Look here.
I’ve blogged previously about how to deal with climate sceptics, so let’s move on to the big question: What can we do about it?I’ve written previously that the most effective action we can take by far is to get engaged politically. Join Avaaz (and Get Up if you’re in Australia) and sign the petitions. Get informed (for example by reading Joe Romm’s excellent blog Climate Progress). Go and see your local political representatives. My friend Mary, who is in shall we say the ‘autumn of her life’, pounded the streets knocking on doors collecting signatures to a petition on climate change. Her petition was tabled in parliament, with one of the Senators mentioning Mary by name as an indication of the concern in the community. The local paper interviewed Mary and a feature story and photo appeared.
But the activism rings hollow if we aren’t also trying to reduce our own impact on the environment and the climate. This is where some people get intimidated by the thought that they can’t afford to buy a Prius, eat only organic food, and put zillions of solar panels on their roof. Yes, if you’ve got money to spare those are good ways to spend it. But there are plenty of things we can do that don’t cost money.
I think one of the hard things for a lot of people is to realize that even the little things we do can make a difference. Stop buying bottled water, for example. A shift from eating processed foods to buying fresh fruit and veg and meat can really reduce your carbon footprint. Better still, start to cut down on meat and dairy. Cows are a huge source of the greenhouse gas methane, which is much more potent than CO2.
Here in Melbourne, most car journeys are less than 5km. So ride a bike! My workplace is 13km from my home and I have recently started riding a bike in. Not only do you help save the planet, it is also great for your health.
And what about your electricity use? Do you need to keep the computer running for hours when you are not using it? Do you really need to boil half a kettle just to make one cup of tea? Do you need all that heating or air-conditioning, or should you put on an extra sweater or invest in better insulation? Here in Victoria we have some of the world’s dirtiest electricity, mostly made from burning brown coal. Each KWH causes 1.31 Kg of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere.
In the second world war, there was a slogan ‘careless talk costs lives’. I think we need a similar slogan, ‘careless living costs lives’. When you think about the millions of people, particularly in Asia and the Pacific, who face food shortages or flooding (find out more here) it shouldn’t be too hard to make the link. Perhaps some economist can make the calculation of the human cost of CO2 in terms of how much CO2 causes one death from flooding or starvation. Would that make us think twice about turning on the kettle?
