Climate Change |

April 8, 2020

| by

Top Climate Change Solutions List—38 Things To Do Immediately

A climate change solutions list with 38 things you can do that will help save the planet? If you’re concerned about the climate change news but have no idea what to do, this post is for you. 

This list is hardly exhaustive. But there’s enough here to keep you busy for a while.

Penguin standing on dry land fishing, caught a lizard.

Do you need to implement all 38 items on this  climate change solutions list? Well, that would be great! Start by looking over the list and checking off the ones you’ve already done. If you don’t find any, no worries—pick one or two things and do them. And then come back and pick a couple more.

Only a few, toward the top of the list, require major expenditures to implement. The rest you can do with little or no financial investment at all, and still make a big difference. 

Can one person really make a big difference? Well, one plus one plus one … Steps you take will inspire others to take green action. That’s what “grassroots” is all about!

Here goes!

In Your Personal Life:

1. Switch your home energy source to renewables. The “EPA recommends shopping for green power to identify and compare options. EPA strongly recommends buying green power that has been third-party certified and verified to nationally-accepted standards for product quality and content.” It’s particularly important to find an alternative to natural gas, which is far more detrimental to the greenhouse layer for the first 20 years than CO2.

2. Install solar panels or a wind turbine on your home if you haven’t already done so.

3. Invest in energy-efficient appliances for your home.

2 cartoon characters stand next to a pink SUV. One says, "I love your new ride, man! But what about the glaciers, and the rainforest?" The other replies, "No worries, man! It's an SUV! It'll take us anywhere we want to go!" And the caption at the bottom asks, "How aware do you think Americans are about climate change? Think again."

4. Retire your gas guzzler in favor of an electric car. “The US federal electric vehicle tax credit “offers up to $7,500 to people who purchase an EV. In many areas, rebates, subsidies and discounts are available, especially to low-income families and individuals.” And lawmakers are pushing to expand those even further. HINT: There are used EVs for sale now, with batteries designed to last for many years.

5. Once you have an electric vehicle, install a small solar array on your home to power your electric car’s battery.  And then use it to generate surplus power you can use to lower your home utility bill.

6. Embrace a minimalist lifestyle. Keeping this climate change solutions list in mind whenever you’re tempted to act like a consumer will motivate you to buy clothing, furniture and decor, cars, exercise equipment, and electronics used instead of new.

7. Recycle whenever possible. Find out what grades of plastic your community recycles, and be sure to clean those containers! And disassemble the cardboard boxes.

8. Compost food waste. It doesn’t take a lot of space, and you can purchase an indoor composting unit to help you start the process. If you need instructions for composting, you can easily find them online.

9. Start a community garden. Stop being a sitting duck for food shortages! If the land is available, get together with your neighbors and get a garden going. If you have a homeowners’ association, help them see how everyone would benefit and that community gardens do not lower property values. 

10. Plant trees, especially the common horse-chestnut, black walnut, American sweetgum, ponderosa pine, red pine, white pine, London plane, Hispaniolan pine, Douglas fir, scarlet oak, red oak, Virginia live oak, and bald cypress. 

11. Shop your local farmers’ market. The fruits and vegetables are fresher and you avoid the ecological cost of transport.

Sun high in sky, farmer surveys his fields of puffed wheat and popped corn. Words say, "It gets so gol-dang hot, my crops just puf an' pop!"

12. Drive less. Extend this positive behavior from our coronavirus experience into your ongoing life—do your level best not to sink back into old habits. Walk, bike or carpool when you can—good for your body and your spirit! Consider an electric bike if hills are a problem. And use public transportation when available.

13. Speak up at work. Take the initiative NOW to convince company management to continue with an offsite work force—it worked fine during coronavirus pandemic, didn’t it? This will save the company and you money, and fewer cars on the road is a great boon for the environment.

14. Switch to less energy-intensive outdoor activities. Choose hiking or skiing, sailing (not motor cruising), kayaking, dancing, tennis, or other activities that strengthen your body and don’t pollute.

15. Join an organization like Sierra Club, Greenpeace or Daily Kos and take part in the activities on their climate change solutions list: Sign petitions, make calls and/or write short letters to decision makers and influencers, etc.

16. Start a climate change news or awareness blog or vlog and publicize it on social media.

17. Write climate change songs, record them, and publish them over the Internet.

18. Inform yourself and VOTE in the next election (and every election). Being knowledgeable about local, state and national issues can make you a powerful force.

19. Cut down on single-use plastics. Instead of plastic wrap, buy or make beeswax food wraps and/or buy silicone food storage bags online. Take your own canvas bags to the grocery store, and bypass their plastic produce bags—I put my vegetables straight into my canvas bags, then take them out at the register. For small items, like strawberries and mushrooms, carry thin, lightweight cloth bags in the car.

20. Do what you can to reduce landfill. Reuse whenever you can, or give away things you don’t use anymore instead of tossing them. Repair what’s broken, or check to see if your community has a free fixit clinic.

A green computer with the words "Go Green Online" on the screen, and 2 green tips: Unsubscribe from useless emails and Download a website optimization plugin.

21. Go green online. Believe it or not, the Internet is a huge source of CO2 emissions, with huge increases every year. Unsubscribing from all those emails you get that you never read will help a lot.

Minimize the time you spend playing games on your computer—if you must play them, switch to playing them on your phone. And start reading more and streaming video less.

And if you have a website, check its carbon footprint. If it’s high, download a website optimization plugin to optimize it. (I did this and it made a huge difference.)

Finally, look for green hosting for your website. Very common in other countries; here in the good ol’ USA, we’re just beginning to have green hosting available. Do check, as progress can occur in the blink of an eye.

22. Switch to LED lightbulbs and turn off lights when not using them.

23. Unplug electronics when not using them to minimize consumption of standby power.

24. Insulate your home.

25. Close curtains in summer to keep the heat out and in winter to help keep it in.

26. Install a programmable thermostat to keep the temperature just right—and see if you can’t adjust your “just right” to be just a speck more conservationist!

27. Wash your clothes in cold water and line-dry them! You’ll be amazed at how good they look and smell—I certainly was. If you’ve no room for a line, dry your clothes in the dryer for just a few minutes, long enough to get the wrinkles out, and then hang them indoors on a rack. (I started doing this years ago to save wear and tear on my clothes, and yes, it makes them last a lot longer. I use a rack originally designed for CDs!)

28. Stop eating beef, or at least cut down on it. Raising other animals doesn’t take nearly the resources of raising cattle, and cattle contribute enormously to methane production. A simple online search will show you the many benefits of a vegetarian diet.

29. Switch to a green bank—this is one of the most important items on this climate change solutions list. Because whether we like it or not, money talks. Almost anything is greener at this point than Chase or Bank of America. Local credit unions may be a good choice. Check out their investment portfolio!

30. Become a green investor. This is another HUGE one! Many green investments are returning handsome dividends now, and this will be even truer in the future.

In Community Politics:

A protest march, someone with a sign saying "Immigrants Make America Great." At bottom left of photo are the words, "Community Action Works!"

31. Keep up to date on political action in your community. Attend and speak up at City Council or other meetings where serious issues are being decided, such as community energy coalitions, new housing or commercial development proposals, and questions pertaining to water and air quality, sewer, etc.

In my town, we just conducted a successful petition drive to force our aberrant City Council to let the people vote on a proposed new development they had approved. Yay!

32. Take part in organized marches and other activities designed to raise awareness of the climate crisis. Many of these are organized by groups such as Sierra Club and Greenpeace.

33. Join a neighborhood website and use it partially to inform readers about community awareness activities.

34. Get to know your neighbors by going door to door to engage them in discussions as to how they’d like to see the neighborhood develop, what they think about climate change, their views on a city ordinance or other new development, and so on. And encourage them to register to vote and then to VOTE.

On Vacation:

35. When you travel, go by train or bus instead of flying. If you must fly, choose an airline committed to maintaining a low carbon footprint: Korean Air, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, Japan Airlines, Air Europa Express and some others are top choices (see more) (and more) as of this writing.

36. Eliminate cruising! Cruise ships not only have a high carbon footprint, they are also detrimental to ocean life and contribute only minimally to the local ports of call that are left to deal with the waste the ships leave behind.

True, the problem of dumping sewage—perhaps in the face of an oncoming whale!—has lessened since the major lines were hit with huge fines for polluting US waters a few years ago. But it hasn’t disappeared.

Also, the number of whales and dolphins has declined in areas prone to ship noise and pollution. “In all about 55 marine species have been noted to have suffered due to exposure to sound of varying frequencies. These include sperm whale, grey whale, mink whale, pygmy sperm whale, killer whale, sea bass, pink snapper, goldfish, cod, haddock, bluefin tuna, squid, lobster, brown shrimp etc.”

37. Buy carbon offsets to balance any non-green things you do. Many air and cruise lines offer them (Whoa! Buying them doesn’t make it okay to use a line with a high carbon footprint). You can find your own carbon offsets online.

38. Enlist your kids in everything you do to green the planet, and help them design their own climate change solutions list. After all, it’s theirs too—and let’s hope they’re going to be living here a lot longer than you. Besides, it will give them the confidence of knowing that you, your family, and they personally are taking action to make a difference.

What other steps can you think of to help move us toward a sustainable future? Let me know in a comment!

To your success with eco action,
Chiwah Slater
Founder, ecoactive101.com
Founder, https://AWriteToKnow.com
Founder, https://PetWrites.com

Climate Change |

April 5, 2020

| by

Eco Opportunity of a Lifetime—Act Immediately

A man stands and watches as his home burns. Words say, "While we stand and watch ..."

As H. Jackson Brown wrote in Life’s Little Instruction Book, “Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.” We have been given the eco opportunity of all time—the opportunity to save our planet. So …  what are we doing about it?

Here’s a “What-If” for you: Imagine you’ve just turned the corner on your way home from work, only to meet the horrifying scene of flames shooting out the front windows of your house. You screech to a stop. The back door appears to be free of flames and smoke, and quick thinking tells you there’s a chance you can still rescue your spouse, your kids and the family dog. 

What do you do? Sit dazed by the flames, munching the chips you just bought? Go chat with a neighbor? Call and invite a friend for a walk?

No! You take action. Call the fire department? No, forget that—you brave the flames, dash in the back door and drag them all out by their hair, if need be.

If this seems like a theoretical question, it is not. Your house—your planet—is on fire. And everyone you hold dear is in jeopardy. 

But is that where your attention is focused? Not mine, I confess. Probably not yours, either, thanks to the huge cloud of disinformation obscuring the flames. And now, the coronavirus pandemic has taken over our normally calm brains. WTF? How to protect ourselves from the virus, not to mention financial meltdown? 

Vital questions, to be sure. NOW questions. But the virus will eventually burn itself out, be a thing of the past. 

The same can’t be said for the climate crisis, however. It’s is not going to burn itself out. Unless we broaden our focus to include it, NOW, it threatens to burn our house down. This is the eco opportunity of a lifetime.

Confused cartoon character, torn between Climate Change and Toilet Paper. Words say, "Tough getting our priorities straight."

Even back when climate change news was top of mind, most of us just didn’t “get it.” Sure, we applauded Greta Thunberg for her tremendous courage, but next morning our lives returned to business as usual. 

Why? What is it that keeps us from picking up the fire hose? Is it because we’re not trained firemen, and the extinction fire is just too freakin’ scary to face?

Each of us is only one person, after all. What the *#@!# can we do about it?

So we go into denial.

The title says, "We're facing extinction?" In his mind's eye, a young man surrounded by question marks sees a oil derrick over a tombstone. He's thinking, "Hmmm ... in 40,000 years, WE mmay be the new climate crisis."

You and I are not climate deniers. We’re alert to the flames.

We’re aware of the huge spike in greenhouse gas buildup since the industrial revolution, and particulary over the last twenty years. And given that the industrial revolution was created by humans, the logical assumption is that the buildup in greenhouse gases is due in large measure to human activity.

We’ve been told that our eco opportunity is limited, that we have a short window of time to get more eco-friendly and turn that around. And we know we’re not doing what it’s going to take to accomplish that.

We suspect we could still save the earth, but we’re not sure.

So … we’re not shouting from the rooftops, or stepping out of our comfort zone to put out the fire.

How Bad Is It, Really?
FACT: More than 13 weeks—nearly 100 days—have passed since December 31st, the day the Chinese first told the world about the virus. Take a look at climate change 2020: In January and February, “intentionally set fires have burned 15,127 acres of rainforest”—about 252 acres per day.

Agribusiness are setting most of these rainforest fires, not random arsonists.

Yikes! And the burning goes on, day after day, as we worry about masks and gloves and toilet paper.

FACT: “In 2017, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning fossil fuels for energy were equal to about 76% of total U.S. anthropogenic GHG emissions (based on global warming potential) and about 93% of total U.S. anthropogenic CO2 emissions.”

Yikes squared! And though we’ve scaled down on coal use, we’re still heavily reliant on oil and natural gas, two major causes of greenhouse gases. We are not moving to take advantage of this eco opportunity.

Trump's face superimposed over an earth split down the middle, as by a fault, with the words "Wanted: Earthquack Protection."

How Do We Know CO2 Is To Blame?

Scientists from the Woods Hole Research Center and IPAM-Amazonia WHRC and IPAM-Amazônia have told us that the first eight months of 2019 “produced between 104 and 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). That is equivalent to annual tailpipe carbon pollution from 22.6 to 30.6 million cars, or the annual CO2 emissions from the entire state of North Carolina.” 

Ongoing NASA temperature analysis by scientists at Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) show “the approximate magnitude of global warming, which reached about 0.8°C (1.44ºF) in 2010, twice the magnitude reported in 1981.” Two-thirds of the warming since 1880 has occurred since 1975.”

Measurements of the influence of CO2 on both incoming solar energy and outgoing long-wave radiation provides strong evidence that CO2, methane, ozone and nitrous oxide trap heat inside our atmosphere, leading to increased global warming.

Trump’s Contribution to the Cause

The Trump administration throws gas on the fire at every turn—just as with coronavirus, telling us it’s under control and we can get back to our lives by Easter. Hah!

FACT: Trump makes no secret of his disdain for our planet. Now he has “proposed to allow major projects like pipelines and highways to bypass reviews of how they will contribute to global warming.”

And one day after the election, he will undoubtedly officially withdraw the US from the Paris Accord.

Can we stand another four years of this? Let’s hope we don’t have to. 

It’s Up To Us!

Finally, no matter who is elected, the task of saving our earth home for ourselves, our children and future generations—it’s up to us. All of us. Because we and our loved ones are the ones who will—or won’t—survive.

A mother and her toddler daughter play in the ocean at sunset. The text says, “Saving the planet, It’s up to Us.”

That means YOU. And ME. It’s why I wrote this article.

Because we still have a chance to succeed—if we wake up and take bold action. Not next year, but NOW. Find out about all the many things you can do NOW to be part of the solution.

And come November? VOTE!

Biden may not be radical enough to suit you. Bernie may not be your ideal statesman. But both of them have vowed to undo Trump’s climate destruction madness.

So please, no matter who gets the Democratic nomination, regardless what you think of the Democeratic party—let it go. VOTE in 2020. (And as Huff Post says, “Vote Early, Vote Often (just not in the same election).

Want to make a bigger difference than you’re making now?  It might just be worth the effort. It can even be fun, especially if you get your friends together in a friendly competition. Here’s a list of 38 things you can do immediately to help save our earth home.

This is truly the eco opportunity of a lifetime. For that matter, it’s the eco opportunity of ALL time!

To your success with eco action,
Chiwah Slater
Founder, ecoactive101.com
Founder, https://AWriteToKnow.com
Founder, https://PetWrites.com

Climate Change |

March 7, 2020

| by

Shrewd Shopper—Avoid ThesePalm Oil Label Tricks!

Are you a label reader? You pretty much have to be, these days, in the interest of both your health and the environment.

There are lots of ingredients to watch out for, and palm oil is one of the most prevalent. But if you shop around, you can usually find an alternative.

Green leaves and tiles that spell out the word "Organic."

What makes palm oil so bad? We used to think its high saturated fat content made it bad for the heart, but recent studies suggest no correlation between saturated fats and heart health.

The concern about palm oil today is on the environmental and climate change fronts. 

On the environmental front, for starters, palm oil is a water pollutant. According to the World Wildlife Fund, “A palm oil mill generates 2.5 metric tons of effluent for every metric ton of palm oil it produces. Direct release of this effluent can cause freshwater pollution, which affects downstream biodiversity and people.”

The next problem not only affects the environment, it also contributes to the climate crisis. Once a palm tree grows tall enough that the fruit becomes difficult to reach, the tree is cut down and a new tree is planted in its place. This contributes to deforestation of the rainforest and loss of animal habitat.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2016 State of the Forests report revealed that we are losing 7 million hectares of forest every year.  And, as we all know, deforestation is a major cause of the increasing CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. While palm oil isn’t the only culprit, it plays a significant role.

And then there’s palm oil’s contribution to the issue of loss of peatland, which contributes to environmental degradation. Many Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests, from which 84% of the world’s palm oil is derived, lie atop peat bogs that store great quantities of carbon.

Forest removal and bog drainage to make way for plantations release this carbon, which is responsible for four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and eight percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels. 

And now we circle back to the beginning of this article, and label reading.  According to the International Palm Oil Certification Programme, these are the palm oil ingredients we should be watching for:

  • Glycerin
  • Anything with the word Tocopherols
    • Mixed Tocopherols
    • Tocopherol / Vitamin E
    • Tocopherols to Maintain Freshness
  • Palm Oil and Palm Kernel Oil.

Glycerin, which can be derived from a number of vegetable oils, is a major constituent of packaged foods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Trouble is, one of those sources is palm oil. If the label doesn’t specify otherwise, you have to suspect that may be its source.

And the same for tocopherols, a class of fat-soluble compounds with vitamin E activity, best known for its antioxidant activity. While tocopherols are found in a variety of vegetable oils, including olive oil, soybean oil and wheat germ oil, they are much more abundant (hence less expensive to extract) in palm oil.

Label reading is tricky.  And now that the public is aware of the downside of palm oil, packagers are finding ways to list it on labels without mentioning the oil itself. So … beware.

As the World Wildlife Fund states, “You might not cook with it, but you almost certainly eat or use palm oil. Palm oil is the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet, found in many packaged products sold in the supermarket.”

At the same time, WWF encourages us not to boycott palm oil, as “boycotts will neither protect nor restore the rainforest, whereas companies undertaking actions for a more sustainable palm oil industry are contributing to a long-lasting and transparent solution.”

Indeed, WWF has undertaken to certify palm oil manufacturers that have committed to making the industry more sustainable.

So, before you next shop for groceries, check out their Palm Oil Buyers’ Scorecard!

To your eco-active success,
Chiwah Slater
Founder, ecoactive101.com
Founder, Eco Active 101 on Facebook
Founder, https://AWriteToKnow.com
Founder, https://PetWrites.com