OK, the Climate is Changing...so what do I do now?

It's Friday! Most everyone is excited to be free of their shackles and have two free days to themselves. Would you like some light reading that will make you feel happy about the world, the future, the environment. Grab a blanket, start a fire, and curl up to the latest IPCC report

I jest of course. The newest report published today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a dismal look at the welfare of our planet, TODAY! No more Doom and Gloom about tomorrow, this delight is served up fresh. Here are just a few "High Confidence" observations about what global climate change is doing NOW!

increasing ground instability in permafrost regions, and rock avalanches in mountain regions.

earlier timing of spring events, such as leaf-unfolding, bird migration and egg-laying

shifts in ranges and changes in algal, plankton and fish abundance in high-latitude oceans

The uptake of anthropogenic carbon since 1750 has led to the ocean becoming more acidic with an average decrease in pH of 0.1 units (side note...and change in 1 unit of pH means 10 times more acidic or basic)

Of the more than 29,000 observational data series7, from 75 studies, that show significant change in many physical and biological systems, more than 89% are consistent with the direction of change expected as a response to warming.

That was just from section B, Current knowledge about observed impacts of climate change on the natural and human environment. Section C is even more disturbing.

If you are still of the mindset that Climate Change is ....well, that there is no Climate Change...fine. You may stop reading. I would like to talk to the group of people who agree with scientific data.

What do we do now?
If you are like my wife and I, you cannot do the following;

You cannot harness the power of a country,
You cannot leverage your company's global strategies towards sustainability,
You cannot sequester millions of tons of carbon dioxide,
...so forth and so on

If you can, that's great! Email me...I'd love to get to know you...but you may stop reading as well.

Now, who does that leave us with? Most of the world! My wife and I started our company, LiveGreen, to answer a question that had been nagging us for years. What can I do? For a while we were crippled by the thought that any action we took would be too little to cause any change in this huge world we live in. But don't despair...

Our answer is to take that first step...no matter how small. I think Jill Finlayson from GreenDimes said it best.

We’re not about people radically changing their lives, changing their lifestyle. We’re really trying to do little things that are not difficult and we’re hoping by doing that, you get a lot more people involved…there’s also sort of this trickle down effect. Once you’ve done one thing, you feel pretty good about that and it tends to be easier to do the next. The important part is that you don’t have to be the one who composts or does neighborhood programs…you just need to do one good thing that’s not going to kill you.

For instance, instead of buying your conventionally grown apples from an overseas country, placing them in a plastic produce bag...and then again in a plastic bag you instead buy organically grown, local apples from your state, sack them in a reusable produce back and taking them home in your reusable shopping bag (sorry for the gratuitous product placement ;) ...)

What do this mean for you? Hopefully you go home to a delicious apple, chock full of more vitamins and minerals than your other apples. You can benefit from good karma as well! Maybe the grocer thanks you for bringing your own bags and gives you a few extra cents off your bill. Other than that...not much.

What if there are a million of you who decide to do the exact same thing? Now we're talking! Small actions multiplied over a large population can have an even greater effect than one large action. Let's see how...

Local, organic produce helps reduce the amount of petrochemicals (oil), herbicides, and pesticides used to get that apple into your stomach. It also creates sustainable agricultural practices in your backyard that can support your economy.

Reusable shopping bags used by 1,000,000 people that day helped reduce the amount plastic material needed to take groceries home from 100,000,000,000 plastic bags used in the US to 99,999,000,000. OK, no big change that day. But those shopping bags can be reused day after day to keep that number down!

So, take your first step! Email us with any questions or stories, we'd love to hear from you.

Happy Earth Month!