I'm not some expert on environmental impacts or climate change. If you are a pro environmentalist reading this, maybe you'll wonder why I write about such things that is basic knowledge to you or anyone who has long been involved in sustainability, but as I slowly learn more about these I'm compelled to share them in whatever way I can because there are people who do care about the earth but perhaps would like to know more in order to take concrete action, and I know how that feels because I only fairly recently got out of that directionless maze. I hope anyone reading the stuff I write can take away a thing or two that's helpful to them on their personal journey towards bettering themselves or our planet. So here are whatever lessons or thoughts that come to me, in point form if you don't mind, because I love lists and they're easier than stories or essays.
- IPCC Report: some may or may not be aware, but recently the United Nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report with news of a bleak future if we do not make dramatic changes to industry and lifestyle within the next 12 years. It states that to stay below the necessary 1.5°C temperature, there must be changes to energy, transport and industry - reducing emissions by 45% by 2030 and switching to renewable energy by 2050.
- this thought train and discussion I had with some friends was spurred by a slightly hopeless-sounding Facebook post on why we should bother with individual actions when the largest influences on climate change are industries who have extreme power over our society: While it might be true that industries are probably the biggest contributors to plastic pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, I hardly believe it's true that changing our own individual lifestyles do not make much of a difference. Businesses and industries rely on consumer choices and demands, and these are what we are trying to change through our own decisions, though no doubt policies and top-down strategies are important too, and challenging to implement. You may not be running fantastic campaigns or creating petitions or eligible to vote for pro-sustainability policy makers, but making a stand and showing businesses or people around you that you're saying no to plastic is also your way of putting your voice out there as a responsible consumer.
- my notes from a climate justice workshop I recently attended, on a problem with transitioning to renewable energy: The IPCC said it - coal and other fossil fuels have to retire, and the world should move to low-carbon sources quickly. But there is this issue that's only treated as a side-thought when compared to the more glamorous and exciting aspects of switching to renewable energy: the fossil fuel workers. Leaders of giant fossil fuel groups have their great power thanks to the support of their workers, who make up a big proportion of our societies. With renewable energy comes the risk of joblessness for such workers - once renewable energy systems are well-formed or established, they need little manpower to continue functioning. Fossil fuel jobs are more permanent in most countries, and essentially people's jobs could be lost to automation. There are three layers of people potentially affected: 1) the fossil fuel workers themselves, 2) the services providing for these workers (e.g. schools that the workers' children attend), and 3) retired coal workers who rely on pension from the industries they have worked for. Fossil fuel is dirty for the earth but there is the argument (which I agree with) that it is what has given us such modern and rapid development over the past decades, so these fossil fuel workers cannot be abandoned and have to be provided alternatives. Yet few people siding with renewable energy want to specifically work with coal workers and so they are always just an afterthought. Solutions to this matter need to be found; one could be utilizing fossil fuel worker skills in other areas as the switch to renewable energy is being made. Some groups like Iron And Earth, led by oilsands workers, offer support, resources and training to help workers in their transitioning process.
- Climate Communication: While sometime ago I registered in an Environmental Science course, I've realized recently that I'd like even more to take an elective in Visualizing Climate Change. This article assigned to us as a reading in my Urban Forestry elective class made me (finally) realize how important making climate change visual and tangible to the public is. Easily seen as a dry subject backed up by statistics and numbers and scientific reports that half of our community find hard to understand and digest (not to mention scientists' knowledge is so often misunderstood by laymen and seldom gets out efficiently or sufficiently to the public, who are the people who need to know these things the most, who need the most convincing and education if we want to see a collective enough action on climate change), vivid visualizing of climate change is crucial in communicating it to people and thus getting them to participate in climate action.
As a lingering note for my own self-reflection, I've always been sure that I could specialize career and education-wise in something like artificial intelligence or computer science or anywhere in the tech field (which is the direction I'm heading towards now in university), while at the same time continuously feeding my passion for sustainability and advocating for it through things I do outside of work/studies. I've always had the belief that I don't have to limit myself to do or be just one thing in life, that I could focus on two starkly contrasting fields at once - in this case I pursue both fields for different purposes. But I've been thinking a lot recently about a good friend's opinion, that eventually one does have to choose one thing to specialize in because unfortunately our human energy can only allow us to focus on so much. Thus the new question I've been asking: can I in the future (or even soon) manage to focus on two (or more) different fields, dividing equal attention between the two without burning myself out? This question became more of a gaping hole when a campus community planner speaking at a workshop I attended this week pointed out that, we do not really need any new tech innovations to improve the sustainability of our planet; what we need more of is collective action, unity, changes in mindset and lifestyles and the right communication of climate change; more preservation/conservation, less invention. Now that might have just been his own opinion but I can't help agreeing with him, making me doubt my far-off career goal of possibly marrying the two fields of technology and sustainability together in some way. These are just some thoughts and not really huge worries, as I do believe everything happens for a reason and that eventually I'll figure out what I want and sort out my path accordingly.
And to end off, here is a great example of exercising your consumer influence by letting businesses know about your decisions, demonstrated by my wonderful friend Carmen:
