CLIMATE CHANGE BY THE ELEMENTS
🌳 What can we do to start thinking differently about trash, pollution, emissions and climate change in relationship to our cities?
🌳 Is there a way to organize a city’s pollution in such a way we could begin comparing them?
As a matter of fact, there is. One organization has already begun to ask that very question and is creating a means of surveying a city in order to determine just how much pollution is being generated by that city and why.
ENTER CDP GLOBAL:
Our vision and mission
We want to see a thriving economy that works for people and planet in the long term. We focus investors, companies and cities on taking action to build a truly sustainable economy by measuring and understanding their environmental impact.
The challenge
We must act urgently to prevent dangerous climate change and environmental damage. That starts by being aware of our impact so that investors, companies, cities and governments can make the right choices now.
—————————————-
HOW DID WE GET HERE? WHY THIS TOPIC?
—————————————-
Today, I was looking at Twitter trends noting the hashtag #EnergyDebate. I found myself looking at the Shell twitter account which innocently asked: “What are you willing to change to help reduce emissions?”
They offered one of four choices:
- Offset emissions – 23.1%
- Stop flying – 6.5%
- Buy electric vehicle – 25.6%
- Renewable Electricity – 44.7%
I refused to choose any of them because it was a false choice. This was a blatant attempt to “flip the script.”
They wanted me to think that it was MY fault the world was choking to death in pollution and it depended on me and everyone else like me to make a difference. Two years of reading and research for my podcast “Climate Change by the Elements” kicked in and I got mad.
I realized this was the kind of thing that was done in the seventies to deflect the blame for pollution from big companies to individuals in America though the truth was being obscured by the same corporations. Here they were trying to do it again. Blaming the little people when it is mighty industry that produces the lion’s share of Earth’s environmental catastrophe.
The collective economic and industrial might of corporations are the biggest polluters in the world, second only to the militaries (and particularly one military – The United States military) as the number one creators of pollution on the entire planet.
Human interaction in our use of energy and generation of pollution produce about 18 – 30% of the total found on Earth. Thus if we want to have the greatest effect on the environment, the place to start would not be the citizenry but the industries and processes moving materials around the Earth.
So I responded:
“I would change the laws allowing “Big Oil” to escape economic culpability while forcing the world economies to maintain your fossil fuel empires as the lynchpin of society while you grew rich knowing you were destroying Earth’s ecosystem and energy balance.”
In a follow up, I included one of these graphics from the World Meteorological Organization which is involved in organizing meteorological data worldwide to get a clearer understanding of the threat as climate disasters continue to transform the Earth for generations to come.
I added:
“These are the challenges created by your industry and in collaboration of the United States and other nations; collectively which decided it was more important profit take place than preparing the future for renewable energies, which you KNEW were necessary.”
[https://twitter.com/ebonstorm/status/1323537392024784896…]
I know no one at that account will ever acknowledge what I wrote. Yet I felt better for now realizing the scope of the challenge and why it matters which steps we take next. And I owe it to the research I have gathered in the two years since I began my podcast. I felt empowered, free to think differently than the industry which may have shaped my viewpoint toward cars all my life, in a radical new direction.
It felt good.
—————————————-
THUS THIS TOPIC WAS BORN.
—————————————-
Take a look at the images below and the associated links I provided. I learned that cities are starting to try and figure out how much pollution they generate and trying to figure out what can be done to make greener/less polluting cities in the future. I think the future is definitely going to have to start thinking about cities as discrete polluters and begin to ask how each city can understand and manage it’s pollution profile.
🌳 What are the key indicators YOU would want your cities to be tracking as far as pollution where you live is concerned?
🌳 Are there things you would track others might not?
🌳 What kind of resource would you not want affected by such regulation?
Call in and let us know what you think:
Thursday, Nov 5, 2020
5:00 pm PST – 8:00 pm EST
Dial up: 1 701-801-1220
Log In: 934-317-242
then press (#)
Join the call next week on Thursday. Bring a friend.
——————————————————
IMAGES BY THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
As weather, climate and the water cycle know no national boundaries, international cooperation at a global scale is essential for the development of meteorology, climatology and operational hydrology as well as to reap the benefits from their application. WMO provides the framework for such international cooperation.
WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019
https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10211
Other references:
http://floodlist.com/
https://public.wmo.int/en
https://www.cdp.net/en/cities
—
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—