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4/24/2024

Of Wolf Pups, Plastic Patches, and Climate Heroes

 

Climate Heroes come in many forms. Here are 3 that give me great hope. 

 

I got a dose of climate hope recently from the hard-working folks at the Wolf Conservation Center, who announced the birth of 7 endangered Mexican gray wolf pups to momma Trumpet on Earth Day.  

 

Climate change impacts wildlife as much as it does humans, often more so. So I rejoice any time wildlife wins a victory! Mexican gray wolves are highly endangered, but Trumpet’s pups are likely to be reintroduced into the wild via a program that is seeing some good success. In my book, the WCC workers who make this possible are Climate Heroes. See their work at  https://nywolf.org/

 

Dutch inventor Boylan Slat is another Climate Hero. Snorkeling off the coast of Greece at age 16, he was dismayed to see more plastic bags than fish. In 2013, at the age of 18, he  founded The Ocean Cleanup in his hometown in the Netherlands, to tackle developing and scaling up technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic, particularly the massive accumulations of garbage – mostly plastic - in the 5 great ocean garbage patches. He and his team - now numbering 120 engineers, researchers, scientists, computational modelers, and support staff – have created technologies that intercept plastics in rivers so it doesn’t get to the ocean and to collect the legacy plastic that is already in the oceans. Nothing short of brilliant!  Check out https://theoceancleanup.com/  

 

But I also have a climate hero living across the street from me. He just had solar panels put on his roof – 38 of them. No more natural gas (a fossil fuel) to heat his home, only electricity produced with the sun’s energy. So he will save money on his heating bill and know that heating his home will produce no more greenhouse gases by burning the natural gas. Equally as exciting – his neighbors are much more likely to have solar panels installed now that they see his solar array!

 

In our family, we are a work in process. We are moving toward electrifying all our appliances (bye bye gas stove & heating!), we have native pollinator gardens and grow some of our own produce, and 2 of 3 cars are hybrid vehicles. [I am planning for an electric vehicle later this year.]

 

How are YOU being a Climate Hero? How can you be more of one?

3/18/2024

Change is Not Linear, It’s Exponential - Climate Hope Reason # 1

 

Let’s start with a game of Two Truths and A Lie. I give you 3 statements. You see if you can pick the lie.

  1. Taking climate action decades ago would have made our job of addressing it a lot easier.

  2. Any action we take now is too little, too late.

  3. If we take collective action now, we have the time and resources to make the needed changes.

 

In the dominant culture of despair and hopelessness about climate change, it’s easy to pick #3 as the lie, right?

 

REALITY? Statement #2 is the lie!

I am about to give you a huge dose of climate hope.

 

Science tells us we still have time to make the changes we need to make. But we need to move quickly. The problem is that it feels like we will continue to move as slowly on climate action as we have in the past.

 

But that’s not the way change works!  Here’s how a graph of how it does work. I find this graph one of the most hopeful visuals for climate activists.

CCH Long Nose of Innovation.png

Adapted from https://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2008/id2008012_297369.htm

 

Here’s the deal. Innovation and change are not linear processes. They start out slowly, but they don’t keep going at the same slow rate. They accelerate over time. As sociologists say, rates of change are exponential.

 

In the beginning, of course, people don’t take action, don’t change, because they think there’s no problem.

 

But then there's a shift in thinking that goes like this, “There’s no problem!… well, maybe there’s a problem…. OH NO! This is a BIG problem!! ….How do we solve it? What do we need in order to solve it? What structures do we need in place? Who’s going to do what things to solve it? Let’s make a plan.” In that time, which Bill Buxton dubbed the "long nose" part of the change curve, it looks like nothing is being done. But really the groundwork is being laid for action.

 

Then there comes a moment when enough people agree there’s a problem but also a solution (or solutions), and what is needed to make the solution/s happen. At that point, a lot of people start taking action, they build on each other’s work, and change happens more and more quickly. That point is called the Inflection Point.

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We are at the climate action Inflection Point. Maybe even a bit beyond it.

The speed of climate action IS indeed accelerating - a LOT.

 

This next 10 – 20 years is going to be AMAZING!! We are going to see discoveries and innovations we never even imagined, let alone believed possible. And we are lucky enough to be alive to witness it!

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So what can YOU do to help create a future in which all can thrive?

  • Take heart, my friends – We have a fighting chance! Ask yourself - What one baby step can I take to be part of the solution? [Hint: Look in this newsletter for a few ideas.]

  • Stay tuned for our next blog with compelling evidence that we’re at that Inflection Point!

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