It is no secret that the state of the natural world is deteriorating quickly. The last few years have seen wildfires in Australia, the Rainforest, and California; floods in Japan, Nigeria, North Korea, and India; earthquakes in Papa New Guinea and Indonesia; and a major tsunami in Indonesia. Additionally, the arctic is warming at a rate almost twice that of the global average.
This information is extremely alarming. As a result, activists and citizens across the globe have come together to acknowledge climate change and how we can all fight it together. Many are young activists such as 17-year-old Greta Thunberg, who are showing that the next generation is taking matters into their own hands.
The difficult thing about something like this is that many feel climate change is out of their control. World leaders like US President Donald Trump make it difficult to feel optimistic about turning this bad situation around. It is especially frustrating that big oil companies who are large contributors to the climate crisis are seldom held accountable in the name of capitalism and corporatism. The result is that there are 10 years left to change the state of the environment before natural disaster becomes the norm and kills many of the earth’s inhabitants.
Nonetheless, all any of us can do is to do our best. This includes making some small changes in our lives, changes that if everyone participated in, would create great change on a bigger scale. The year and decade are both still in their early days, so there is no better time to make some personal changes like the present. Here are some suggestions.
- Work towards consuming less red meat.
- Use your legs instead of your car whenever possible.
- Use public transit.
- Take up cycling.
- Carpool.
- Do all of your errands in one trip.
- Use your compost bin religiously.
- Bring a reusable cup to your local coffee shop.
- Invest in reusable baggies instead of plastic baggies.
- Bring a container to dinner to take home your leftovers in.
- Stop buying packs of water bottles, its 2020.
- Use your own utensils for takeout, not plastic ones.
- Use reusable grocery bags.
- Use non-toxic cleaning products.
- Fill the sink to wash dishes instead of leaving the water running.
- Whenever you buy a new appliance make sure it is energy-efficient.
- Eat local produce and at local restaurants.
- Support environmentally friendly companies and sustainably sourced products.
- Avoid plastic bags for produce at the grocery store. Transport loosely.
- If you have an outdoor space, create a small garden.
- Do your laundry in larger loads.
- Be vocal about your desire to help the environment, and encourage others to do the same.
- Make it a personal goal to donate some money every few months/every year to an environmental organization of your choice.
- Become politically active.
-
Volunteer to save this planet.
Remember, nothing going on in anyone’s life matters if we don’t have an earth to sustain us and all of the beautiful creatures who inhabit this earth. Look at the bigger picture first, and make changes on the small scale this year and decade.