How to Save the World: A Green Revolution

For many of us who follow the news and care about this planet we call home, this may seem like dire times. As well it should. The world wide effects of global climate change are already being felt and taking their toll. World greenhouse gas emissions are at an all time high with little indication of slowing. Destruction and exploitation of wild lands and ecosystems are on the upswing. And in the United States the political environment is becoming increasingly anti-environmental as politicians bow to industrial lobbying pressures.

So is all hope lost? Absolutely not! Even as we hear so much bad news on the environmental front, we also hear good news of people, businesses and governments taking action and making changes for the better. Saving the world and the environment is something everyone can do. The goal of this article is to give examples of how anyone can make a daily difference. Some of these ideas and suggestions are easy and small scale, others are more difficult and larger scale, but all work toward the goal of daily leaving the world a greener place.

The three main ways you can help are to 1. Educate, 2. Live Green, and 3. Take Action.

The first way of saving the world is to Educate. What I primarily mean here is educating yourself, which enables you to educate others. The reason so many Americans remain skeptical or apathetic to the reality of climate change is that they truly don't understand the science. This is partially due to misinformation campaigns by the fossil fuel industry and partially due to a lapse in basic science education in our schools and poor science reporting by the media. If you truly care about environmental issues, do some research to try and understand the basic scientific concepts that drive the issues. Learn about the greenhouse gas effect, learn about the ecosystems and natural flora and fauna where you live, learn about how natural cycles work and how pollution and climate change can disrupt them, learn about where the energy you use comes from. These are all complex concepts that many scientists spend their lives studying, but some extra effort on your part and a high school or basic college level education will give you a good enough grasp to appreciate the subjects. The best way to learn about nature is to experience it. Instead of going to Disneyworld for your family vacation, consider going on a camping or hiking trip.

Knowledge is power. The more you understand the issues, the more you will be able to make informed earth-friendly lifestyle choices and be able to filter industry propaganda from actual news.

The second way of saving the world is by Living Green. There are literally thousands of ways you can change the way you live and there are probably an equal number of articles and books about how to live green, so I'm not going to try and make this an all-inclusive list by any means. Many of the things you can do are obvious and easy: turn off lights and unplug electronics when not in use, drink tap instead of bottled water, take shorter showers, adjust your thermostat, reuse or recycle everything that you can, the list goes on. These are all easy ways to reduce your footprint on the earth that will have miniscule effect on your lifestyle.

These are all important and do make a difference, but it is important to keep in mind that the amount you reduce your impact is proportional to the amount of effort and change in lifestyle your actions take. Revolutions are never easy. If you want to make an even bigger difference, make even bigger lifestyle changes. Start walking, biking, or taking public transportation to work. Change your eating habits. Raising animals for food has an incredibly larger environmental impact than raising plants for food, so consider going vegetarian, or simply just make meat a smaller portion of your diet. Buying local products, or organically grown products can make a big difference. Or you can simply eat less, and reduce your waistline at the same time. Our food choices make a bigger contribution to our environmental footprint than many of us realize.

The biggest lifestyle changes you can make may also require a large investment, which sometimes can pay for itself, other times it may not. What I mean by this is consider buying a more fuel efficient car, or perhaps of hybrid or electric. Consider investing in solar panels or small wind generators for your home. Consider moving into a smaller home that has a smaller footprint or making investments in your home to reduce its energy use.

The point is that it's really up to you how much you want to do. Picking up a piece of garbage off the sidewalk, taking the bus to work, or installing solar panels in your home, it's all important and all makes a difference. If everyone did the little things and a larger number of people did the big things, we'd be well on our way to changing the world.

The final thing you can do to save the world is to Take Action. This means being vocal about environmental issues. Industries, especially the oil and coal industries, spend vast amounts of money to try and influence politicians and public officials through campaign donations and heavy lobbying. For this reason it is important that the people's voice is heard too; this is a democracy after all. Make your voice heard. You can go to websites like Change.org and create or sign petitions addressing environmental concerns. You can donate money to nonprofit organizations like the Sierra Club, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and the Wilderness Society, who use your donation to do important conservation work, as well as to fund lobbyists in Washington to fight for environmental causes. But the most important thing you can do is to write to your representatives directly. Write your congressman, your state legislators, and your city councilmen, asking them to address environmental concerns. If enough people made their voices heard in Washington and our state capitols, the politicians might start to listen and make policy decisions that have the most ecological as well as economic sense.

Large or small, your actions DO make a difference. If more people make the effort to educate themselves, live greener, and make their voices heard, we CAN change the world.