Tag: climate change

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, Green Marketing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why do we continue to let ourselves get bound up in thinking that we can’t do anything about the biggest challenges of our time?

I say in my “Impossible is a Dare” talks that we have enough abundance for all, but big kinks in the distribution—which we can fix. Hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change are all resource issues. And when we see them that way, they are all fixable.

  • Hunger and poverty about not having enough to cover basic necessities; the resource issues are obvious
  • Wars usually start because of a chain of events that begins with one country’s perception that a different country is taking something that belongs to the first country: land, water, energy sources, minerals, labor ,shipping access,  etc. Even religious and ethnic wars trace back to resource conflicts, if we go deep enough.
  • Catastrophic climate change is a bit different, but it’s still about resources. Instead of being about one country having too much or too little, it’s about using the wrong kinds of resources, or using them in environmentally destructive, socially harmful ways.

In fact, climate solutions require solutions based in abundance. We have to shift from finite, expensive, polluting energy sources such as petroleum products and uranium—whose extraction and refining as well as burning for fuel cause environmental destruction—to infinite, inexpensive, and clean sources such as solar, wind, small-scale hydro, magnetic, geothermal, and designing for conservation, deployed at or near the point of use. When we allow ourselves to think abundantly, problems have a way of turning into solutions. Turn loose the socially conscious, environmentally aware engineers!

When companies start thinking about solutions based in abundance, they have even greater incentive to solve these problems—because they can see the profit in it. But too often, we “should” them with guilt and shame—very ineffective tools. Instead of nagging them about how the world is suffering because of their actions, let’s show them how acting differently can address these problems not out of guilt and shame but in creating and marketing profitable products and services.

The creativity of business can create markets where none existed, using technologies we’ve never harvested. Think about how a small-space indoor vertical garden can provide fresh veggies in urban food deserts…how green lighting options such as solar-powered LEDs that replace toxic and flammable kerosene can better the environment, health, safety, and the local economy all at once…how studying nature’s amazing engineering—”biomimimcry”—can create new products like adhesives modeled after gecko feet or a fuel-sipping plane designed to mimic the most aerodynamic birds.

If you’d like to know more about this, my award-winning 10th book Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World

Cover of Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World by Jay Conrad Levinson and Shel Horowitz
Cover of Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World by Jay Conrad Levinson and Shel Horowitz

offers lots of examples.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Demographics/Psychographics, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, language, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Technology Tagged with , , , ,
Delegates at an international meeting
A similar international meeting (in Bonn, Germany)

After the failure at Copenhagen a few years back, I didn’t have big hopes for this year’s event. Yet, I’m beginning to think the big Paris climate change conference known as #COP21 may actually accomplish some real change.

Oddly enough, my optimism is rooted in something I would have seen a few years ago as a fatal flaw: that the results will be based in voluntary, not mandatory, compliance.

Why? Because:

  1. We can’t GET mandatory compliance. In the US, that would require a yes vote in each house of Congress, or even worse, the 2/3 Senate support required to adopt a treaty. But even as far back as Kyoto, US electoral politics had become a toxic swamp of attack-dog partisanship. No climate change bill with teeth is going to pass Congress any time soon. And without US (or China’s) participation, any agreement would be useless.
  2. The US and China have already agreed to take climate seriously, and have negotiated their own agreement. Weaker than I’d like, but a heck of a good start, and one that seems to have helped apply the brakes on China’s mad rush to coal (the worst scenario for averting climate disaster).
  3. The business community has woken up. Often a force for conservatism, the business world now understands the catastrophic consequences of failure to make meaningful progress on climate change—and the profits to be made in doing the right thing. If the government won’t act, they will force action through other channels. The emergence of environmental activism among evangelical Christians and even a subset of Tea Party activists who care deeply about the environment is also very encouraging.
  4. The growing use of carbon markets provides additional financial incentives for cutting carbon.
  5. New technology makes it easier to do more with less, use. our resources far more effectively, and solve engineering problems with biological thinking (for example, letting bridge engineers study spiderwebs). We understand now, for instance, just how much energy and carbon we can save by going for deep conservation.
  6. Early discussions about whether the world should agree on a 1.5 degree Celsius vs. 2 degree C cap in global temperatures compared to what existed before the Industrial Revolution means we’ve finally gotten past the question that’s been holding us back for so long: why do we need to contain rising temperatures in the first place? For the first time, the world is pretty much in agreement that it has to be done. Not just scientists, this time, but governments, too. Climate deniers (other than in the US Republican Party leadership, apparently) are now as marginalized as environmental activists were 20 or 30 years ago.

I could keep going, but you get the message—we can do this!

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, localism/locavore, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , ,

Maybe my family’s organic garden (and my neighborhood) is a microcosm of the changes in the world ;-). We normally stop getting zucchini by the end of July. Last year, it went halfway through August. And this year, the one surviving plant finally died today, and I harvested the last two very tiny zukes on October 7. The season was approximately five weeks longer than usual,even though hey like hot weather and we pretty much didn’t have any.

Tomatoes, on the other hand, are normally extremely prolific until the first killing frost, usually very late in October. This year, the season peaked in early August, and even at its peak, we had far fewer than usual. I did manage to put a few pints of sauce in the freezer, and a few jars of dried tomatoes in the pantry, but the abundance that normally covers our entire counter never materialized—and the tomatoes had pretty much gone away by September 1, producing only one or two not-so-big tomatoes (many of them bloghted) and a handful of cherry tomatoes every few days since then. Normally, our six plants produce two or three dozen every day this time of year.

Our berry bushes were odd this year, too. The one blueberry plant gave one to two pints a day for about ten days, but one of our raspberry plants produced next to nothing, and the other a fairly paltry amount. On the very best day,I got half a pint. Ditto our blackberry bush. Normally,I’m able to put several pints by. This year, I managed to gather together and freeze a single half-pint of mixed blackberries and raspberries in July; we ate the rest as it came in, and it wasn’t much. But the bigger raspberry plant actually produced about eight very tasty fruits in September, a time when we’ve never gotten berries from it before.

Our celery was severely stunted, only about six inches high and mostly leaves, on very thin stalks. In the past, we’ve had celery that looked as good as supermarket varieties. We grew potatoes for the first time, and they came out great.

Nobody cultivates them, but I like to go gather Russian olives this time of year. I went to one of the two groves I know and found a total of one berry from several dozen plants. Fortunately, I know another grove, which was its usual prolific self.

Farmer neighbors who grow winter squash did not get a crop this year. Neither did several of the local apple farmers.

In short, not-normal is the new normal in the garden. Do you think, just maybe, global climate change has something to do with it?

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , ,

Good article in the Guardian saying that activists could get more traction on climate change issues if we approach it from a public health perspective.

And that’s certainly true—but it’s nowhere near the whole story.

We can gain converts to the clause of reversing catastrophic climate change on several grounds:

  • Economic
  • Health
  • Environmental preservation

And probably others. In all of it, we need to focus on the direct benefits to the people we’re talking about, who may not be committed greens. To put it another way, we need to reach each person with the arguments that resonate with that specific person

I can think of many talking points on each of these three broad topics, and I’ll be writing about them in my June Green And Profitable column. And I’d welcome your ideas on how to expand this discussion—you may even make it into my article (and if you do, I’ll credit you publicly). Please comment below.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , ,

Okay, I admit it. While I see catastrophic climate change as a deep and real danger, I do find some comfort in the short term.

It was great that I barely had to pick up the snow shovel last winter. And it’s great that we’re already gathering blueberries off our bush, about three weeks early. The irises were in almost a month early, bringing welcome color to our yard.

And the zucchini is flowering already; we’ll be eating it soon. That’s usually mid-July, here in Western Massachusetts.

I’m looking forward to a long and productive garden season, especially welcome because last year’s garden got destroyed halfway through the season by Hurricane Irene.

Still, these comforts will seem like distant dreams if the worst predictions of climate change come true.

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By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, Energy & Sustainability, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , ,

According to the Associated Press, there was a huge jump in carbon emissions, worldwide.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago…

The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That’s an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world’s top producers of greenhouse gases.

.

Increased reliance on coal (WHY??? WE KNOW BETTER!) has a lot to do with the problem.

And not surprisingly, climate change correlates closely with the growing epidemic of extreme weather events.

Meanwhile, the climate talks in Durban, like their predecessors in Copenhagen a few years ago, don’t seem to be getting much accomplished.

“Double-plus ungood.” Fiddling while the planet burns.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , , , , , ,

The world has got to get off coal and oil and gas and biofuels and nuclear, and onto forms of energy that are truly sustainable: they renew themselves, they don’t pollute, they don’t emit greenhouse gases, and they certainly don’t leave a legacy of poison. And the good news is we already have the know-how to do this; now we just need to find the will.

This is a crucial crossroads moment with huge implications for future generations. More specifically, for whether we actually still have a planet to pass on to future generations. We could tip toward sustainability…or continue on the path to desolation.

In just 50 years, carbon levels in the atmosphere have gone from 315.59 parts per million (PPM) in December 1959 to 387.27 as of December 2009 and 392.94 PPM just five months later—passing the danger threshold of 350 PPM in 1988, heading for 410 or higher by 2020, and perhaps as bad as 770 PPM by the end of the century. Much of that increase is directly attributable to human activity. And 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record.

What does that mean? For starters, polar melting will raise sea levels up to 1.9 meters (6 feet, three inches) by2100, causing widespread inundation of coastal cities around the world. Some entire countries, especially those on islands, will simply disappear under the waves.

Increased heat in the tropics will increase desertification and have a severe impact on food production, leading to famines, which in turn will make wars and ethnic violence a whole lot more likely.

Polar melting will also change the salt ratio of the oceans, because the ice caps are freshwater. This in turn could interfere with the Gulf Stream, making Europe a lot less habitable.

I’m old enough to remember the early 1960s: There was a lot less plastic. Most households had a maximum of one car, one television, and one telephone. There was a whole lot less traffic, and therefore a lot fewer cars spewing greenhouse cases while idling in that traffic. Air conditioning was rare. Suburban sprawl was a relatively new phenomenon, and vast acreage remained as forest or farmland that has since turned into housing and shopping and office parks. Individuals did not own computers. An 800-square-foot apartment or a 1200-square-foot house could comfortably fit a family of four or five. With all these major lifestyle shifts, it’s not surprising that humans have an impact on our planet. And I’m not suggesting that we roll back the clock on “progress.” But I am suggesting that if we want this lifestyle, we need to consume fewer resources to maintain it.

Have you perhaps noticed that major earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and even winter storms (allowed to move out of the polar regions because global warming breaks down the natural barriers that kept them polar before) have been much more severe in the last decade or so? Our Planet Earth is apparently beginning its rebellion.

We have to move forward, and we have to do it quickly.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , , ,

Sure has been one cold and snowy winter here in Massachusetts. One morning last week was minus 19 F, and that is the coldest day I can remember experiencing, ever. And January set snow records all over the place.

The cold snap has seized much of the country, including places like Georgia that are decidedly UNused to real winter.

The climate deniers, of course, are latching on to this news with great glee, and kind of a “ha, ha, we told you there was no global warming problem.”

However…what I’ve heard is that this weather pattern actually has a tremendous amount to do with global warming. In fact, the arctic air has become so warm that it’s no longer trapped by low pressure. The pressure is high enough, and the air rises enough that it pushes down into the south, and makes us shiver around here.

So don’t go out and buy a Hummer any time soon. The problem is real, and this is more evidence, not less.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Peace and War Tagged with , , ,

As it happens, my breakfast reading this morning was the latest Utne Reader, specifically an article called “The Big Green Machine.”

It describes a speaking tour featuring four veterans speaking on climate change and energy independence. The vets are one unit in Operation Free, sponsored by the Truman National Security Project, which has an all-star board fronted by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Vets speaking as part of Operation Free have logged 25,000 miles in 21 states to make the case that switching off oil to renewable energy is crucial not only to our prosperity, but also to our national security. Speakers note that both the Department of Defense and the CIA have endorsed the energy transition and are taking major steps forward. “These are not organizations known for hugging polar bears,” points out Robin Eckstein, a former Army fuel truck driver in Iraq.

This might be the way we make change as a society: by moving people from sectors not typically involved in activism to convince others who don’t listen to activists.

Drew Sloan, who was badly inured in a grenade attack and went back for another duty tour in Iraq, says even if we don’t know everything, we have to make the shift:

When [people attack] the science of climate change, they ridicule the data as being uncertain. “Veterans know you can’t wait for 100 percent certainty. If you wait until everything is clear and laid out, you’re probably no longer alive. . . . Veterans know how to deal with ambiguity and still make decisions.

As Ms. Eckstein notes,

When certain individuals hear the words “climate change,” they shut down. For whatever reason, when they hear veterans speak on it, they actually listen.

Utne’s article was excerpted from a longer piece in On Earth, which ran under the title, “Patriots Act.”

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , ,

I received the following letter to the editor about the good work 22 corporations are doing, partnering with WWF on climate change and offering a teleseminar November 18. I haven’t checked into it other than to visit the link. Not the sort of thing I usually run, but something about this just felt very sincere.

Thanks for your blog. I’m writing to you today to let you know that JohnsonDiversey is one of 22 leading corporations partnering with the World Wildlife Fund to establish ambitious targets to voluntarily reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. I’m thrilled to share with you that during a recent webinar on their commitment to LEED certified buildings JohnsonDiversey President and CEO Ed Lonergan announced that the company has tripled their initial goal of an 8% GHG emission reduction over 2003 to 2013 – to a 25% GHG emission reduction target for this same time period! The company announced it will invest $12 million to achieve the changes, but anticipate operational savings of $32 million, demonstrating that sustainability is the right approach for both the environment and the bottom line.

President and CEO Ed Lonergan stated that it is thanks to the individual commitments of JohnsonDiversey employees, who went above and beyond the proposed changes, that the company can triple their target goal. He also emphasized the company’s integrated bottom line ‘ clarifying that JohnsonDiversey sees no separation between People, Planet, and Profit.

Join this webinar on November 18th at 1:30 ET to discover how WWF Climate Saver companies JohnsonDiversey, Nokia, Johnson and Johnson, and IBM are finding innovative solutions to combat climate change and secure our energy future while increasing their bottom lines: www.bit.ly/WWFthrive_nov18

We cannot rely upon government alone to make the changes we need to save our planet. Voluntary commitments by major corporations such as JohnsonDiversey show us that the private sector has a big difference to make. And so I am inviting you to triple your own commitment to the environment on both a corporate and a personal level. If a multinational corporation operating in 175 countries can do it, so can we! Here’s an EPK to help start you out: https://www.bit.ly/JDaction

Among the many digital assets are Take Action Banners that lead to the World Wildlife Fund’s Take Action page where you’ll learn new ways to help slow climate change. Please feel free to add any of these assets to your blog or page.

I’m trying to get this inspiring message of corporate environmental commitment to as many people as possible, so I would be very grateful if you could forward this letter to your readers and anyone else you think might be interested. If you have any questions please message me!

Thanks,
Jacob

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