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I sent out a short list of good books from 2018 on Friday. You can read my mini-reviews and click the links here. With this Read2Lead, I finish 2018.
By the next time I write, my niece Erin will have given birth. Her amazing Maximus will have a brother or sister. Her kids won’t know – and perhaps you don’t either – that in each of the last three months, scientific reports have detailed that carbon emissions are speeding “like a freight train” and that the globe is demonstrably showing signs of change. This is not a FUTURE EVENT. We are all in the middle of climate change, evidenced by the fact that of the 22 hottest years on the planet, 20 have come in the past 20 years. Perhaps you have noticed fires – we sure have – and floods, and other erratic signs.
In this time of nationalism, we have one globe, here shot by Apollo 17 (see if you can find the national borders; bonus if you can find the borders that block the spread of carbon from one country to another, or that keep the ocean temperature stable off their coasts):
In case you’re wondering, the atmosphere is a tiny shell around the earth.
Make no mistake, we need massive and coordinated, global, governmental efforts – in a time of rising nationalism, such as we have not seen since the time before the two World Wars. And we need our country to be what it used to be: a (if not the) world leader. In the meantime, none of us is powerless, unless we choose to be so. If we care about our children, grandchildren, and their children, we need to act now. (Don’t get me started on the debt we’re already leaving them.)
I am going to set personal goals, and I hope you will too. Here is where we spend our energy, and here is a link to a great site with MANY easy and useful things you can do to reduce your footprint. . .
such as:
- reduce driving (I ride an e-bike and it’s a blast!)
- audit your home (you’ll save money in the process)
- switch to an e-car (Jen gets infinite miles/gallon in her Chevy Bolt; I’m at 81.6 mpg in my Ford C-Max)
- check lights, appliances, curtains every time you leave
- tell your company this matters
- tell your representatives to get us back in the Paris Accords and to work to make them measurable!
You can make a difference by
Leading with your best self!