I originally authored this piece in 2018, and in taking a look back at how my thoughts have evolved and changed I thought it would be worth re-publishing.

Anyone tuning in to headlines over the past week has seen the alarms blazing about our ever narrowing window to thwart climate change…

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45859325

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kids-climate-change-lawsuit-can-proceed-judge-rules-n920476

Do we have problems? Absolutely yes. But the sad reality is that the media’s fear mongering is not the approach for environmental advocacy that we need. We should keep in sharp focus that here in the US we’re at the tail end of two devastating hurricanes, and on the eve of the next election cycle. So, will climate change be on every politician’s lobbying agenda? You bet, and while that is great at face value, we can’t lose sight of the fact that it will take a heck of a lot of action to speak louder than those words.

Facing the music, there is nothing that the US government will do in the immediate term to meet the calls for greenhouse gas reduction. Even with a green President and Congress (which we do not have at the moment), the lengthy processes we have within the institutions of the United States are prohibitive of anything happening ‘immediately’. Want to push through a long term strategy? Then we need to force it through from the bottom up and be prepared for the long haul during which time things will get worse before they get better. That’s a fact of life.

I will be forward in admitting that my carbon footprint is not net zero. It’s probably far from. As a middle-class blue-collar family man, just staying afloat day to day often means heavy reliance on the systems around us – none of which are green. For instance, I have a big truck and use a lot of fuel, a boat that uses more fuel, buy packaged foods which means plastic waste, drink bottled water so more plastic, lights get left on in the house, windows get left open with the heat on, and it goes on and on. The simple world that turns is full of post-consumer waste and fossil fuel consumption, and it’s a problem. We can do our best to boycott, but at what expense and cost of convenience for daily survival are most willing to go?

So, its apparent and obvious that we have a very complicated problem, with no easy singular solution. I think the best thing we can do is to all do our part in thinking green [and blue]. Improved consciousness of how we interact with the world, particularity the natural world, will force us to make better decisions day to day. In my case, while underwater every day, I end up highly sensitized to my breathing atmosphere – my life support. Without a well-managed atmosphere, I’d be quite literally dead in the water. For that alone, I am truly fearful about a global rise in CO2 that reaches over what we humans can tolerate. It’s bad stuff. It could kill me, and it could kill all of us…it’s that serious.

A perspective of cause and effect, action and reaction, yin and yang is needed to keep some balance with planetary atmospheric management. Our self-contained atmosphere underwater is the perfect proxy for Earth’s global atmosphere – we [humans] consume its oxygen, and expel carbon dioxide, and this physiological act of respiration needs to be balanced. Same holds true up here…for every bit of CO2 we contribute, it needs to be taken away, and the best way to do that, and selfishly at that, is through photosynthesis. Talk about the perfect life sustaining process – soaking up CO2, producing oxygen, and bearing fruit for food. It’s almost too simple to be a reality, and we take it for granted every day. Get out there and plant a tree people – we can all do something.

So, I will leave you with a key question to pose to our fearless leaders running for office who are certain to harp on the doom and gloom of the recent storm destruction to win your votes…

What are YOU really doing to close the loop with this CO2 problem? If all they can offer is “blowing smoke”, then take a look at the next.