Forget everything you know about fighting climate change.
I know. Many of us are frightened by the prospects of the future. When we look at the IPCC report saying that the average global temperature will rise by at least 1.5°C by the end of the century and that this temperature rise could be up to 4°C the situation is quite alarming.
In this Hourglass project text, we’re going to work on some practical options to help, but first, we need to have a heartfelt conversation.
We know that this escalation in temperature can have major consequences for our quality of life and for our survival on the planet.
At the same time, we see billionaires like Elon Musk making space journeys, looking for other habitable planets, testing means of transport into space as if delivering a message: “We’ve already given up on Earth. You’d better give up too.”
In the news, the facts are not encouraging. It is very worrying to see all the effects that we are already beginning to suffer, such as the historic heat waves in China that dried up entire rivers and killed people due to the sudden change in temperature, as well as the lethal heat waves that happened in Europe in the summer. of 2022.
It’s really very worrying.
However, it is precisely because we want to fight global warming effectively that we need to speak the truth.
When you Google about fighting climate change, you might find a million different websites giving tips like “take shorter showers”, “turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth”, “use less car during the week”, “eat a little less meat” — and these are all valid actions, but deep down they are not effective.
Wait, you don’t have to stop doing the things you do for the planet. It is just important that we realize that it is not these punctual and individual actions that will change the scenario of global warming.
Just because you’ve stopped meat doesn’t mean the agricultural meat industry isn’t growing year after year, trending positively now that the human population is around 8 billion people.
Despite being important changes for a transformation of the cultural perspective in several sectors such as food and transport, these are measures that have had a long-term effect.
These small actions, like leaving the light bulbs off to use less electricity, only serve to make us, as individuals, feel better at the end of the day.
You know that feeling that I did something or my part is done? So these actions are for that: to soften our ego in some way and mask that the real problem continues to progress.
Because the problem is not in you or in me, but permeated throughout our production system, which today is globally interconnected, depends on several countries and values a single indicator: economy.
For companies, the global warming and climate change agenda may even be important, but much more needs to be done to change the perspective.
This paradigm shift happens because, as we know, it is already a known fact that consumers currently value ecologically responsible companies nowadays. So, the more signs that brands can give that they are concerned about the environmental cause, the greater the profitability.
However, none of this solves the problem. If we are truly concerned with human survival on Earth, we need to do more than make better consumer choices. We cannot trust our future to the decision that is most profitable for a small group of shareholders.
What we can do in this case is face it as a real battle. In other words, we need to think about combat strategies, have clear, metric and achievable goals to overcome this climate crisis.
Of course, we will still suffer some consequences for the damage already done in previous years. But that doesn’t mean that we should simply expect the worst.
Therefore, we are going to bring here some solutions to the biggest problems of global warming.
How to help with climate change?
Here, you will find a summary of how to deal with each type of global warming problem and how we can solve it.
In short, join organizations that are already struggling so that their efforts are not in vain.
If you want to contribute to the environmental cause through the Hourglass project, get to know our project where you can donate to climate change with only $1.
Energy
No, it’s no use turning off the lights when you leave a room or leaving the TV off.
While this is very useful for home economics, it has no effect on electricity usage that impacts climate change.
That’s because while your home is saving energy, there are millions of other households that are using energy freely. Even in an economy scenario, the average consumption of a family of two would require the existence of 3 planet Earths to sustain an irresponsibly produced energy.
Thermoelectric plants, responsible for electricity in most countries, use the burning of coal to be produced. That means tons of CO2 emitted every day.
To solve this problem, it is necessary to reach net zero: concept in which the generation of energy produces 0 amount of carbon.
How can we do that?
It is necessary to invest in clean energy, such as solar or wind energy, one of the most advanced in this regard. This type of electricity has no negative effects on the environment and has no waste.
We need to transform cities in entire countries into clean energy territories to ensure that we achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
What can you do?
You can start by exchanging ordinary energy for solar energy in your home. Solar energy is much cheaper, it can be sold to other households, it does not produce noise and the maintenance required is very low.
Gasoline
The gasoline in our cars comes from oil. In the last century, the world has placed all its growth expectations on oil, but everything about this energy source is wrong.
Starting with its extraction, which is a threat to marine life, with dozens of oil spill cars in the oceans.
In its use, the burning of oil produces 361 million tons of carbon every 5 years, greatly increasing the greenhouse effect, the main driver of climate change.
What can you do?
It can’t be clearer in this case: stop using gasoline.
The ideal solution is to switch to electric cars — that use a clean energy source, of course.
But, as these cars are still expensive and poorly distributed compared to the old model, it is possible to take some measures such as: prefer public transport, especially trains and subways; give a ride or always ride shared cars, which are ways to make these cars used by more than one person, reducing the total number of circulating vehicles.
Forests
Maybe you’re tired of this talk, but they are our greatest hope. See your memories of your early years at school. You must remember well that the respiration of trees and plants is contrary to human respiration: they breathe in carbon and turn it into oxygen.
Before human intervention, our planet lived in full balance because of them. But felling for coal burning, urbanization and cattle ranching has been so extensive that trees can no longer keep up with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
What can you do?
Support, support and support.
Here, there are two important measures in place: first, there are indigenous communities living in protected territories around the world. These areas are constantly hit by criminal fires and other attacks, with the aim of devaluing the area so that it can be used commercially.
In the process, we lose human lives, more trees, the biodiversity that maintains the balance of the world — you must have heard about how the extinction of bees can also lead to human extinction, right?
Support these communities financially and with your volunteer work. The Hourglass project has a program to help indigenous communities so that these people, our defenders, can have the resources to fight against the multibillion-dollar companies that want to destroy what we have left.
Likewise, there are other reforestation initiatives, which use devastated regions to plant new trees. These organizations plant, care for and supervise the growth of these trees — and are also helped by the Hourglass project.
Both are important, although the defense of indigenous communities is a priority. Because? Because a tree with a high carbon absorption capacity can take years and even decades to develop.
In forests like the Amazon Rainforest, there are trees that are hundreds of years old, extremely powerful in balancing the climate on the planet. We need to protect them.
Oceans
We have so many problems with the ocean, that is diffcult to chose one to talk about.
First of all, all the trash that we take in the sea it’s all spread all over the oil. There’s no part of any ocean that wasn’t harmed by humans, with plastic, oils or other garbage.
Also, the global warming is a risk itself. The oceans carry the gases and, like land animals, the organisms that depend on them to breathe. But as the waters warm up due to the higher temperature of gases, they can begin to deoxygenate.
You may also have heard coral bleaching. Corals are turning white all over the world and this is caused by the lack of oxigen. Did you know, for example, that up to 80% of earth oxygen is produced in the sea by oceanic planktons? If there’s no oxygen in the sea, guess who will be missing oxygen too?
What can you do?
Support, support and support. There’s a lot of organizations that do the monitoring of marine life, capture trash back from the sea and fight to protect from any further harm.
These people need our attention and our investment, because there’s a lot of companies paying billions of dollars to have the right to pollute the sea (because of economy), and we can’t fight them with climate change posters or t-shirts.
Find out how you can help through the Hourglass project.
