Transcriber: Patricia Kuo Reviewer: Lucas Kaimaras
Have you noticed that humans,
even when we’re trying to help the environment,
often seem to break more than we fix?
Life in nature just seem to be more complicated
than we have figured out how to deal with.
But we learned something interesting
during the COVID 19 pandemic.
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information,
a collective response to COVID had a measurable impact on the environment
which included significant improvement in air quality
in several cities around the world,
production of greenhouse gas emissions,
reduction of water pollution,
and even possibly restoration of some ecological systems.
So what can we learn from this experience?
What we can learn is that our past solutions
didn’t simply includes enough of us.
COVID forced all of us to make changes that ended up helping the environment.
But most of us cannot make a living or survive a life of extreme actions.
It’s not that we have not tried to help.
I mean, we humans mean well,
but we often either oversimplify or overcorrect our solution.
Almost everything humans do has an impact on the environment.
Some things more than others.
But the cumulative impact is enormous.
COVID forced society to drastically change in a short amount of time.
Now, I’m not saying we should volunteer to be locked down,
drastically limit our consumption in the same way,
or not drive at all.
But like it or not, we all participated
in the greatest environmental experiment ever conducted.
We all drove less, consumed less, and traveled less.
The point is we’ve had a measurable positive impact
over the last couple of years,
but we can’t live a life of lockdowns.
So what else can we do?
How about continuing the well-intentioned efforts
to help the environment that you might remember
such as save the turtles, using metal straws,
paper -not plastic- grocery bags,
or, what better, bring your own bag?
Well that didn’t seem to work either.
This is because reactionary environmentalism is
well, just that: reactionary.
We must avoid causing damage
only to then spring into action to fix the damage once it’s done.
As a society, some of us tend to think we are doing social good
instead of reactionary environmental acts such as Save the Turtles,
but ends up being more of a feel good movement
if there is no long term commitment and not from enough of us.
Instead, the cumulative impact for long term
of several individuals committing to take
many collective small steps daily that help the environment
rather than feel good environmental fads or one time actions
can make a difference.
I suggest that we should create a culture of moderation
in order for us to have the best chance of actually saving the environment.
In fact, I believe we should stop using the term “save the environment”
as it implies that we will continue to damage the environment
and that we can always fix it.
I propose instead, we should convert to a thinking to preserve the environment.
This notion tasks each of us with reducing our impact on the environment
to avoid harming it in the first place,
instead of allowing people to think it can be damaged
when we will find a way to save it after we put in danger.
Over the years, there have been many shifting priorities
in the effort to help save the environment
such as reducing climate change, improving air, water and land pollution,
stopping deforestation and eliminating CFCs and fossil fuels.
We all know of these efforts, and they are only part
of the contributing factors of the global problem.
These priorities seem to come in and out of fashion
but remain collectively important.
What you might not know is that,
although there is consensus that the earth is warming now,
there was a brief cooling period in the Earth’s recent past - 1914 to 1975.
As carbon emissions increase,
the Earth’s temperature is actually cooled.
Scientists now know that it was sulphur that was released into the atmosphere,
and when the sulphur was later decreased, the temperatures rose again.
Then, by the late 1980s, climatologists began to uniformly predict
the earth was warming.
As humans, we like to try to fix problems.
And so researchers began exploring ways to cool the earth.
Bill Gates even helped fund a project that tests the idea
of spraying a sun reflecting aerosol into the atmosphere
to partially block the sun.
But when we attempt two huge actions, we may risk causing more harm.
Shouldn’t we therefore consider
that incrementally taking small moves to find environmentally sound solutions
may be more successful at achieving our goal?
This way we can alter our actions so we don’t cause damage we can’t reverse.
We need to incrementally make changes
and start taking responsibility as individuals,
not relying on others to do so.
Speaking of it now, the clear culprit for the global warming trends
has been identified as greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.
We went about trying to stop those gases from being produced, in the late 1990s.
Many environmental laws and policies were implemented
to reduce vehicle emissions and promote higher efficiency equipment.
These types of laws and regulations continue to be created
and now new things such as solar panels are used in homes and cities.
These are just some things being done to try to help.
Yet we still continue to create more carbon dioxide.
Although we have tried to reduce the use of fossil fuels,
as as population grows,
there is greater demand for burning fossil fuels for energy
and more and more cars on the road.
So even if the number of fossil fuels and automobiles is reduced,
it adds up when there are so many cars being used.
Because of this, we are continuing down the path
of damaging our environment even more.
However, there is something else carbon dioxide does.
It’s these trees.
And what has happened during the increase in carbon dioxide period?
According to NASA, the planet is greener now than it’s been
since they started taking satellite measurements in the 1980s.
Thankfully, humans use of fossil fuels also contributed to the greening trend
by conserving and planting more trees in replacement for the ones cut down,
especially in China and India.
Environmental laws and policies were put in place,
such as preserving certain pieces of land like the Everglades.
We are even building plant friendly cities with trees on the rooftops.
However, that still does not offset the environmental concerns
crafted by the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
This is another example of trying to fix a problem we created.
So what do we do about all of this?
Well, the answer does not appear to be short term fixes
such as save-the-turtle trends.
I'll give you an example.
How many of you in the audience have an electric car in the family?
Raise your hand and hold them.
Maybe you thought you bought them
in the hope that you were helping the environment.
Well, what if I told you
that out of every 10 of you holding your hands up,
6 of you are still running your cars on fossil fuels?
You can put your hands down now.
Yet in the United States, 60% of electricity produced
is from fossil fuels, especially coal and natural gas.
Another 19% is from aging nuclear power plants.
According to the EIA, the U.S. Energy Information Administration,
when these nuclear power plants run down,
19% more fossil fuels will be needed to replace them,
meaning we are losing progress
and taking a big leap backwards from reaching all clean energy.
Helping the environment is not going to happen
by running out and buying an electric car,
stopping use of plastic straws,
or spraying some blocking aerosols in the atmosphere.
We are almost guaranteed not to improve the environment
if we collectively act on narrow, high profile issues.
However, I propose we can each make a difference incrementally
reducing our individual footprint in the environment,
a cycle where we can consider moderate activities that use fossil fuels.
And lastly, pay attention to where and how products we purchase are made.
Such as being considerate that some products
are manufactured in a way that is more damaging to the environment,
some are made using a process that the environment
or just the materials it’s made with that harm our ecosystem.
Some eco friendly products are refillable cleaning enhancer bottles.
You just buy one bottle and,
instead of throwing it away after the chemical is used,
you buy tablet that has more of the chemical in it.
Also, we can request Amazon, for example,
to wait until all products can be shipped in one box if you buy multiple things
so that it saves fuel and packaging materials.
And if having an electric car is important to you,
be aware that your battery powered or electric cars
still depend on fossil fuels for charging.
Maybe instead of saving the environment,
we can realize that just simple things like not being wasteful
can be more effective than large reactionary actions.
Because preserving the environment
instead of waiting for something bad to happen to start doing something,
can save the environment better than any other approach.
Even just Reuse-Reduce-Recycle helps.
You need to take incremental actions toward our goal with flexibility
to moderate what we do to act
because of our ever changing knowledge of the environment.
This way, if the effect remains positive,
the end cumulative impact will help us reach our goal,
instead of using reactionary environmentalism that risks backtracking
and possibly breaking more when our knowledge and priorities change with time.
We also need to investigate what will truly help the environment.
Don’t just listen to media because it is easy to misunderstand
or have unreliable sources on social media especially.
We are sure to ruin things by jumping to conclusions
and taking huge actions when we don’t know what will happen next.
As humans, we don't know everything.
So, overreacting when we can’t reverse the damage
will be a problem.
Yet making incremental actions that we can adjust
will very likely help.
COVID showed us that society can modify our behavior
to successfully limit our impact on the environment.
We should learn from this experience and learn from Mother Nature herself
rather than choosing a life of lockdown type restrictions,
or practicing reactionary environmentalism.
The cumulative impact of many individuals repeatedly committing
to taking small steps daily and over time,
in other words, a culture of moderation will save it.
Do this, and overall, we can just stop breaking things,
because we’re not so good at fixing them.
Thank you.