@Sheril

I walk and try to stay healthy to be able to outrun the zombies.

@Sheril Walk, bike, or take the train instead of driving. Eat local. Buy as much as possible second-hand. Repair as much as you can.

But also, recognize that our individual efforts don't even amount to a drop in the bucket compared to the waste and destruction going on at the hands of corporations, institutions, and governments (the military, especially). Addressing climate change means system change.

@Sheril
Be politically active. Take part in protests, write to politicians, media, demand meaningful action.

Individual lifestyle choices are useful but they will be totally pointless without political action that makes the whole economic system carbon-neutral.

Without systemic political change most individuals will not have have enough options for a carbon-neutral life, and there will be too many who don't care anyway.

We need to do this as a society, not individuals.

@Sheril I'm vegetarian and don't drive, but I think most directly (?) we need to end the political power of the fossil fuel industry. To this end, I try to spread awareness to get pro-Oil politicians out of power. In the US, these are mostly Republicans but there are some pro-Oil Democrats too.

I don't like reducing everything to politics, especially on a question about individual action, but I think this is today's reality that we have to deal with.

@Sheril
My spouse and I have a pretty small carbon footprint anyway, being retired. But we had solar cells put in 8 years ago that produce about 90% of our electricity. Plus, we purchase carbon offsets from Terrapass to offset our home natural gas use and auto use.

Terrapass mostly invests into capturing or burning off methane.

@Sheril I think the value in personal action is these days often written off as a drop in the ocean…but we forget there is a ripple, no matter how small.

If you choose to make changes to your life in what you eat, travel, the nature of the job you do, the things you purchase, the news sources you read…then explain in a non smug, non judgemental way why you have made these adjustments to your friends, family and colleagues. Maybe your words will spark an epiphany in them too.

@Sheril
The problem is global and real solutions lie with governmental commitments to funding and modification of energy use, and taxing and/or penalizing the fossil fuel industry criminals into oblivion.

Our individual choices really have VERY little impact (but make us feel like we’re contributing). Supporting global change organizations can help; bringing awareness to the impending catastrophe can help; in the US, VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS is a positive action; in other countries, voting for enviro leaders is a positive action (or joining revolutions if necessary).

This nightmare is well beyond our own personal sphere except as we force every country’s government to wake the hell up and #savetheearth.

I have little hope we will avoid the Sixth mass extinction event (it’s already underway), and I think millions of people will perish in weather & climate-caused disasters & related migrations. We’ve had 50 years of good data, empty talk, with little meaningful action. It’s too late.

#ClimateCrisis

@Sheril When it comes to local media, meteorologists and weather anchors have the farthest reach and the best opportunity to give the audience news about #climatechange, present local and international efforts to find solutions to the #climatecrisis and fight disinformation along the way. (That last part doesn't always go smoothly.)

Personally, despite detractors, I urge people to contact their local officials about the issues and talk up climate details to their family, friends, etc.

@Sheril

Could start with ‘Waste not, want not’ this oldest boomer definitely not brought up as part of the ‘throwaway’ mentality

@Sheril

Food security: I give to both Feeding America https://www.feedingamerica.org/ and the local Second Harvest food bank (google for your local branch).

Climate change: I recycle everything I can. We just switched our gas stove to a much more efficient induction one, we replaced the gas furnace with a heat pump when we moved here, and we have hybrid vehicles.

Hope? That's harder.

@Sheril

Pay Attention. Communicate. Vote.

@Sheril

Learn. Study the details of how historical campaigns for major change happened - not the simplified "everybody knows" versions, but in-depth stuff about the messy fighting.

The campaign to end slavery, women's suffrage, the right to unionise, Indian independence, the civil rights movement, South African apartheid: none of these happened in the way you were told.

All of those were arguably smaller changes to society than what is required now.

Once you start understanding how they were fought, you'll start to see what you need to do.

"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free."
- Assata Shakur

#Climate #ClimateCrisis #JoinTheResistance