Global Warming | Consumer Action

The consumer is king

What can the average person do about global warming?

Published April 2023 | Revised Nov 2023

Someone once asked—why I am rinsing cans to put in the recycling bin so that I can save the planet when country X is building 30 new coal power stations per month? We’ve all been there. The hopelessness of the climate emergency and the politicisation of the discourse around it is depressing.

Like many of our discourse lately, oversimplification and monetisation appear to be the unsavoury double-act that amplifies opinions held purely for profit and denigrates all others. Like Covid-19, monetisation efforts were used to drive everyone to have an opinion irrespective of the veracity of their references or the validity of the position. We got through Covid-19, an acute problem; we must learn the lessons and get through global warming, a chronic problem with potentially catastrophic consequences for all of us.

Against that somber background, what can individuals really do to address global warming? The good news is that there is an awful lot that they can do. And without prescribing a list of dos and don’ts which will simply fuel the unhelpful parts of our discourse, here’s a broad overview of what you can do today.

Understand the problem

The problem of global warming is quite simple. That our industrialisation has accelerated the rate of warming in the past decades is a fact borne out by the data. The industrial revolution brought us tremendous energy in the form of steam, and we used it to transform our world. That steam was, however, generated almost exclusively with fossil fuels which leave CO2 in the environment. Increased CO2 in the atmosphere is correlated with increased global temperature.

There is no sensible dispute on that fact. The disputes relate to the why and what we need to do about it if anything at all. With the why and what in dispute, some protagonists choose to extend doubt into the ‘if’ global warming is even real. Some are genuine, but others are out to profit from such opinions.

With enterprise - grade social media infrastructure in place to accelerate any monetizable opinion from anyone with a phone or computer, it is easy to see why there are all manners of opinion out there on global warming. Your duty as an individual is to understand that sources have agendas and not every source plays by the ethical standards you believe societies should be based on.

One solution is to stick to major institutions and global bodies such as the United Nations and European Union who have the resources to identify, analyse and produce accurately curated information on major issues such as global warming. Their reputations have, of course, been smeared by those seeking to monetise other opinions, and you should be aware of that reality as well.

Major academic institutions and journals are another source of peer reviewed information that is likely to be accurate. The more reputable they are, the more they are likely to get it right. Their reputations have also taken a hit lately, some justifiably so but not many.

Figuring out who to trust is a never-ending battle that we are fortunately built for and have been trained for from birth. In the same way you wouldn’t get a dental check up from a guy at the flea market, it is time we start critiquing the information provided by people online. They are not always wrong, or right. Your job is to be critical and review the information against those from reputable sources.

Understand the potential solutions framework

Humans are the ultimate problem-solvers, and we will solve global warming too. Whilst no individual may have a magic solution to solve global warming, your job is understanding the framework around which a viable solution may be built.

With Covid-19, we knew we couldn’t eliminate the virus, but we could achieve herd immunity to it. That was a solution framework that was understandable and universally accepted. We differed on the best route to herd immunity.

Some preferred natural immunity that takes time and costs some lives, others wanted vaccinations that accelerate herd immunity and prevent unnecessary deaths, even with the raft of side effects they bring on both our health and society. But all agreed that the crisis will only end when more of us are immune to the virus.

On global warming, one exciting solution framework advanced by the computing supercorporation, NVIDIA, is to create a sophisticated tool that simulates earth’s weather systems. It plans to hand the tool over to scientists who can then model projected weather patterns and the potential effects of interventions that we make today. With it, we can model what abandoning coal and opting for wind turbines really does to the environment, beyond what we can already postulate today.

This is exactly what NASA does with tracking asteroids with potential to hit earth. They simulate future paths based on position, trajectory, speed and other factors. It is a solution framework that works. It is what haematologists do when your doctor orders a blood test. They look at key markers in the blood and form educated conclusions and then send the results to your doctor. We all believe our doctors, and we are living longer, better lives as a result.

By understanding what solutions to global warming can look like, you arm yourself with powerful deception detectors that alert you to the nonsensical, monetised opinions that permeate the discourse on global warming.

Understand your power to act

We don’t have to act in unison to have a unified effect. Each one of us simply has to act in the right direction, and the collective impact of our actions is what moves the needle. You don’t have to worry about what others are doing. By focusing on what you can do, you make a small but significant contribution to tacking global warming.

The Sterawatt cycle shows that governments, corporations and consumers are the main factors affecting sustainable energy sourcing. As energy use constitutes the lion’s share of contributors to global warming, addressing the problem of energy sourcing and use is central to any effort to solve global warming.

And you, the consumer are king in the cycle. You have the power to pull corporations into producing sustainably produced products and services and the power to push governments into action on energy policies.

So what should you do?

Understand the problems around the discourse on global warming within the context of the oversimplification and monetisation of almost all of our discourse these days. Some people are just out to make money from their opinions whether the planet survives or not. Critique their opinions using data and opinions from trusted academic and global institutions. Review the intentions of those disparaging global institutions as well.

Understand what the solution to global warming may look like. Data and simulation is a good candidate for how we can understand and project future climate patterns and truly see how actions taken today will affect the climate in the future.

Take your business and patronage to the corporations that are committed to providing goods and services that are climate-friendly. If we demand it, they will produce it. If we elect smart leaders, they will implement climate-friendly policies.

Once you get it, and you care, and you know what a good solution looks like, you can start making the individual choices that will eventually make a difference.

Practical tips

You can start the day by conserving water around the home – shower/bath, brushing with cup or water / running water. You can change utility supplies to those providing electricity from sustainable, renewable sources. Get smart meters and track your energy and water use. Replace the gas boiler with a heat pump. Ditch the gas burner for electric cookers.

Take public transport if you can avoid driving. The train is burning energy to go to the city centre already, so why no hop-on. Drive an electric vehicle if you must drive. Carpool if you can.

Use reusable coffee cups instead of disposable. You can eat local produce or sustainably shipped ones. Eat seasonal produce, they are less energy intensive. Review your employer’s energy use and then do what you can to improve it.

There’s no shortage of small individual things that each of us could do day in day out to pull corporations and push governments into action on global warming. Corporations are in the business of making profit, and they will follow our lead. Governments of all stripes are enthralled to what we want as voters and citizens. It is time we recognise just how powerful we are at addressing this potentially catastrophic issue of global warming.

You are a king in this, start acting like one.

Further reading (site: keywords) : | nvidia.com : NVIDIA Earth-2 Supercomputer  |  drawdown.org : Climate Solutions |