Avoiding The Changing Planet

News about the environment is really scary. I used to avoid reading about climate change and thought it’s okay, because someone with power somewhere, will be able to do something about it.

If you look out the window from your house, you probably can’t see drought destroying fields of crops, worried farmers and hungry families. I can’t see people leaving their island homes because the sea levels are too high. You won’t be able to see snow leopard populations decreasing, bleached coral reefs, forest fires and forest destruction for agriculture. And from where i’m sat, I can’t see lemurs and orang-utans homes being cut down, extreme river pollution, carbon dioxide rising into the atmosphere and arctic heatwaves.

And all of this all sounds really dramatic, but seriously- these are all realities for a proportion of the planet and it’s really, really only going to get worse. We are all responsible- we all consume more than we need to, and as the only animal that has the power of imagination, we are the only animal that can turn it around.

There are so many incredible people working on these problems and there is so much to be hopeful about (I love this page of just some recognised ‘climate heroes’: http://climateheroes.org/heroes/). We are not at the point of no return, but the reality is we aren’t far off it.

We can’t fix everything as individuals. We can’t even fix one as an individual. The only way it will work is everyone that can, doing their thing for the planet. What you do really does count, and you can start today just by reading some environment news, watching a documentary, finding out what you can change in your own life. I am nowhere near understanding everything, but the more I watch and read the more I know how to make changes.