Sitting idle on the couch watching the WWF commercials on global warming makes me laugh. How can anyone be so stupid to wash their car while a hurricane is blustering right in front of them? Of course we won’t run our lives in that everyday sort of fashion while our planet rages against our abuse. Of course we’re going to do something before it gets as bad as that. Or will we?

Everyone sees images like that or hears information about the current state of global warming and wants to be green. As regular urban dwellers, it’s easy to say we're green but hard to prove. We drive cars, we soak up the A.C., we eat meat; and I’m not one an angel here either. On the flipside many of us try our best to be green by saying no to that plastic bag at the grocery store or we’ve shaken our heads in agreement with Al Gore. There’s a whole eco-culture emerging before our eyes that profile everything from hemp clothing, to a focus on organic foods. In compromise, I believe that people do care and have a genuine attention to the issues of today, but the level of care is personally dependent.

Therefore there must be levels of how far individuals are willing to go when it comes to being green. These levels are dependent on our Earth loyalty and how well we actually stick to our guns when it comes to working and living sustainably. Levels that make a difference on a local scale, initiatives that improve our habits on a provincial scale, and those policies put in place for the betterment of countries and networks of the world are just three examples of such. The optimists of the world work to create that green network, but it takes the push of everyone who lives within those regions to launch them into progress. The decision is between two things. We can care about our personal needs now, or we can share for the wellbeing of future generations. The lifespan of our world as we know it depends on our ability to look past our personal needs and to invoke change now.

As far as the personal care side goes, it’s a fact. Human beings have been known to change and alter their surroundings to accommodate comfort. This comfort can been talked upon in a larger scale in relation to infrastructure, transportation, technology, communication, and pretty much anything that makes our lives easier. Over the years this comfort has been satisfying and gratifying. The side effects of comfort are usually less than sustainable. To live in a society and culture where comfort is the ideal, efforts to be green are often set onto the back burner. A constant example is our lifestyle of transportation, and our need of fossil fuels to continue their use. Changing trends towards eco-friendly products and services are counteracting this, but costs are preventing them from becoming mainstream.

To share, means to look through a unified vision and then to act upon it. It sounds so glorified, but to have a vision of a greener world is the launching point to which action can be planned and implemented. Sharing is not just compromise but to assert our power to invoke something that couldn’t have otherwise been done on a smaller scale. Our part starts with that vision and the commitment to make a difference in our personal lives to start the change.

The effort to be green comes from the current need of the planet. As reported by Thomas L. Friedman in his New York Times featured article, The Power of Green; two professors give a much needed metaphor to today’s climate change issue. “Think of the climate change issue as a closet, and behind the door are lurking all kinds of monsters — and there’s a long list of them,” Stephen Pacala says of the kinds of problematic effects that are revealed after a doubling of CO2 levels. Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala specializing in engineering and ecology respectively at Princeton have been spearheading the way to have it known what it will take for a true impact. Between the energy reduction in developed countries and making room for developing countries to get a foothold, Pacala and Socolow have developed a pie chart effect on how we as a planet need to share our resources to make a difference before we start to face those monsters in the closet.

In this way, it’s not only up to us as individuals to make a difference to be green, but also to be conscious of others in the world who are trying to achieve even half of the comfort level that we cherish each day. Hopefully with more information, as well as the eco-trend constantly growing, the focus will be put back onto a balanced, mindful environment. There has been talk of globalization in many terms, but to think and act as one body, we would be seeing our planet as the only focus and priority. But then again until we start to see the extreme effects of these closet monsters, one wonders, what will it will take for the people of our world to start to make a move?

When will we actually make the change? It is the ignorance of global warming and its effects on today’s world that angers and appalls activists. The evidence is there and ignoring it, as the WWF has said, won’t make it go away.  Ignorance and denial are also side effects of our personal comfort. Even if we don't consciously ignore it, we're not exactly active in our motives. What I also found interesting about the WWF ad was that everyone in the ad was going on with regular life as if nothing was wrong. We too, to the day, act the same way while change is in our midst. It may not be in the form of a hurricane on our front lawn, but extreme temperatures around the globe are becoming the norm.

This change proved by Pacala, Socolow and countless scientists and activists can be summarized in my mind as three things; a change of action, focus and mindset. All three of these changes have to happen on a local as well as a political level to increase the awareness and scale of what’s going on.  The state of our planet has and will influence our level of comfort. The planet reacts, we react. So, the catch 22 is, do we sacrifice our comfort now for comfort in the future? Or do we live leisurely now and see when it catches up to us?

Change is inevitable whether we invoke it or not. Whether the change is sustainable or not is up to us. If we create the change and mold our action, focus and mindset to our Earth, we will indeed adapt to our new ways and hopefully create a better, ecologically sustainable place. Easier said than done, of course but it is definitely easier to adapt to something that we push ourselves to create than something that is thrust onto us like a natural disaster, often leaving us in shock.

To be green is to each its own. We do what we can, we’re one in a few, and a few in many and those many control the weight of the world. Otherwise we’re in a state of constant flux. Whether to share now to create a globalized vision of a greener world or to care about ourselves and wait until the monsters start to loom.

I choose to invoke the change.

References:

Socolow, Robert and Pascala, Stephen. The Power of Green. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green.t.html>

WWF Ads found at http://www.print.duncans.tv/2006/ignoring

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Other pictures found on Flickr.com