How to Fight Climate Change With Small Houses

 Let's talk about tiny space how the small house can foster a strong environmental ethic that leads to real change not only is the tiny house a possible housing option for some but it also challenges many to reconsider how they value physical goods, personal relationships, and the environment all while providing a better amount of economic freedom. 

People living in a large space merely encourage homeowners to buy material goods that they probably don't need. The key to the tiny house is that it inhabits consumption and waste which encourages its owners to lead a minimalist lifestyle. Listening to tiny house owners speak on their consumption habits it's clear that minimal consumption becomes a necessity to live in a tiny space. It changes so much it's like you start out and you know you buy things and then you think about the idea of building a tiny house. You have to start limiting things for a more practical reason than anything else you know thinking well do I really can fit in this house. I love that it's small because then it keeps me in check with everything you know it's like just can't use to have no reason to buy new things but it was like I never had a real reason not to buy the clothes and now that I live here. You have reasons to not do things it's funny you'll go around and walk into a store you'll shop for like six months before buying anything because it's like nothing that you really want or need essentially. The tiny house provides a much-needed reason to stop the unconscious collection of material goods by physically minimizing their spaces. Tiny house owners re-engage with how much they really need and less consumption means a smaller environmental footprint. Because manufacturing shipping and displaying products work wires a large number of resources instead of focusing on the physical tiny homeowners tend to adopt a lifestyle built around common experiences and a recognition of what is important to them with this outlook those who move into a tiny house are not necessarily downsizing. 

But right-sizing their lives by cutting down on their burdens another more abstract effect the tiny house brings to their owners is its ability to nudge people towards the outdoors. Imagining what four walls can look like and understanding that smaller square footage may actually be better. The tiny house movement can help owners connect with their natural surroundings the home then is no longer a place for all your wants and needs instead brings you outdoors into your community and environment helping to show you that the world outside is just as precious as the world inside. But I think what's important to consider is that the tiny house lifestyle can exist separate from the tiny house and can influence the greater public even if the majority of homeowners don't live in tiny houses instead of seeing the tiny house as the expected standard of living. We should view going tiny as an extreme example of successful right-sizing the tiny houses countercultural approach creates an opportunity outside the norms of society where people can understand that the value of the environment and human interaction is much greater than the value of real goods whether a thousand square feet or fifty square feet is right for you. We should draw upon the ideas honed by the tiny-house movement to better understand how to live thoughtfully in our rapidly changing natural world.

How Climate Change Affects Community Health

Global scientific consensus tells us the world’s climate is changing day by day. These changes are creating some new health risks in communities across the World. Extreme weather changes, unhealthy air quality, and disease outbreaks are becoming more severe and more frequent, affecting more people in World. Changes to our climate mean our communities need to prepare for the health risks of extreme weather. Extreme heat can lead to Heatstroke, Heat exhaustion, Heat cramp, Dehydration, and Death. Anyone can be at risk. But some are more vulnerable, including, people with heart or lung conditions, pregnant women, older adults, children, athletes, and Outdoor workers. So how do we prepare for extreme weather changes? Communities can: establish cooling centers, plant trees to lower urban temperatures and educate residents to protect themselves and their loved ones such as drinking plenty of water and checking on older people and neighbors. A changing climate also means more frequent and more severe flooding and storms. That puts people at immediate risk of being injured or killed by debris, or floodwaters. After a severe flooding or storms event, possible health risks are contaminated food or drinking water by Bacteria, viruses, and toxic chemicals in floodwaters, fungus, and Difficulty accessing health care services, like emergency help, prescribed medications, and supplemental oxygen in these events, older people, people with disabilities, and lower-income households are more at risk. They may all have a harder time running away from a storm and may face more health problems if they can’t evacuate. To prepare, communities can: find out which neighborhoods, people, and resources are most at risk; upgrade infrastructures such as sanitary sewer systems and roads; and educate residents on how to stay safe during and after an extreme weather event such as avoiding driving in flooded areas. As average temperatures rise worldwide, air quality can also change. That looks like longer and stronger pollen seasons, which can trigger allergies and asthma attacks; Changing weather patterns and hotter temperatures, which can make air pollution worse by increasing the density of dangerous tiny particles; and more frequent droughts that can lead to wildfires, which release dangerous pollutants into the air. Children, people with asthma and respiratory conditions, young children, older adults, and people with compromised immune systems are more at risk of being infected. Work that can help communities includes collaborating with community partners to set up health-focused air quality alert systems and educating residents on how to check alerts to know when it’s safe to do exercise outside. Changes to our climate can also mean more risk of diseases spread by pests like mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, and rodents. With higher average temperatures, diseases transmitted by pests can multiply faster, spread to more places, and infect people over longer periods of time each year. Lyme disease, Zika, West Nile virus, Coronavirus and hantavirus are examples of the resulting health risks. People who spend most of their time outdoors in areas where pest-borne diseases are common are most at risk. Communities can prepare by creating systems to track and assess people's health effects and working with local partners on outreach strategies to help residents protect themselves, such as staying out of certain areas, using PPE, and using insect repellant. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is empowering health departments to prevent and adapt to the local health risks of a changing climate through the Climate-Ready States and Cities Initiative. CDCs Building Resilience Against Climate Effects framework helps health departments plan a coordinated community response. Using Building Resilience Against Climate Effects, communities are:

Identifying the range of climate impacts and the people, resources, and location most at risk

Quantifying the health problems that are associated with a changing climate

Assessing science-based interventions to address those health problems

Developing and overseeing community adaptation plans, and evaluating the process to learn more about what works.

Conclusion

An effective response to climate change is essential to prevent illness, improve public health preparedness, and mitigate risk. Today climate change has a clear impact on our health. The government has recognized this and supports the health system to take immediate action to combat the effect of climate change to optimize economic, health and environmental outcomes.

What is minimalism? And its Relation with Sustainability

 Minimalism is about owning less stuff, about owning less. But it's actually far more than that when you start to study it. We live in the world of social media where we see 1000 plus advertisements every single day, and every advertisement calls for our attention and it calls for our affection. Minimalism is about rejecting those advertisement messages and taking back control of our own lives and being loyal with our time and our money, and our energy. We need to renegotiate the thought of minimalism the term was originally conceived in the late 1950s. The ability to choose less today minimalism has become and then point towards a minimalist lifestyle that moves away from aesthetics and into politics ultimately minimalism has promised for socio-economic and environmental reasons. But we need to understand that its current state is more than a continuation of consumer culture than a movement toward an environmentally and materially conscious society. The trend of minimalism has inspired a lot of people in recent years. Somehow it has become the inverse of what it was trying to be now for certain minimalists. The lifestyle means a firmly selected wardrobe of expensive clothes in an aesthetic of white while using minimalist as a style. Take for example the buy less but buy better attitude that is encroach minimalism. Yes, buying a $500 pair of shoes might in some cases be more environmentally friendly than buying four sets of $60 shoes because the pricier shoes will most likely last longer and produce minor waste than four pairs. However, most people don't have the money for that so this minimalist philosophy uses the excuse of having little to buy the most expensive things perhaps minimalists are purchasing less. But they are still buying into the idea of creating status through expensive items thus if you don't have the means or the money to rid yourself of your belongings and purchase just the right things then minimalism must not be for you. 

The new trend of minimalism as a visual aesthetic has now been merged with a surge of self-optimization by using the right technology and paring down your life in the right way minimalism can portably deliver happiness financial security and free time to those who follow its path, unfortunately, it can only be viewed as a key to happiness by those who already have more than enough for low-income people buying Inexpensive clothing or owning less furniture isn't a choice Its structural reality minimalism. However, it can offer so much more than a stylistically slimmed-down wardrobe it can instead mean a purposefully anti-consumerist and environmentally aesthetic lifestyle that works against the power of capitalism. The focus with minimalism then is not necessarily working to edit your daily choices and activewear down to the cream of the crop but instead on working hard to critically check your consumption choices. Day to day this looks like choosing not to buy the latest hundreds-dollar iPhone or if you are cleaning out your wardrobe choosing not to sell your clothes if you don't need the money and instead donating them to a progressive organization if you do in fact need to get a new pair of pants to consider buying secondhand the idea is to know that consumption feeds a system that affects overwhelming harm on the environment and marginalized people minimalism can offer guidance, not as a stylistic choice. But as a mindset that helps reroute our unconscious purchasing habits into a well-informed consumption critical stance. Minimum has slowly grown more popular so it's important to remember that as an aesthetic trend and a way to find happiness minimalism can sometimes be just another tricky form of conspicuous consumption. As a pro-environment list and anti-consumption choice, however, minimalism can offer a way to guide us along the route of an economic system that constantly pressures us to buy more. Having and buying less do not need to be status symbols or the subject of a social media post, they can instead be radical political and environmental acts. Of course, this needs to be done in a balanced way and without giving up your comfort.

Is Online Shopping Sustainable?

 It is important to look at the exact effect caused by this new trend of online shopping and instant shipping on climate change. The carbon footprint of online shopping greatly depends on the actions of customers. As shoppers can be divided into several different categories that span from a traditional retail shopper, modern shopper, and cybernaut known shopper who exclusively shop online. Online shopping with lower shipping options has a smaller footprint than driving to a retail store to search purchase and return a product. The highest effect shopper is actually a mix of both ones that go to the store to compare prices and then buy online with quick shipping. The greater number of the reason why traditional shoppers have such a huge footprint is that they are using cars to reach brick-and-mortar shops. The Cybernaut as for the who shop online when they choose shipping options like two-day mailing, they are more than doubling their transportation-related emissions especially within the last couple of years. Companies like Amazon started to send vans out to deliver packages that are only half full to fulfill customer expectations this ultimately means more emissions because trucks and vans have to make numerous trips between homes and hubs as opposed to slower shipping options which fill up trucks with cargo and make a single trip to fill orders.

Packaging Waste

Packaging also has a significant role to play when it comes to environmental impact often when you select the overnight shipping option the products that you want aren't bundled together in the same box because they are usually coming from two different facilities across the country, as a result, you receive a new cardboard box for every product you buy and the carbon emissions of products are on average 35% more. When shipped separately in addition many products are packaged efficiently. Average boxes contain 20% of wasted space which shipping facilities then fill with papers Styrofoam or bubble wrap ultimately creating more waste that finds its way into landfills but there are many choices on both the retail and consumer side that could help lower emissions for companies. Cutting down emissions means digging shoppers towards slower shipping options or making in-store purchases. When appropriate it can also mean bundling items together in one packet or even reducing the amount of packaging for a product by right-sizing its box. But as individuals, we also have choices to make for one if it's possible to find a way to get to your local retail store without using a car you will not only drastically lower your footprint but shopping locally. It also allows you to connect with other people face to face which helps build community resilience in the long run if you don't have that luxury consider using slower shipping choices which allows the online retailer to optimize shipping routes because they don't have to rush to get the item onto your doorstep. This necessarily means fewer miles traveled for trucks and planes because they can fill up with packages and only leave when they are full. Online shopping isn't something to be demonized it's an important resource for people who may not be able to shop in person for several reasons however it's important to think seriously about our individual relationships with online shopping. Think before you shop that an online shopping spree not only has negative consequences for your wallet but it also has lasting effects on the natural world that we have come to rely on.

Online Shopping

A Healthy Diet Plan that Helps to Fight the Climate Change

 Billions of people around the world eat food every day. Food is more than energy whether it is sugar, grease, or carbs. But how big of a problem is what we eat daily? So, we have got these two factors coming together. One is we all need to eat healthier, and on the other side, we need to eat more sustainably because food production and consumption have a footprint on the environment. About 25 percent of all the global climate change problems we are seeing can be associated back to the food and the choices that we are actually making about what we eat daily. This is higher than all of the cars on the planet. In fact, it’s about two folds as much global warming pollution as cars. A lot of people feel really powerless when it comes to climate change like they can’t make a difference. And researches show that your personal decisions can really make a difference. Global food production accounts for 40 percent of land use 30 percent of global gas emissions. So, what a healthy and sustainable, diet looked like. The important thing to remember though is a healthy diet isn't absolutely the same as a sustainable diet. It's not just the foods themselves that might be the issue. It can be the way food is produced and eat.

For example, if you are eating a single serving of beef, you wind up emitting about 330 grams of carbon footprint. That’s like driving a car three kilometers. Now, if you chose to eat chicken instead, there’s more than a five-fold emission drop. Shift to fish and you see the number go below even more. Livestock accounts for a bit over 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. If that sort of looks low to you, consider it about compares to transportation. We are taking all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships on the planet combined! This is partly because ruminant animals like cows and sheep – they are just gassy! And the methane they produce is at least 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Plus, it takes a lot of fertilizer, land and about a billion tons of grain to feed all that livestock. And you could feed 3 billion people with that grain; if we were just directly eating these grains ourselves, it would eliminate a lot of the CO2 that comes out from cattle production. So, it’s clear that meat has a pretty big carbon footprint, but it’s also worth remembering that not all livestock is raised equally. So, the point is vegan is the way to go for the least impact on the planet, but it’s not that pretty different, in terms of emission. So, fish and chicken a few times a week; meat maybe once a month, plenty of plant-based foods, and of course, loads of olive oil. Exclude off like 90 percent of your meat intake is more important than ignoring all of your meat. We don’t all have to be vegan completely. If we can just reduce our meat intake, every little effort helps. And if you can bring it down a lot, you can help mitigate climate change. Just bringing down your portion size to 4 ounces can reduce your emissions by half. That’s a huge impact! In fact, the doctors are telling us we are eating about twice as much meat as we really need for a healthy diet. The good news is, we are paying attention to our doctors. In the last decade, there’s been a 19 percent decrease in the amount of beef we eat. All these things that you are already being told are good for you also happen to be good for the planet. 

A healthy diet plan includes less meat, less dairy, fewer potatoes, and a lot more plants. However, to be a true converter, you need to pretty much give up meat, chicken and fish and move into nuts, legumes, and seeds. So, what would this diet look like on your plate? Well, around half the plate would be filled with fruit, nuts and veggies. And the other half would have things like whole grains, plant proteins like lentils and beans, some veg, a very small amount of dairy and meat and some plant oils, maybe some control sugars. This diet allows for around two and a half thousand calories each day. If you were following the diet, you could have one boiled egg once a week. Just a glass of milk a day covers all your daily requirements. Globally, the diet means that we need to reduce our consumption of red meat and sugar and double our intake of veg, pulses, nuts and fruits. So, it's not just about the food we eat and the way it's produced. It's also about the way we behave this food. We also want to look at the packaging, for example. Plastic has a bad impact on the environment, but it's lighter than glass and therefore for transport it can have a lower carbon footprint. And also, the volumes of things. So, if you compare, for example, concentrated orange juice to fresh orange juice, because it’s lower volume, you don’t have the transport costs and the environmental footprint of that. Buying seasonally and locally can also make a big difference. All these things that you are already being told are good for you also happen to be good for the betterment of the planet. So, what we eat daily is a big part of the climate puzzle. This means, we may not all be able to afford solar panels on our house, an electric car but we all have to eat every day. And choices we make can add up to really big impacts. And since meat has a pretty big carbon footprint, we need to be thoughtful about how much we eat. We know that in the future, we might have more mouths to feed. If we are going to eat sustainably in the years to come and the decades to come, we are going to have to change the way we eat.

Importance of Planting Trees for Environment

 One of the most important elements for the environment is tree planting. It is impossible to think of an environment without trees, so it is essential to consider the trees transplanting for landscaping, land reclamation of the forest.

Most importantly, trees plantation helps reduce the ozone levels trees take in carbon, thereby removing carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases from the air thus the earth remains cool. During the process of photosynthesis, plants produce oxygen using water, light, and carbon dioxide and animal used this process fuel as food.

Planting three trees strategically around a single home cuts air conditioning needs in summer up to 50 percent so trees conserve energy. Brind down the energy demand for cooling houses, we decrease carbon dioxide and emission pollution from power plants.

Trees are necessary as they provide us with enough oxygen, without which we cannot live. In fact, we need trees right from the food we eat that helps us to live to the medicine that is given to heal a disease. This also includes furniture we use in office and home for comfort and dress we wore and also the vehicles and cars that help running our life smooth. Considering all these precious benefits of trees, at the end of the day tree plantation cannot be ignored.

Planting trees as per the essential requirement and demand of the environment is known as tree plantation.  At least 25% of each country must have woody and plant areas that help to keep in balance with the environment. In fact, many countries do not have the essential wood area and this is not desirable. Thus, realizing the necessity and the actual need of trees for the environment, it is obligatory that everyone is conscious of the importance of tree plantation. 

In tree plantation week everyone should promise to plant at least one tree as a benefaction to the environment that is always granting you something or the other in one form or the other. Tree plantation along with roadside and near your home in the open spaces or in fields is recommended. However, to make sure a healthy environment, the second action to be taken is to stop deforestation, besides they should authorize tree plantation as it maintains balance in the environment and makes sure we live in a better place. Thus, there is a healthy need for everyone to come forward and to look at tree plantation that is best for all.

Trees are helping the environment by providing oxygen, improving air quality, climate betterment, conserving water, preserving soil, and supporting wildlife habitat. In the process of photosynthesis, trees take carbon dioxide in and yield the oxygen that we breathe. 

Tree plantation and environment

By the few simple steps, we can help save trees include:

Using paper carefully, thus saving trees from getting cut down for paper manufacturing.

Borrow, share and donate books, so that you don’t go for a new one.

Visit the forestry area to know the value and importance of trees in the environment.

And also learn new concepts and ideas to deal with trash, thus to save the environment tree plantation is a must.

The Link Between Global Warming and Climate Change

 Global warming is a climatological phenomenon in which the global temperature is rising because of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Reasonably hot Sun sends us a mixture of various rays which is composed of 10% of UV, 40% of visible light and 50% of infrared when the incoming solar radiation arrives at the surface of the atmosphere it is directly reflected towards space by clouds and the various layers of the atmosphere the remainder of this incoming energy is absorbed by the various components of our planet such as atmosphere, earth surface and ocean surface, etc. Since the Earth's surface is colder than the Sun it radiates heat back to the atmosphere in the form of infrared energy and most of the emitted infrared radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere and warms the atmosphere also gains heat and radiates energy upwards and downwards. The downward radiation is absorbed by the Earth's surface and the upward radiation is reflected in space. As we know, our earth's atmosphere is a layer of gases that contains roughly 78% nitrogen 21% oxygen 0.97% argon 0.04% carbon dioxide trace amounts of other gases are water vapor nitrogen and oxygen that form most of the atmosphere. They do not absorb the infrared radiation so they do not contribute to warming the earth but the greenhouse gas molecules mainly carbon dioxide and water vapor absorbed the sun's radiation as infrared some goes back into outer space and most of the energy towards the Earth's surface. The greenhouse gases warm up the atmosphere and also the Earth's surface which is called the greenhouse effect in this way the earth maintains a stable average temperature. Without these greenhouse gases, surface temperatures would be cooler and many life forms would freeze thanks to this natural greenhouse gases because it keeps our average temperature is comfortable. When the concentrations of greenhouse gases increase, the temperature of the atmosphere also increases, leading to the warming of the Earth's surface because too many greenhouse gases trap more and more radiations that cannot escape to space. As a result, radiations remain in our Earth’s atmosphere which causes the earth to warm up. So, the higher concentrations of greenhouse gas responsible for global warming contributors of the greenhouse gases both nature and human activities. Human activities are the main contributors for the emission of greenhouse gases like volcanic eruption, power plant plants industry, ocean transportation, forest fire deforestation, live stocks commercial and residential appliances.

Global Warming 

Impacts of global warming lead to long-term and devastating impacts for the natural environment ecosystems and human societies such as drought, flood storm, ice melting, etc. Effects on the ocean and climate change as temperatures rise glaciers melt faster than they accumulate new snow when these ice sheets and glaciers melt the water flows into the oceans and sea-level rise. The rise of sea level causes destructive erosion flooding of wetlands aquifer and agricultural soil contamination with salt otherwise rising water level helps to evaporate more water vapors from the warm ocean surface. So, the hurricane or cyclone get the energy for winds from these warm water vapor and leads to higher wind speeds in the hurricane or cyclone nevertheless when carbon dioxide enters the ocean it combines with seawater to produce carbonic acid which increases the acidity of the water lowering its pH this is called ocean acidification. The rising temperatures coupled with ocean acidification affect marine species and ecosystems warmer water temperatures in the ocean result in coral bleaching when water is too warm corals will expel the algae living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white affects on wild animals and birds. Face new challenges for survival because of global warming due to drought-induced starvation many wildlife animals shift their places for searching food and water birds also migrate to move from an area to another area for their resources polar bears are starving because of melting sea ice they need sea ice to hunt seals as their main source of food. Effects on human health: human health is at risk because of global warming rising temperatures in the tropics allow mosquitoes to thrive causing the spread of diseases like dengue fever, malaria. Heatwaves caused people to die of dehydration or heatstroke. Solution of global warming are renewable energies like wind power, solar energy hydropower has the potential to reduce global warming decrease the emission of carbon dioxide from industrial sectors turned to reduce global warming. Planting more trees can play a significant role by reducing carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere to avoid the use and emissions of CFCs or HFCS and a variety of climate-friendly energy efficient safe and proven alternatives need to use.

Eco-Friendly Cars

 If you are looking to buy a car. How do you pick the car that is good for you and for the planet? There is already a lot to inspect when choosing a new car, and factor like climate change makes it even trickier. Well, we are here to guide you through it. Cars don’t just produce emissions when you are driving them. Assembling a car any kind of car takes a tremendous amount of energy, and so does disposing of it. So, when we talk about the climatic impact of a car, we have to consider the industry to landfill, not just on the road. So, that applies to all kinds of cars. But there’s still a lot to consider. First of all, we have got our good internal combustion engine cars. They can be powered by ethanol, propane even biodiesel, but mostly run-on gasoline and regular diesel. These kinds of vehicles account for nearly one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions. But you have still got some choices that can reduce the impact of even a gas-burning car. Fuel efficiency how far you can go on one liter or gallon of gas depends a lot on vehicle type, age and model. Older cars can be less fuel-efficient, but buying a used car technically produces fewer emissions than a new car, because no extra energy went into producing the used car. Luckily there are a few easy means you can use to compare cars' fuel efficiency. And when it comes to which fuel is good to use, carbon dioxide emissions from diesel cars are likely to be lower but diesel cars emit more other kinds of gases, that may not affect the climate, but make the air less healthy to breathe. Considering all this, many climates conscious car buyers are turning to electric vehicles. Electric car run-on electricity stored in a battery. That simple! An electric vehicle doesn’t burn any kind of fuel and they don’t even have a tailpipe so they don’t emit any emissions when they are on the road. Remember, making a car and all of its parts takes energy, and this can produce its own emissions. So how clean are electric vehicles? Today’s electric cars typically run on lithium-ion batteries, which contain elements that are really rare and difficult to find like cobalt. But the process of mining and processing these metals into usable battery components requires a huge amount of energy. Even the wiring, casing, and the stuff that holds the battery together are expensive. All this considered, manufacturing an electric car produces about 65% more greenhouse gas emissions than manufacturing a regular car. When an Electric vehicle is plugged in, it’s gaining electricity from the power grid. Depending on where you live, how electricity could be generated by coal, nuclear, wind, solar, or in most places, a mix of all of these. So, driving an electric vehicle will probably still produce greenhouse gas emissions, just not from the tailpipe. When you consider manufacturing and charging, there’s no truly zero-emissions car in the market yet. But the thing is even though assembling an electric car produces more emissions than making a gas-powered car, and even though many electric cars get their energy at least partially from non-renewable sources over their whole lifetime most electric cars still generate less than half of the emissions of gas-powered vehicles. Electricity generating plants are simply more efficient at turning combustible fuel into energy than a car engine is at turning gasoline into energy.

So, are hybrid cars in the middle ground? Well, non-plug-in hybrids with gas engines and batteries charged when the car is moving are just fuel-efficient regular cars with a more emissions-heavy production process. The impact of plug-in hybrid cars on small gas engines and batteries charged by plugging in is hugely dependent on the energy source charging them. Manufacturing emissions are higher for hybrids cars too, but in many cases, the on-the-road emissions savings is more than enough to make up for that. The biggest factor in whether a plug-in hybrid contributes more or fewer emissions than a regular car is the source of the electricity going into its battery, similar to those questions surrounding electric cars. There is a couple of other choices out there too, like hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which use hydrogen gas to power an electric motor! The technology is tricky, the infrastructure just isn’t there yet and as of right now they are super expensive. It's too early to suppose how they may pile up compared to gas and electric vehicles in a practical way. The answer to this question “which car?” could be no car at all. If you live in an area that’s highly walkable or rideable or that has convenient public transportation, it may not make sense to drive daily. But the harsh truth is we have built a world that depends on automobiles, so we need to drive toward a greener car future. Just think if everyone in the World drove electric vehicles, we could cut our total car-produced gas emissions by half, even without changing how we make our electricity! We are in a huge time of transition when it comes to how we get around in a climate-friendly way.

What is Carbon Footprint? Why Carbon Footprint Matters for Climate Change

 A carbon footprint refers to the total amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of an organization and an individual.

Most of the carbon footprint comes from fossil fuel burning. When we burn fossil fuel it produces greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide and other gases. There are many other greenhouse gases but to keep it simple and easy to compare, we count them as CO2 equivalent. We can also calculate the carbon footprint of the world, a country, an individual, a business, a product, etc. For example, when we travel with a vehicle that burns fossil fuels, it clearly produces carbon into the atmosphere. If I use an electric vehicle for traveling, then the question is: how is the electricity produced? In the China and United States, for instance, the two countries with the largest carbon footprint, about 60% of the electricity is produced from fossil fuels so there is a good chance that an electric car produces a lot of carbon footprint. That's right, most sector of our modern life relies on energy. The generation of most of that energy releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. From all of the greenhouse gases, CO2 is an important type of greenhouse gas. It is a naturally occurring molecule that is necessary for maintaining our planet's temperature and for good growing conditions. However, since the Industrial Revolution, the burning of fossil fuels - such as coal and petroleum - has produced excessive amounts of CO2 which is harmful to our planet.

How we can calculate the carbon footprint? calculating your carbon footprint is like many others, there is a website for it https://www.carbonfootprint.com › calculator. If you enter how much energy it takes to heat your home, how much traveling you do, how much electricity you use, how much money you spend on food, clothes, accessories, technology, etc. and the search engine behind it translates everything into how many tons of CO2 equivalent that is. Adding it all up at the end, you get your carbon footprint. Mine is 1.63. It is significantly lower than the average. We use fossil fuel in a different form, it releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which makes temperature rise and the earth get warmer day by day. We have emitted much of these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the past century that the earth is getting warmer than it has been over the past 400,000 years. So, we need to reduce our gas emissions which means we need to reduce our carbon footprint either by planting trees, building a wind farm and a solar power plant. The best way to reduce my carbon footprint is to address its root causes and take immediate actions. So, we can live in a smaller home, improve the insulation of our house, use less electricity, have more your electricity produced from renewable energy resource, fly less, walk and bike to travel less by car, when you do travel, use a very efficient vehicle, maybe an electric vehicle, eat less meat, especially beef which generates a lot of carbon emissions.

Our current atmospheric CO2 level is four hundred ppm, a level that last occurred about 20 million years ago. This is the highest level ever seen during human existence. All excessive CO2 traps an awful amount of heat and will eventually turn our planet into a very hot mess. To keep the Earth system in balance, we need to reduce our emissions, but it's impossible to imagine a life without fossil fuel because it has been the main energy source for our modern lifestyle for a long time. We use fossil fuel not only to produce energy but also use it to make many other things. New technologies - such as solar, wind, and geothermal - could free us from our fossil fuel dependence, but it will take a great deal of effort to build a clean and green alternative energy system that is strong enough to meet all of our energy demands. The energy transition will be a step-by-step process, but let's not wait until then to reduce our gas emissions. So, for the betterment of our atmosphere, we need to start today, consuming less of everything, from meat and water to all those unnecessary things that we throw away so easily. Even simple things like not wasting food and avoiding extra packaging can help to go lower gas emissions. Changes will happen from today so do your best. However, even if we stop all over CO2 emissions, we won't stop the climate from warming. All the CO2 we've produced so far is like a thick blanket insulating the Earth and it will take time to dissipate. The sooner we stop burning fossil fuels, the sooner our Earth can begin to deal with all of this extra CO2. We all have to take part in reducing CO2 emissions to lessen its impact on the environment.

Best International Clothing Brands for Climate

 Clothing is more than just the outfit we put on our backs - it helps us to keep warm, makes a presentation about our personality and can be a status indication. Clothing is something we have to think about daily, but we don’t always think about how our clothes impact this environment. From growing or manufacturing textiles, to sewing and transporting outfits across the world, the clothing industry overall releases more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide each year – contributing around 5.5% of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s about as much as roughly all of Russia’s emissions or aviation industry. That’s awful - but there are many ways to be fashionable and environment friendly at the same time. The ways we make clothes and how quickly we throw them away end up having a huge impact on our environment. Take, synthetic materials, for example, Polyester – the most commonly used clothing fabric – is made by combining alcohol with petroleum by-products and acid at high temperatures. Basically, heating some fossil fuels with some more fossil fuels. In 2015, polyester produces as many greenhouse gases as 185 coal-fired power plants. But other materials also have a huge impact on the environment. Leather production means methane emissions from cows. Rayon production means cutting down trees. And, growing cotton uses a lot of water. We also burn a lot of fossil fuels transporting clothes around the world, from where they’re netted to where they’re dyed to where they’re stitched together to the person who finally wears them. Or sometimes, doesn’t wear them. In the US, 65 pounds of clothes per person get to throw in a landfill each year, and a mess of that happens before anyone buys them. So, what can be done to make fashion more eco-friendly? So, the goal is to make clothes that are fashionable and sustainable, ethical labor aspect is important, too and environmentally friendly shipping is important, too. There are so many aspects. It's not just, like, getting organic cotton, it's also giving profit the person right, saving on labor, not throwing away the rest of the stock and so on and so on. Ethical and sustainable clothing is not new. For most of human history has a wardrobe full of clothing wasn’t really a thing. Before the 18th century, textiles were woven, cut, and stitched by hand - an incredibly lazy and expensive process. Clothes were the main purchase, and people didn’t purchase that many of them. Even well into the twentieth century, long after we invented machinery that could stitch and weave fabrics, the average person was still spending between 12 and 16 percent of their yearly budget on clothing. But today we spend just 4.5 percent. So, why would we start spending much less on our clothes? In the 1960s clothing started costing lesser thanks to more advanced manufacturing technologies and synthetic fabrics. Also, around this time, expanding clothing production to countries and regions with lower labor costs became most popular. Since then, clothes have just kept getting cheaper day by day. You can buy a pair of jeans from H&M for 10 to 15 dollars only. 10 to 15 Dollars! I’ve had juice more expensive than that. And all these inexpensive clothes have led to us making and buying more and more clothes than ever before. In 2014 we made more than 100 billion new clothes which are sufficient to give every single person on the planet 15 new pieces of clothing. Today, we’re purchasing, on average 60 percent more fabrics than we did 20 years ago, but we're only wearing it for half as long. As a consumer, if you decide to buy from a fast fashion brand, an inexpensive garment, it seems like a great deal. But, two reasons 1 - It won't look good for long and 2 - The person who made it, somewhere far away overseas is not getting paid or treated well. So, you can change that by consciously determining to buy style instead of trends. And by only choosing items that go with what you already have in your wardrobe. It's the idea of a capsule wardrobe. You buy fewer items, but they're more combinable and so you get more wear out of each fabric. So, it's about to compute quality before quantity. So, what we need is more options - more brands that are in between that environmental hippy side and that mass-market super inexpensive production side. Because the demand is there. 

Let’s take the example of some brands: Ecoalf, a Spanish company that makes swimming trunks from recycled fishing webs, bags from coffee grounds and flip flops from old tires. Yes, they’re a smaller business than the Zaras and Forever 21s of the world, but they’re making their tag on the fashion industry by association with big players. And zealously, many brands have also gotten on board this sustainability train.

Knitted sneakers like the Adidas Ultraboost and Nike Flynitare lighter and use fewer materials than the average sneaker - a lighter shoe is easier and cheaper to transport, requiring fewer fossil fuels to form. And fewer materials in the production process means less waste use. Plus, the point is much of Nike’s Flyknit sneakers is made of recycled plastic rather than directly from petroleum. Of course, looking great and what’s fashionable is all relative but it doesn't have to mean cycling through dozens of materials every season. It also doesn't mean wearing a vegetable sack. 

sustainable brands

There are lots of sustainable and stylish options out there. If you purchase clothes that are sustainable or high quality, it's not necessarily more expensive. It's a question of choice and of the option you got. So far, sustainable fabrics tend to be a bit rougher, they're - not feel as good on the skin, or you just have fewer colors. It's not as resistant when you wash it. So, there is a drawback to it. So, the question is - how much good feeling you want, how much sustainability do you want? Exquisitely you are somewhere in the middle. Ideally, you want both. None of these solutions are perfect. The sustainable fabric still has some impact on the planet, and a lot of it is really expensive. But now trends are moving in the right direction. The thing is, people are more aware of what's going on in the fashion industry and they are more informed to make better buying decisions. So, the thing is, changing. It's evolving - slowly but surely. And the demand for ethical and sustainable clothing is growing and there is space for many more labels. It's really inspiring stuff! And as more and more people and brands start considering how clothes are made, the more fashionable this whole idea will become.

What Will Happen to Climate if We Stop Emitting Carbon Tomorrow?

 Imagine that today aliens landed and gifted us a carbon-free limitless energy source. And instead of killing each other over this technology, we immediately decided to transform the world into a carbon-free society. 

Electricity, oil refineries, coal and natural gas plants all these wondrous sources would power our homes, industries, cars and planes. So, if we cut down our carbon addiction today, what does that mean for global warming? So, if we stopped burning carbon, would the climate suddenly go back to the calmer, cooler atmosphere where humans lived before the Industrial Revolution? The short answer to this question is: Not exactly. The climate would continue to change and temperatures would remain higher for many ages. So, that’s not good. I know, we’ve been told for years that devastating greenhouse gas pollution is the key to stop climate change. But unfortunately, those solutions wouldn’t immediately stop our planet from warming up. One reason is that over the last 60 years, 80% of the extra global warming has gone into the oceans. It takes time for oceans to heat up, but once you drop adding additional heat, they’d still emit the heat that had previously accumulated. It’s kind of like how a vessel of boiling water continues to give off heat long after you’ve turned off the stove. Because water heats up slowly, it cools off slowly too. And as all this excess heat fully mixes in the deep ocean the oceans would continue to increase, rising sea levels for centuries. The other reason Earth would stay hot is that carbon dioxide molecules -- which cause more than 80% of the warming -- remain in the atmosphere for an unusually long period. If you burn 7 gallons of gas today you create about 140 pounds of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But way off in the year 3000, as much as 50 pounds of that gas will still be floating in the sky, warming up this planet. Since the industrial revolution earth has warmed by about 0.8˚C [1.4˚ Fahrenheit]. Supposed If we turned off greenhouse gas emissions today, shorter-lived greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide would be chemically broken down and dissipate first. That would cause the surroundings to cool by maybe half a degree, over about a century. But carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere way longer because it’s so chemically stable. So that would keep, the earth warmer for at least one and half thousand years. So, many of the impacts we’re experiencing now, like the melting ice, droughts, and extreme thunderstorms would probably also continue. In the end, carbon dioxide might take as long as 10000 years to finally return to pre-industrial levels. So even if we cut down all emissions today, the truth is we are confirmed some amount of climate change and warmer temperatures. But switching to a carbon-free society would still give us a lot of benefits immediately. Health is one of the most important. Over two and half billion people worldwide breathe air that is so polluted that it doesn’t meet World Health Organization guidelines. Air pollution from stoves or fossil fuels is thought to cause more than 4.5 million deaths per year, thanks to things like heart disease, lung cancer and stroke. Most of those deaths occur in developing countries, where there’s more pollution. So awkward fossil fuel burning would immediately improve the lives of millions of people. Wild places would also benefit. Some of the world’s most primeval environments contain abundant fossil fuels. Stopping emissions would mean closure of fossil fuel extraction, which means less construction in wild areas, less noise pollution, and cleaner air and water. Awkward emissions sooner rather than later mean that future generations might still face climate impacts, but they’ll probably be less severe. For example, with each degree of additional global warming, the area burned by wildfire in the western United States should be two folds. Each degree of additional global warming is also thought to reduce crop yields by as much as 15 percent. Lowering emissions means fewer fatalities in extreme weather, hardly any severe storms, and more children manage the hardship of migration to cooler places. And who knows, maybe one of those kids could grow up to establish some technologies to actually absorb the extra carbon straight out of the sky and speed up the cooling. The idea of aliens providing us a magical greener energy source is of course a fantasy. But today we’re already installing real clean energy technologies that could detach us from fossil fuels, things like solar cells and wind turbines. 

The decisions we’re making today will affect not only our future generation but their grandchildren also. Our obsession with carbon has put us and our descendants into a deep hole. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how we will move out, but the good we can do for ourselves and them is to just stop digging.

Lessons Coronavirus has Taught us about Climate Change

Originating from the live animal market in Wuhan, China, the coronavirus has broken out into an international pandemic. Millions of people in China were quarantined and basically closed down its economy. Leaders restricted flights, postponed mortgage payments, and cleared streets with forced lockdowns. Trump banned all travel from different countries. Abrupt and forceful action seems to be following in the footprints of COVID-19, and as someone who comes across most of their time deal with the vision that is climate change. Today, we want to investigate this with a very simple question: what can we learn from the COVID-19 and how can we put this to climate change?  First of all, the Coronavirus (or COVID-19) is a serious international issue. At the time of writing this, the global death toll has hit thousands and will continue to rise.

In this global crisis, the news media has been intensely covering the virus with constant coverage of quarantines and death tolls. Yet in opposition, an environmental issue like air pollution, which has been predicted to cause 5-7 million premature deaths every year hardly makes headlines. So, in the preference of adding to the storm of coronavirus analysis, I want to use the global response to COVID-19 as a device to understand the best way to awaken immediate climate action, if we acknowledge the risk of climate change the way we have to the coronavirus, we would be capably on our approach to a zero-carbon future. Before we can dip into this investigation we must first learn the differences between the two crises. While climate change gradually builds-becoming a catastrophic hazard over the series of decades—Coronavirus is instantaneous and right in our face. As a consequence, climate change research and data are more easily called into doubt, making it much more difficult for international leaders to act confidently and quickly on environmental problems and issues. On the other hand, Coronavirus spreads most quickly and there’s a very clear relationship between effect and cause. We know that tiny virus travels through respiratory droplets made when a person sneezes or coughs. With this information, we are then able to understand a clear boundary between actions and consequences. We know for sure that actions washing your hands frequently and quarantines will directly restrict the spread of the virus. However, Climate change is not so simple. This is due to not only its step-by-step timeline and scale but also to the successful confusion campaigns run by fossil fuel giants like ExxonMobil. At first glance, it seems like there is no direct relationship between taking action and seeing change.Climate change certainly is taking lives today, but the link between a particular death and between our emissions is long and complex. Yes, of course, from one example climate change is making certain intense weather events more likely, raising the risk of death either directly from that intense event or indirectly through things that intense event contributes to, but compare that to this statement: Coronavirus has already killed over a thousand lives. That second statement is so much more direct and so is our reaction to it.” In short, there are not only more incentives for those with power to hinder climate action than there are to prevent the coronavirus, but we are also more structurally and psychologically equipped to deal with short-term, clear-and-present dangers like Coronavirus, and less able to deal with multi-decade risky problems like climate change. Despite these differences, and in some ways because of these contrasts, there is a lot to learn from how we’ve responded to COVID-19. One of the big take-away is that there is a very clear relationship between the economy and the emission rates. Carbon Brief asserts that China’s coronavirus lockdown temporarily decreased the country’s CO2 emissions by a quarter, which Stanford Professor Marshall Burke predicts might have possibly reduced the number of premature deaths due to air pollution, so much so that China’s overall mortality rate might have decreased in the months during the height of the coronavirus lockdown. The point here is not that pandemics are good or necessary, it’s instead that there is a large, hidden toll of fossil fuel emissions that is here and now. But to prevent the millions of future deaths caused directly through fossil fuel burning or indirectly through the results of a hotter planet, the world needs to act quickly to create rapid and drastic structural change. The often-quoted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) report asserts that we have until 2030 to make sharp global emission cuts, which many argue is impossible. The Coronavirus definitively shows that large-scale, collective, structural change is feasible in the face of a crisis. And climate change is the biggest crisis of our future generation. As Amy Jaffe, director of the Council on Foreign Relations' Energy Security and Climate Change program, puts it, "Suppose you were a policymaker, and you were thinking about what you would do to lower emissions — you just got a good instruction." Because of the Coronavirus, countries like Italy have almost done away with travel, many previously busy streets are now free of cars and people. Workweeks are shortening for some, others are embracing the potential of remote working instead of traveling long distances, and some companies have staggered work shifts to reduce traffic. In New York City, temporary bike lanes were set up, and walking and biking were encouraged over other transportation options. Of course, the answer to climate change is not to quarantine everyone in their house, that would be a complete disaster. The response to the Coronavirus demonstrates that planned economic lockdowns are not only possible but necessary to cut emissions drastically. But this type of fast structural change shows that without robust social safety nets like a clean jobs guarantee, or a strong low-carbon low-cost public housing system, extensive free public transit, degrowth will harm millions. Climate action propositions like the Green New Deal need to incorporate this type of essential framework in their policymaking because to fight climate change very fast we need a rapid structural transition. A break from the status quo. But what’s key is that this lockdown doesn’t have to mean job loss, worry, and pain, it can instead mean opportunity, free time with family, and a more intentional quality-driven economy. In short, Coronavirus shows us that the rapid emissions reductions called for in the IPCC report are not a line dream, they can and are happening. The virus demonstrates that to collect support for this needed action we need to treat climate change like it really is a global crisis. But it also shows us one more thing: that the needed reduction in emissions through de-growth has to be coupled with strong safety nets like childcare and healthcare for all, to trick all those affected by an economy-wide transition to a fossil-fuel-free world. COVID-19 is scary and is affecting the whole world, but if we don’t act in the same way about climate change, the effects of a hotter harsh planet will be much worse. The Coronavirus response has shown us a straightforward path, we just have the courage to break from the status quo and go down it.

What is Climate Change?

 Now everyone’s talking about climate change. But first of all, what is climate? And why is it changing so fast? Our climate is the earth’s normal weather over a very long time period. It usually takes hundreds, or thousands of years for the climate to change. But recently, our climate has been changing much faster than before. All these changes make life difficult for our fauna, flora, and for people around the globe. And the biggest cause of climate change is human activities Including you and me. When we use fuel, like oil and gasoline, or remove forests to make space for cities or farms, we release greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. These greenhouse gases cause our climate to get warmer day by day. Normally, when the heat from the sun warms our planet, some of the heat reflects back into space. But greenhouse gases act like a big sheet, trapping some extra heat in it. This extra heat can cause all sorts of problems for our planet; and the plants, animals and people who live here. Our glaciers and snow are melting faster. Our oceans are getting higher, and warmer. And our weather is becoming more extreme; with more heatwaves, harsh winters, prolonged summers, heavy rainfalls and strong hurricanes.

 

 Luckily, many countries around the world are working together to fight climate change. And there is a lot of easy steps you and I can take to help too. Like reusing, reducing and recycling things instead of throwing them out; instead of driving, ride your bike or take the bus; use less electricity; and eat homegrown vegetables and fruits if possible. You, I in fact everyone can make a difference at their level to fight climate change for our future generations.