How to Give Yourself a Chance to Save Planet Earth

Everything you need to know about the Best Give-Aways to Mother Nature

One day, Jason saw a documentary that absolutely changed his perspective about global warming. In the year 2028, the world finally woke up to the real problem.

In all schools of the modern world, children have to learn what is happening. What is really happening! And one of the documentaries that students have to watch, is called ‘Before the Flood’. A classic documentary that provided all the important insights for them to study all the problems our planet is facing.

Everybody finally understands the problem.

In universities and research centers all over the world, an incredible movement is created to study all the intrinsic messages that that piece of film contains. Other documentaries follow, like ‘The Eleventh Hour’, ‘The Inconvenient Truth’, and ‘Kiss the Ground’.

Finally, mankind accepts the error and realizes that the problem is very serious and that it has to be solved.

In 2028, all society suddenly starts to react. From Jason, a 6-year-old kid who raises every year the greatest amount of money to donate to a non-governmental organization called Charity: Water. To his father, who has a company and is currently investing hard to become 100% green.

Everyone, no exception, is concerned about the future.

Jason and his friends, in their naivete, had already realized that the planet is in danger. Only the parents and all adults lack the same understanding. It takes time, but it is not too late to radically swift to a new economy.

Jason knows and feels that all parents and adults, all over the world, are finally looking out for their future.

Jason is not born yet. We will have to wait until 2022 to see what kind of baby he will be. But it also seems that we are not ‘born’ yet to this serious problem. What will need to happen for us to finally realize that we are all in the same boat and that the boat is sinking? How is it possible?

You Will Die But the Carbon is Not

I live in Portugal, a country not much industrialized, compared to the United States of America or the Republic of China.

However, I went to a website called Carbotax.org to find out what was my carbon footprint. It’s very easy. You should try it.

I just had to put my zip code number and it showed me that I have to pay €113.36 annually to compensate for the emissions of CO2 that I release to the environment.

I started to reflect on that number. And what worried me was that in my country, most people couldn't afford to pay that kind of money to compensate Mother Nature.

So, something very wrong is happening and we should profoundly reflect on that.

Each one of us!

Be Part of the Solution, Not Part of the Pollution

If we want to fight climate change effectively, we have to start by recognizing that most of our economy is based on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas.

Oil powers almost all the transportation sector. Coal and natural gas power almost all the electricity.

To catch the increasing demand for these sources of energy, and with the rise of the number of big cities all over the world, we are using very extreme ways of getting to these energy sources, such as:

• Mountain top removal for coal;
• Fracking for natural gas;
• Off-shore drilling for oil;
• Sand removals for oil.

For this to happen, they take away massive forests, and the water in most rivers is poisoned.

It has a severe impact on wildlife, on native communities, and requires a huge amount of energy simply to get it to fuel tanks.

There is no such thing as clean fossil fuel.

If we can’t create different sources of energy, we are gonna be the next massive extinction process on Planet Earth.

So, how can we all be part of the solution?

Life is Too Short for Long-Time Grudges

In ‘Before the Flood’, Leonardo DiCaprio at a certain point, frustrated for a 2-year journey around the most sensitive areas of the world, said:

I feel I’m in a weird surreal movie. I honestly look around and I say, when I’ll have children, everything that we now take for granted, our planet and all its biodiversity beauty, everything in the future is going to be different. How can we possibly turn this thing around?

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, thinks he knows how things must be done.

There are 5 major disruptive industries that will transform radically all the economy in a deflationary environment and that may save the entire planet. Those are:

• Artificial intelligence;
• Robotics;
• Energy storage;
• DNA Sequencing;
• Blockchain Technology.

From these 5, I think 3 of them are being used by Elon Musk. Those are AI, Robotics, and Energy Storage.

How can they save the world?

These platforms are the base of a technological conversion into a vertical integration Musk is using to develop Tesla’s modus operandi.

One consequence of Tesla’s creation is the dismantling of the auto industry as we know it. And better than that, Elon is creating battery storage systems for solar energy to destroy the coal and gas industry too.

Let me quote Elon Musk when he was questioned about fossil fuels and climate change:

‘It’s the dumbest experiment in human history!- Business Insider

So, we must not be soft when we’re thinking about fossil fuels, because they damaged too much, destroyed too much, killed too much.

It’s time to stop.

It’s time to start thinking that the vote has more power then you think.

Political Language is Design to Make Lies, Sound Truthful, and Murder Respectably

In an area surrounding Beijing, plus the Shandong peninsula, coal consumption is equivalent to all coal consumption in the United States of America.

The Chinese population is tremendously preoccupied with this massive industrialization because they are effectively feeling the impact on their health and their children’s health.

Chinese people really want to make part of the solution. In the present, political environment issues have become the main reason for mass demonstrations.

They demand those big industries to be totally transparent about the levels of pollution they provoke and be held accountable for what they are doing to the planet.

Social media, in China, are constantly talking about these problems. And the population is constantly putting pressure on the industrial sector to reduce carbon emissions.

You give people the data, you empower the people.

And the reality came when the government of China himself decided to invest massively in solar and wind energy, rather than coal.

If China can do it, the rest of the world can.

Wait a moment, shouldn't we say:

If the USA can do it, the rest of the world can.

Yes. We also should say that. The thing is that the American people are consumer addicts. Let’s show some numbers:

Electricity consumed by 1 American corresponds to:

1.5 from a citizen of France;

2.2 from a citizen of Japan;

2.6 from a citizen of Germany;

5 from a citizen of South Africa;

10 from a citizen of China;

34 from a citizen of India;

61 from a citizen of Nigeria.

Why? Because Americans are building bigger, are building more, and using much more than before. Growing and growing indiscriminately have a huge cost.

The thing is that we need to put the issue of lifestyle and consumption at the center of climate negotiations.

I guess by that, Americans are ironically depending on deflationary technologies like solar and wind to be saved from this shameful situation.

If you are waiting for them to change their lifestyle, they will not.

Technology, though, is probably gonna save Americans from being the worst example of a modern society in terms of environmental morality.

Isn’t that ironic?

A Barack Obama story

If we want to change the president’s view on carbon taxes, we need to change the people’s view on carbon taxes.

Think of gay marriage.

Remember Barack Obama ran against gay marriage? Yes, that’s true.

When did Obama switch?

When the polar start switching. When the general population started to understand that gay marriage was a question of freedom too.

Political leaders are actually electing followers. They do what the people want them to do.

So, about the carbon tax, we are finally watching the great switch from the auto industry taking place. Now, the reality forces GM, Chrysler, and other auto companies to pay Tesla to avoid being fined by the European Commission.

People are the key, not politicians.

Conclusion

Leonardo DiCaprio addressed the assembly of the United Nations calling on world leaders to accelerate their efforts to combat this growing threat.

I will finalize this article with the transcription of what DiCaprio said on that special day:

Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, for the honor to address this body once more. And thanks to the distinguished climate leaders assembled here today who are ready to take action.

President Abraham Lincoln was also thinking of bold action 150 years ago when he said:

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”

He was speaking before the US Congress to confront the defining issue of his time — slavery.

Everyone knew it had to end but no one had the political will to stop it. Remarkably, his words ring as true today when applied to the defining crisis of our time — Climate Change.

As a UN Messenger of Peace, I have been traveling all over the world for the last two years documenting how this crisis is changing the natural balance of our planet. I have seen cities like Beijing choked by industrial pollution. Ancient Boreal forests in Canada have been clear cut and rainforests in Indonesia that have been incinerated. In India, I met farmers whose crops have literally been washed away by historic flooding. In America, I have witnessed unprecedented droughts in California and sea-level rise flooding the streets of Miami. In Greenland and in the Arctic I was astonished to see that ancient glaciers are rapidly disappearing well ahead of scientific predictions. All that I have seen and learned on this journey has terrified me.

There is no doubt in the world’s scientific community that this a direct result of human activity and that the effects of climate change will become astronomically worse in the future.

I do not need to throw statistics at you. You know them better than I do, and more importantly, you know what will happen if this scourge is left unchecked. You know that climate change is happening faster than even the most pessimistic of scientists warned us decades ago. It has become a runaway freight train bringing with it an impending disaster for all living things.

Now think about the shame that each of us will carry when our children and grandchildren look back and realize that we had the means of stopping this devastation, but simply lacked the political will to do so.

Yes, we have achieved the Paris Agreement. More countries have come together to sign this agreement today than for any other cause in the history of humankind — and that is a reason for hope — but unfortunately, the evidence shows us that it will not be enough.

Our planet cannot be saved unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground where they belong. An upheaval and massive change is required, now. One that leads to a new collective consciousness. A new collective evolution of the human race, inspired and enabled by a sense of urgency from all of you.

We all know that reversing the course of climate change will not be easy, but the tools are in our hands — if we apply them before it is too late.

Renewable energy, clean fuels, and putting a price on carbon pollution are beginning to turn the tide. This transition is not only the right thing for our world, but it also makes clear economic sense and is possible within our lifetime.

But it is now upon you to do what great leaders have always done: to lead, inspire, and empower as President Lincoln did in his time.

We can congratulate each other today, but it will mean nothing if you return to your countries and fail to push beyond the promises of this historic agreement. Now is the time for bold unprecedented action.

My friends, look at the delegates around you. It is time to ask each other — which side of history will you be on?

As a citizen of our planet who has witnessed so much on this journey, I thank you for all you have done to lay the foundation of a solution to this crisis, but after 21 years of debates and conferences, it is time to declare no more talk. No more excuses. No more ten-year studies. No more allowing fossil fuel companies to manipulate and dictate the science and policies that affect our future. This is the only body that can do what is needed. You, sitting in this very hall.

The world is now watching. You will either be lauded by future generations, or vilified by them.

Lincoln’s words still resonate to all of us here today:

“We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the last generation… We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”

That is our charge now — you are the last best hope of Earth. We ask you to protect it. Or we — and all living things we cherish — are history.

Thank you.