Our Backyard is Flooding. Here’s How We Can Fix It

In my home province of BC, we are experiencing a record-breaking year of extreme weather on file. Here’s the data:

• This month saw severe flooding in Greater Vancouver.?
• This summer was one of the largest wildfire seasons with over 300 fires .?
• This has been the warmest five years on record since 1980.?
• This past July was the hottest month on earth ever recorded.?

So I have to ask: are we worried enough?

Are businesses doing enough? Is each of us playing our part? The evidence is there. Global warming is occurring at a devastating rate.?

To bring you up to speed, I wanted to share some screenshots from social media that I came across recently.?

If you haven't been following the news this year, take a look:

I'm sure you've all seen your fair share over the last couple of months as well.

This graph from Chartr shows the dangers that will come with each additional degree increase in temperature:

Yeah, it doesn’t look good.

If you’re interested to learn more about climate change forecasting, check out this synopsis of a 1300 page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report states that “human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years:”

It’s clear that human activity is causing climate change, so we need to change our actions,

This is an enormous but vital undertaking.

Who’s Responsible?

Whose job is it to rescue our planet? Is it individuals, businesses, or the public sector? Is it all three??

Here’s how I’d answer this question: It comes down to YOU, but not in the way you think.

Obviously, we can do things on an individual scale, like composting, creating less waste and biking to work, however, is it working????

Are enough people getting onboard? We can mobilize when we have a problem and we can solve it through lifestyle changes and personal decisions, however, it doesn’t seem like individual environmental martyrdom of a few isn’t working.

We need everyone to get on board, and as we’ve seen with COVID most recently, we need more than individual action to get broad societal change.

So, what is a force multiplier on accelerating change?

Business

As most of us know, climate change and climate pollution are caused primarily by private corporations. Globally, we emit 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.?

In 2017 it was found that just 100 companies were responsible for 71% of global emissions . Here’s a list of the top 15:

And although this seems like an impossible barrier, not all companies are turning a blind eye to our crying earth.

In retail, Tentree , a sustainable clothing company, plants ten trees for each purchase thereby reducing carbon emissions through customer demand:

CarbonCure is disrupting the construction industry by providing a new technology that “injects a precise dosage of captured carbon dioxide (CO?) into concrete, where the CO? becomes chemically converted into a mineral.”?

Nexii Building Solutions Inc. is focused on a similar goal. I caught wind of their vision and had the opportunity to invest in their recent fundraising round to help them continue scaling their operations of developing a new type of building material called Nexiite, which is being used as an alternative to cement and concrete floors, walls and roofs.

These types of innovations also attract investors. Climeworks , a company with a plant in Switzerland that vacuums 900 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere each year, raised over $100 million.

Government?

Finally, the government. Governments for the most part are mirrors of the needs of their constituents. If they hear that the economy is the voter’s top concern, that’s what they are going to focus on.?

If they hear it’s the environment, guess where they go? Most recently with COVID, we’ve seen a voter population that was very concerned, and with that mandate, we’ve seen the government move with a velocity that is unheard of in recent times.?

Here in Canada, the government has pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 , and there are other initiatives around the world as well. But are these initiatives ambitious enough for the time we have on the clock?

This summer in Colorado, the state government signed into law the “Buy Clean Colorado ” legislation that reduces the amount of carbon “embodied” within building materials (like cement) found in roadways. Paving the way for other US states, Colorado is moving towards reducing the state’s emissions by 50% by 2030.

Denmark is considered to have some of the most advanced climate change legislation in the world, and the government has created stipulations within the law that make it almost impossible to fall through on delivering the promised climate change solutions.

The changes in Denmark stemmed from a petition that was signed over 50,000 times.?

Close

Yes, individual actions such as composting, recycling, and reduced travel are all valuable, however, the force multiplier comes from using our efforts to challenge businesses and government to enact changes with true scale.?

Some ideas:

1. Consider how your business could make a climate pledge.?
2. Choose to buy from and invest in environmentally friendly companies. (Think about how much Tesla has changed the automotive industry).
3. Start telling your officials that the environment is your top concern.?
4. Call your municipal office. Rattle the cage!
5. Sign petitions and send them to your provincial or state rep

For any government to act, they need to be activated by the urgency of their constituents. This is a timely cause.

So, it will take all of us. What’s your next step?

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If you, your government, or your company are finding novel ways to fight climate change, please share in the comments or reach out on Twitter . I’d like to share them with my community.