SAVE THE low-hanging TURTLES fruit

As mentioned in Part 2 of this 3-part article, hundreds of non-profits are out there ready to help [insert cause] by doing it their chosen way. That’s fine. Think of that well-intentioned-crowd-surfing scenario this way: You are the proverbial kid in a candy store. Do it your way. Fill up your eco-friendly grape-leaf bag THE WAY THAT WORKS BEST FOR YOU. Talk among yourselves, see what strategies and techniques are working for each other, and bail on what’s not.

As mentioned in Part 1, don’t just fill up the candy bag with jawbreakers for yourself, don’t even stop at your great-grandchildren. Think bigger, friend. Stretch your time horizon SEVEN GENERATIONS INTO THE FUTURE. Decision-making for an unforeseeable scope is hard as hell but not impossible.

Welcome to Part 3

? 欢迎来到第3部分 ? Willkommen zu Teil 3 ? パート3へようこそ ? Bienvenue au Parte 3 ? ??? 3 ??? ???? ?????? ?? ? ?? ???? 3 ??? ????? ? V?lkommen till Del 3 ?

It’s been a looooooong week. Your therapist takes a seat directly across from you. As you settle in to her insanely comfortable couch, she starts in about your #ClimateCrisis phobia and your quest to #SaveOurSpecies...

“I have a friend who adores sea turtles,” she explains. “But my friend realizes not all the baby sea turtles will reach the water from their sandy berth. So, by trying to rescue as many turtles as humanly possible, my friend avoids disenchantment.” It’s a familiar allegory and you nod along. You decide #SaveTheTurtles will be the first part of this article's mixmatch title.

The other part of this article’s title is one of those “Billy Bullsh!t” colloquialisms (included in a new book by Steve Blakeman and Mike Adams). The low-hanging fruit strategy is when you target the obvious or easy things that can be most readily accomplished.

In business or civilian life, combining these two organic themes — saving turtles plus fruit harvesting — is an expeditious hybrid strategy for tackling any challenge we face. In order to sync with Part 1 and Part 2 of this article, once again the #ClimateCrisis will serve as a test case for the Turtle-Fruit strategy’s efficacy. That is, the baby turtles represent “actions that can be selected for mitigating our impact on the planet.” Whereas, the ripened fruit represents the “most effective market-driven methods” available for taking action.

Note: This trio of articles does not assume responsibility for hashing out the details and/or empirical evidence of the Turtle-Fruits. That door is left open to the experts in those areas. Are you one? If yes, experts are invited to add links, visuals, thoughts, and data into the Comments below.

One exception: When sustainability pro Elektra Grant called out "Project Drawdown" in the Comments section of Part 1, their ranking recipe and results exhibit proved to be an irresistible technical nugget. So, here’s a quick peek at their interactive, sortable, and multi-formattable Summary of Solutions table. In this screenshot, the results are sorted by Net Cost instead of by CO2 reduction. As shown, Electric Vehicles are significantly more expensive to jumpstart, whereas Wind Turbines offer the greatest CO2 reduction at a fraction of the overhead cost.

Take Action. Now.

Here are some ways you can try to get ahead of the curve:

Efficiency

“Don’t add water to a leaky bucket.”

 —humblebrand.org

Not much to say here. The sun and wind are essentially free sources of energy. Though, when their output is passing through old, tangled wiring leading to a clunky 1970s refrigerator that your kids are always leaving wide open, the energy is “less free” because you could be pulling in more cost savings by upgrading your appliances.

Recycling (after implementing a waste 'Reduction' plan)

The infrastructure is already in place in regions worldwide so this category is mostly an exercise in selecting whichever techniques are "saving turtles" most efficiently.

Strategy note: If your spouse, neighbor, or coworker (or guy in the street) don’t see the value in recycling, leave them behind. Part of the Turtle-Fruit strategy is to let some newborn turtles go by. Bye, bye. Instead, find and focus on people who are interested in recycling.

1. Metal & Paper — Out of all the waste streams, metals (food cans, discarded steel parts, etc.) and paper/cardboard are the most likely materials to be converted back into their initial form.
2. Glass — According to “Garbage Land” author Elizabeth Royte, most glass is NOT made into new bottles. Rather, our glass bottles get ground up and added to asphalt? Yep. Still, that's better than the overburdened circular flow of plastcs.
3. Plastics — Just avoid buying plastics in the first place. Cue up “The Daily Show”… What host Trevor Noah has to say about plastic waste may surprise you!

Sustainable Farming

Meatless hamburgers. Non-dairy milk. (They’re good, tried one yet? What’s your favorite?)

Hunter Lovins reminds us that the “black soil” that the early Settlers found out West was a direct result of Bison feeding habits. They’d eat, drop their biomass right where they stood, and the impact of their hooves roto-tilled the ground beneath them. Monoculture farming has long since stripped away any trace of the Bison’s fertilization. Here’s some basics on how to get the black soil back, and even sequester some carbon along the way:

• Gabe Brown, “Keys to Building a Healthy Soil” (2014)
• Peter Byck, “One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts” (2018)

Renewable Energy

When energy is #renewable, it is likely a form of Distributed Generation as well. This is due to siting requirements that spread the installations wider than the typical centralized Power Plant scheme. Methods of storing energy for off-peak use will be the major catalyst here.

A good reference to help get the big picture:

• Tony Seba, “Rethinking the Future: Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation” (11 minutes in) 2018 Conference on World Affairs 

Deep Adaptation

Well, this is an unfortunate way to end an otherwise optimistic list. If all else fails, grab the nearest Climate Suit, put your head between your knees, and binge watch “Life After People” on the History Channel. More on this concept in a later article. It is actually a clever way to circumvent to whole "Belief vs. Science" conundrum that has stymied efforts in the #USA.

Got any Actions or Methodologies to Suggest?

By the way, if you feel as though you’ve been left hanging at the end of this article, consider this: Now is your time to establish your long-term legacy in any business niche. There is no formula. Talk among like-minded LinkedIn's on the Comment threads. And you can select whichever actions and methods you think are most likely to be successful and continually refine the strategy.

Share your thoughts in the Comments below…

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Related Ben Emerson articles published on LinkedIn:

• Reorganize.org —Talking is Good (Part 2 of this series)
• Looooooong-Term Planetary Planning (Part 1 of this series)
• World Zero Cup
• Profits Will Save this Planet — Not Prophets
• WE need OUR help!
• Explainer: The Energy Opportunity

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AFTERWORD

This is article #3 in a series of 3 (see Part 1 bit.ly/2222planet and Part 2 bit.ly/reorganize2019) that examine how and when to take action against Climate Piracy. The series deals with techniques that are equally applicable to all industries, markets, regions, beliefs, and systems of government.