It’s about 2 Minutes
So much blaring about climate change. Doomsday predictions, empty promises between countries, and deep insecurities among people. What to do?
Recently I’ve been strangely intrigued by people living a minimalist lifestyle. I always had a tendency towards it, but the more I think about what to do with my time, the more I’ve grown fond of the concept. Use as little as possible.
Even with the piece of mind you retain, there is still an open question: How much does it actually help?
Am I really changing something?
Because the climate change is that gradual process on a huge scale that involves innumerous interactions, it’s hard to grasp. Surely you’ve heard the story about the frog in boiling water. If you put him into cold water and slowly heat it, he will die. If instead you throw him into hot water right away he understands the problem and reacts. (Apparently, this isn’t scientifically true, see here) For the sake of argument it’s more comprehensible than the continuum fallacy.
Dear Frogs,
In order for us to understand climate change, I suggest an abstract view.
For the next fifty years, we live happily ever after. Then, out of nowhere, climate breaks up with us. The planet becomes uninhabitable and we all die instantly.
That’s our basis for putting a number on the results of (hopefully) future efforts. To keep things simple we’ll be using the ecological footprint. Using more ressources = stronger effect on climate.
The average per person worldwide is at 2.87[of Unit that doesn’t matter as we don’t have a feeling for it anyway]. There is strong variance. In the lead is Luxembourg with a value of 13.1, followed by Katar at 12.6. Most western Europe states and North America are somewhere between 5 and 9. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Africa as a whole with a value of 1.4 and India even lower at 1.06.
My country's average is 5.28. From playing around with online CO2 and energy calculators(GFN,WWF,ECOSPEED), I optimistically estimated that I could reduce it by 50%, if I gave it my best. That means riding the bike everyday. Maximum effort on cutting down meat consumption. The minimum of buying anything new. Can’t really change my living arrangement. Use the washmashine a little less.
I tried to make the calculation as easy as possible. It’s a really inexact science anyway. As the predictions for average temperature rise by 2100 lie between 1.8 and 4.
Average contribution set at 1/10 billion or 0.0001 %. So for me it would be twice as much (shout out to three indians equalizing my surplus).
50 years is about 1'576'800'000 seconds.
My calculation: Average * #People * Time/[Average*People-Average]-Time
In numbers: 2.87*10⁷*50 years/[2.87*10⁷-2.87] — 50 years = 157.68 seconds. Below a visual interpretation. The premise is that when a certain area is reached the world goes BUMM. Using less resources gives us more time.
So my efforts could theoretically extend the planets life-expectancy by around 2 minutes. This doesn’t seem like a lot. But imagine the final countdown to day 0. It seems to be all over, but then you get to give the whole world another 2 minutes to live. That’d be pretty cool.
I suggest that I get to decide what we do for ten seconds, the rest of the time you are free to enjoy =P. Do we have a deal?
Hopefully, this helps to relief from the desperation that an individuals actions don’t matter. 2 Minutes is not much. But being able to give this present to every single person on earth makes it a worthy goal.
Obviously, there are much more factors influencing how the future will be shaped. But just demanding that the world should stop using fossil fuels (or other ways to dismiss responsibility) is not changing anything. Often those solutions are daydreams, because going free from oil is a logistical challenge that will take 50 years, if we don’t all start walking everywhere tomorrow.
Take small steps. And try minimalism. Inform yourself about the products your buying. With the saved money from not buying random s*** you don’t really need, you’ll have enough to invest in sustainable products. Eventually corporations and government have to do what the people demand. We need to take control on how this is going to turn out.
Have a nice week,
George
