What does this popular slogan means in our life? How could we manage to act following this instruction? This topic is about that.
This meaningful slogan has been an integral part of climate action globally. This short message reveals the idea of the most effective ways of human operation at the time of global climate change. Instead of waiting for grand (technological) inventions and other grand breakthroughs managed by others to “fix the world,” we must implement climate-conscious solutions into our everyday decisions and actions. Even though these small pieces of the whole “puzzle” have not big, in the aggregate, these could have a transformative effect globally. The idea is simple, clear, and seemingly easy to adopt. Although, there is a real danger of isolation and oversimplification if we do not consider unintended consequences and failures, staying focused on global aspects and contexts of the topic, this deadened direction will easily be avoided.
1.2 Mitigation or adaptation
Climate Change involves many different dimensions and aspects from science, economics, and politics through society and politics to moral and ethical questions. Above that it is a global problem experienced mostly on local scales, started in the far past, and will be around for thousands of years. As conscious members of society, global citizens, and empathetic human beings we are all responsible for the future. Our actions have long-term impacts on mankind.
Our relevant response on climate change is a two-pronged approach:
- Reducing emissions of and stabilizing the levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mitigation);
- Adapting to the effects of climate change already in the pipeline (adaptation).
The overall goal of mitigation is to avoid significant human interference with Earth’s climate, “stabilize greenhouse gas levels in a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner”.
