With so much dangerous toxins, greenhouse gases, and pollution from e.g. industrial waste and the inefficient burning of black coal in Earth´s atmosphere, how can we ensure that these toxins and pollutants do not end up anywhere in our environment, especially in the Arctic region which warms at least twice as fast as the rest of our planet?
There is no other way of preventing harmful pollutants of destroying our environment, including ourselves, than removing them completely from our way of living. Yet, with the technologies and methods of production we use today, this prevention seems impossible. How long will it take until we destroy ourselves and our home planet? According to the most optimistic prognoses, we have this century left. Others say, only a few decades. Others say, only a few years or at the maximum, a decade. Are we headed towards a climate catastrophe? Let us hope that we do not, and that we still have time to take action.
This is one of the main messages of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG´s) that are a continuum to the Millennium Development Goals – UN SDG Goal Number 13: Take URGENT action to combat climate change and its impacts.
This is no joke, really. These goals were all set for an extremely important reason. In fact, all of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are in one way or the other interlinked to climate action and climate change. Learn more about UN´s Sustainable Development Goals here.
We have NO time to wast. We must all take action now, both on individual, business, organizational, and governmental levels. Especially much responsibility must be taken by the largest emitters on this planet: China, The U.S.A. and the European Union. Those who destroy and pollute the most must act NOW and transform their economies into increasingly much sustainable places of living. This is not something concerning only the Arctic region, although this is where the warming of the planet is faster than elsewhere. Right now, in the COP23 Climate Summit in Bonn, hosted by Fiji, sea level rise and its threat to millions and millions of people worldwide is being discussed very seriously. If we cannot prevent sea levels from rising, swallowing up whole islands and coastal cities around the world, what will the future look like for these people? Where will they live? What will they eat? How will they produce food in environments and climates that change so rapidly that our current ways of producing food are unsustainable? If you have answers, please let me know, or at least take action upon them. For example in Finland completely new ways of food production are already being implemented by experimental and progressive businesses that have foreseen what we have ahead of us.
Learn more about the melting Arctic by watching European Environment Agency´s video “Melting Arctic: Environmental Atlas of Europe – Greenland”:
Connect with me on Twitter @annemariayritys. For climate/environment-related posts only @GCCThinkActTank. Subscribe to Leading With Passion to receive my latest posts.
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Anne-Maria Yritys 