Hoax versus fact. Regardless of whatever issues concerning climate change (occurs when long-term weather patterns are altered), prioritizing the care for our environment is the new norm nowadays. As people get to be more informed, a grave concern for our environment is a visible sign of an improving civilization. Whether we like it or not, that’s just the direction we are heading. Businesses have to adjust (because doing business involves change anyway), and regulators have to be assertive. That’s precisely the reason we need smarter leaders to maximize the opportunities ahead of us while keeping the balance among those factors that make up a nation’s health adhering to sustainability.
A simple example would be like:
1st Factor: Increasing productivity – to prevent unhealthy deficits while;
2nd Factor: Keeping our environment healthy – because it’s our home.
Adherence to sustainability: Keeping our home (our environment) healthy would allow species including us humans to keep it as our primary habitat for the next decades and hopefully for the next centuries to come.
One of the famous solutions is harnessing clean and renewable sources of energy. Renewable source. Meaning, a source that is not depleted when used; theoretically inexhaustible source of energy; or any naturally occurring source of energy would naturally bring abundance. Bottomline, it’ll sure drag our electric bills down and at some point depending on our consumption, we may not even pay at all or might end up getting paid for our electricity surplus upon selling them. Lower energy cost comes with a benefit of being able to invest in other essential things that need to be improved, or to create another innovation elsewhere. In other words, it lightens our load on doing things, thus providing us an advantage of working more on something and maybe even faster. – This is the part where productivity is addressed. Regarding taking care of our environment, clean energy means energy sources that don’t involve (or may involve small, insignificant amount) emitting CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. Or simply, sources of energy that don’t add to pollution.
Summary: A healthy habitat would support the ease of being productive, healthy, happy, or whatever humanly activities we may want to accomplish. -Which may include causing another problem. (kidding).
| — Oh, by the way, the habitat that we are referring to is called Earth. So it should look like Earth, and feels like Earth! — |
Smarter individuals won’t be sitting as leaders unless the people in general or at least the majority of us aren’t smart enough. Remember, our right to vote is powerful enough to support us heading in whichever direction we want – “if we think we need it, we should want it.” If voters themselves aren’t smart enough, then most likely they’ll end up voting someone incapable, unable, or worse, destructive. Take note of those public leaders who care less about the environment, evaluate their reasons, and make sure they get what they deserve during the election.
The way they handle the environment also reflects the kind of public servants they are. Because taking care of our environment does not involve receiving tangible goods (or gifts) in return and it obviously does not provide immediate benefit for us to experience, it requires an element of selflessness. It usually starts from there, and the rest such as patience and perseverance should follow. Keep in mind that this movement towards our environment will not be sufficient without public support through “doing” and not just by “saying.”
|— We don’t hear a “thank you,” receive money, or feel an instant blow of oxygen coming from the trees after watering them! —|
In addition, leaders should be able to figure out increasing the effectiveness in operating on:
(1) How to incentivize those entities or individuals who are capable of taking care of the environment in a bigger way – done in Philippines, specifically through Republic Act 9003 also known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of year 2001, R.A. 9513 known as Renewable Energy Act of year 2008, and other environmental-related programs / agreements initiated by other organizations like the United Nations through an international treaty called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
(2) providing serious penalties to those violators, and
(3) in relation to our example stated earlier, applying carbon tax on those CO2-producing businesses.
The last two should help cover the incentives that will be given to those “clean businesses.” Simultaneously, promoting a productive society such as subsidizing (either partially or completely, depending on the terms) educational or re-training programs to support the citizens’ advancement of capabilities, and keeping jobs available should be kept in place to sustain a livelihood. Money flowing into citizens’ pockets would eventually be spent buying goods and services or, re-investing it. These will all promote economic activity, thus providing a good opportunity for the government to collect taxes in order not to compromise public funds and hopefully increase our nation’s net-worth as well.
|— It’s difficult to measure effectiveness without proper implementation. Overall, it’s not simple math anyway. —|
Taking care of our environment and its natural resources are deemed as public interest. We are all involved in this. And besides, “being green” is just part of the trend nowadays. Whichever part of the society you belong, you can never go wrong by being green. Because green nowadays relates to clean environment, healthy eating, waste reduction, freshness, renewable energy, ethical investing, efficiency, environmental awareness, smart technology, hybrid, you name it, all are entirely positive. It does feel good thinking green!
Credits to MulliganBrothers for this video.
J. Letre
Other sources:
David Suzuki Foundation: What is climate change
Oxford Living Dictionaries: Renewable
Dictionary.com: Renewable energy
CNBC: The Philippines’ renewable energy sector is booming…
KPMG: Philippines taxes and incentives for renewable energy…
FFTC Agricultural Policy Platform: Ecological waste management act
Other remarks:
Please help yourself. There are lots of sites out there that would help us understand climate change, benefits of a healthier environment, and renewable energy. Also, you may visit UNFCCC’s newsroom for updates. Last but not the least, many thanks to Wikipedia as well, will keep on donating as long as I can.
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