Climate Change
People protest about climate change without declaring or acting on the required solutions. leaders act to a catastrophe, but not to prevent it from happening. The costs of a climate change disaster are far higher than its prevention. Leaders and businesses are short-term thinkers who care about today’s budget and profits at the cost of future losses and economic collapse. Everyone feels the impact of climate change, yet few change their lifestyle to prevent it. The Eco-lifestyle in Ecolism details how people should live in harmony with nature to avoid its retaliation for causing turbulence and upsetting the natural balance.
The coronavirus, whether it was deliberate or happened by accident, it has grounded fossil fuel polluters, such as airplanes and vehicles to stop CO2 excess production. It is something the world leaders would not and could not do. Nature has Godly powers to protect itself in mysterious ways.
Here are some practical solutions to halt the impact of climate change:
Political
Each nation must have a Climate Change Minister with enough powers to implement climate change laws.
The United Nations should ask all countries to force each capable individual on the planet to plant at least a few trees each year so that billions of trees to be planted everywhere in the world and ban deforestation and simply increase the trees not decrease them.
Trees and Plants
Trees and plants are other forms of life besides animals and humans. Although it is a lower form of life, it is necessary for our existence. Hence, we must preserve its lifecycle and ecosystem to maintain ours.
Tree International Day
Once a year everyone on the planet must celebrate Tree Day or Tree Carnival and plant trees at any place, fences, roadsides, forests, and gardens. Imagine if the 7.6bn people on the planet, each of them plants a tree or more once a year, we can reverse the excess of CO2 caused by our lifestyles.
CO2 sequestration and forests protection program
Governments must Legislate to enforce the laws of forestation that prevent deforestation and increase afforestation of leafy evergreen trees that absorb the most CO2.
Forests must become a nationally protected treasure and governments must invest in employing guards to maintain and protect them from burning or cutting without planting replacements.
Trees should be pruned to distance them from each other to prevent forest wildfires from spreading when it happens. We must cut only the dead trees or the non-CO2 absorbents and the ones in between to keep each one 2 meters away from the other.
Forest authorities with the help of volunteers must clean the forests’ floors to prevent any fire spread. The collected fallen leaves, twigs, dead branches, shrubbery and anything else that could burn should be removed and composted to become natural soil fertilizer or compacted to use in building Eco-houses.
Each forest must be divided into smaller sections isolated by 10 meters of firebreak barriers roads to slow or stop the progress of a wildfire from burning all sections of a forest.
Replace less CO2-absorbent trees with evergreen trees that absorb more CO2, such as oak, pine, teak, conifers, etc.
Legislate to plant 3 evergreen trees for every tree cut otherwise prison sentences must be imposed on those who disobey the forestation laws.
Greta Thunberg and XR rebellions ignited the awareness of climate change’s impact. However, it helps if they can motivate people to volunteer to clean up the forests and plant more evergreen trees.
Harmful Energy Sources
Immediate stop of coal mining
Coal mining is the most atmospheric pollutant of CO2 and it must be immediately and internationally banned. Coal mining workers must be trained to work in renewable energy sources.
Immediate fracking ban
Fracking or hydraulic rock fracturing by injecting chemicals to extract shale gas must be immediately banned. It causes earthquake tremors, pollutes the earth’s aqua layer, and produces methane and CO2.
Petroleum production must start to dwindle
The world spends more than $5.2 trillion on fuel subsidies, in one form or another, and such funds must be diverted to renewable energy production instead. Oil or Fossil fuel new explorations must immediately stop. Also, the production of petrol engines must be replaced by electric or hydro-powered ones. Petroleum production must be gradually reduced while increasing renewable energy sources in less than a decade.
No more nuclear fission plants
Governments must not license new nuclear fission plants and invest in nuclear fusion instead. Although nuclear fission does not produce CO2, it produces harmful radiation and nuclear waste that is very expensive to bury in deep geological repositories and some harmful radioactive elements last for hundreds of years.
Gas boilers and heating systems
Every household, business, and factory building must replace gas boilers and other oil appliances with electric heaters in 5 years using scrappage schemes and no gas boilers must be banned in any new building.
Eco-friendly Energy Sources
Yes, to nuclear fusion plants
The new technology of nuclear fusion; has limitless electric power, a cleaner energy source, and short-lived radioactive waste. But the technology is in its infancy and needs more investment for its scientific development.
Electric vehicles
Fuel combustion engines must diminish in a decade and be completely banned afterward. Electric vehicles must become the only legal motors so that their mass production makes them more affordable.
Electric Hybrids and hydro-powered vehicles
Both systems use a small amount of petrol, so it is not 100% emission-free but a lesser evil.
Renewable energy sources
Many renewable energy sources compete with fossil fuel types and nuclear fission energy. In time, businesses will have to invest in renewable energy especially if fossil fuel becomes illegal or unnecessary. Many types of renewable free energy sources include Solar, wind, hydropower, tidal, geothermal, bioenergy, terrestrial solar-energy satellite, and nuclear fusion. Ecolism 2 explains in more detail each renewable energy source.
Transport
Airports’ expansions must stop
An immediate stop to airport expansion until electric or non-petroleum-based hydrocarbon liquid fuel ones replace the airplanes’ jet fuel engines. Flying must be limited to crossing oceans or continents only and alternative electric trains can compensate for national or continental travel.
High-speed electric trains must replace airplanes
Countries should invest in fast electric trains to replace flying between states and bordered countries. Traveling by a fast-electric train reaches the destination faster with less hassle and is more economical.
The Shanghai Maglev fast train travels at a speed of 267 miles per hour, which is half the average speed of commercial airplanes. However, the time needed to travel to an airport, queue for customs check, wait time to embark and land, and travel to the final destination makes it a similar speed.
Electric buses and Trams
Electric buses and Trams must be used more to replace cities’ congestion and pollution; additionally, cycles and small electric motors. Electric buses could also carry passengers in towns and cities.
Ships
Ships and boats’ engines must be converted to electric or hydro-powered. The technology is available and tested on ferries. Each Island and port must have a plant to generate electricity from renewable energy sources and have large electricity storage to charge the battery storage on ships. Equipping ships with efficient solar panels, wind turbines or any other cleaner energy sources also helps.
Rapid electric car charging
Governments should invest and encourage companies to install standardized rapid electric car charging points in every street, supermarket, park, fuel station and public space to match the production of electric vehicles.
Recyclables and pollution:
Ban plastic wraps and shopping bags
It is time to ban manufacturing all types of non-recyclable shopping plastic or polythene bags and packaging wraps. The technology is available, and some factories already started planning to change their business to manufacture recyclable and environmentally friendly materials. So, governments should make it illegal to manufacture them, not make them more expensive to buy.
Replace plastic and tins containers with glass equivalent
It is time to ban plastic, polythene and tin containers and replace them with glass bottles, jars and containers. Glass is not only recyclable; it is also reusable, cleaner and long-term more economical. Plastic and polythene might cause cancer, pollute the oceans and the earth and wastes money because it is used only once.
Chemicals
Chemicals must not be drained in the seas or rivers. Polluting and harmful chemicals must be completely banned. Most chemicals, including household ones and pesticides, are harmful to the environment and must be abolished or replaced with eco-friendlier ones.
Eco-lifestyle
People must not wait for governments to tell them how to boycott or not use non-recyclable materials, they should do it themselves and there is no law against the freedom of choice. Using re-usable products first and recyclables if necessary second is even cheaper. The Ecolists “people who live Eco-lifestyle” would never buy or use anything that harms the environment or upset the balance of nature.
Everyone on the planet must not consume more than necessary and economize on using everything including electricity, water, and luxury items.
Food waste must be minimized and the leftovers should be converted to fertilizers, compost or cleaner energy source.
Open concerts, conferences, picnics, sea beaches, carnivals, demonstrations, and other crowded events should be forbidden from using plastic products and anything that harms or pollute the environment.
Car wash facilities should not use sprays and chemicals that contribute to the increase in greenhouse gases.
Every home, business, school, office, factory, street and any other place must use economical led lights and solar bulbs installed with light motion detectors to switch off when not needed.
