Is The Climate Doomed Or Is There Hope?

 

Climate change has been an ongoing crisis for the world until now. Coupled with the fact that we’re still in a pandemic and have many human rights issues, many of us might be overwhelmed and drained. Where do we go from here? We know we can make a difference, but sometimes, we choose the easier road because it’s more convenient. Join your hosts Jason Wrobel and Whitney Lauritsen as they discuss their responses and opinions regarding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Jason and Whitney express their frustrations because of the data that their efforts aren’t making a difference and analyze every aspect that contributed to the results. Do you sometimes feel like whatever you do, you’re not making any impact on climate change? Tune in for some perspective.

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Is The Climate Doomed Or Is There Hope?

Responding To The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change Report

In preparing for this episode, I sent Whitney a link to an interesting series of articles. It’s not just one website. It’s all over the internet. For anyone who has been paying attention to the news, we have been seeing an increasing amount of information, research and warnings about what is happening with our global climate situation. I hesitated to want to talk about this because it feels heavy to me. I’m struggling to mentally and emotionally navigate what is happening with this world situation.

I was speaking with my mom about it and she’s like, “It’s important to be aware of what’s happening but you got to find joy in all of this. You have to be grounded, rely on your practices and find your footing with everything that’s going on.” Speaking of finding your footing, we have a wonderful sponsor for this episode, Embody Me, that we’re going to talk about and share with you. Some of their wonderful offerings and practices to keep you grounded, sane and well amidst some challenging global situations that we’re all collectively facing.

The information that came out, Whitney, that caught my attention is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, called the IPCC, released a report about their scientific findings. The scientists on this panel of the IPCC found that data from all around the world has shown that burning fossil fuels has pushed the planet more than 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. What does that even mean?

When we’re talking about the earth warming by degrees of measure like this, what this means is we’re on pace to cross what they’re calling a critical 1.5-degree threshold of global warming in 2030 and unleash a catastrophic 3 degrees of warming by the year 2100. They sound abstract. I acknowledged the reader, for anyone who’s not necessarily following this that could be like, “What does all this mean?”

It’s a framework for how the world may look and feel for future generations and what they may be dealing with. It could mean that coastal cities like New York City and Miami are going to be fully underwater whether the Amazon completely dries up, whether or not the West Coast with all the wildfires we’re having. There are still hundreds of thousands of acres on the West Coast that are burning. Whether or not the West Coast is even going to be habitable and millions of people every single year or even tens or hundreds of millions will die because it’s too hot and too uninhabitable.

It’s like this very complex game of probabilities, speculation and trying to predict things. It’s clear from this IPCC council of scientists that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, coal, oil, natural gas as soon as possible, we’re in danger. It’s not necessarily new. The IPCC released its first report, Whitney, in 1990 about this. We also know that a lot of the oil companies like ExxonMobil had scientific data about global warming in the late ‘80s, around 1987 or 1988. They never released it to the public. We’ve been sitting on these indicators for decades.

It’s not necessarily new that there have been warning signs but the red alert alarm is being pulled. Instead of, “We should maybe stop doing this and maybe go towards eating less meat, using less plastic and maybe going toward hybrid or electric cars.” It’s like, “If we don’t do something and do it quickly, we may be in an extremely dire situation.”

There are so many articles that we could pull from. One, in particular, is from CNN.com. It’s an opinion piece that says, “Stop blaming yourself for the climate crisis.” This is interesting, Whit because you and I, as long as we’ve known each other and I don’t want to generalize for you, we’ve been talking to people, fans of ours, friends, social media followers about reducing waste, plastic, eating plant-based, driving more fuel-efficient cars. Thinking that the onus is on us as individual humans to do something in our daily lifestyle choices, our purchasing cycles, the businesses we support to curb this.

This article on CNN and a lot of others I’ve seen are popping up saying, “It’s not so much us. It’s the corporations that are producing unsustainable beef, oil, petroleum fossil fuels that are more responsible.” It’s a tough thing. This is going to say, “We are smart enough to know that this isn’t completely our fault as individuals.” Before I pass it to you, Whitney, I want to read this quickly from the article because it’s long. I don’t want to read the whole thing.

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It says, “For decades, fossil fuel companies, corporations, media politicians have pushed a false narrative that if we don’t change our habits personally, drive electric cars, fly fewer airplanes, cut out meat from our diets, that they won’t make the need to make wholesale changes to the economy and laws. Individual actions matter and that they can reduce emissions but they connect us on a massive global crisis. Alone, that’s apparently not near enough to battle the climate crisis on the scale that is required.”

They’re saying that the narrative needs to shift away from just individual responsibility. If I turn off a light bulb, shower less and don’t eat beef, I’ll save the planet. They’re saying it needs to shift to governmental and corporate responsibility and accountability. Meaning, the voting public needs to force Congress and corporations to implement sweeping climate legislation.

My concern with this, Whit, is Joe Biden made an executive order saying that up to 50% of all of the fleets of the global automakers in the United States have to be electric or hybrid by 2030. That’s great. It feels to me before I hand it back to you, those things are happening. I don’t want to be like the doomsayer here but why isn’t this happening now? Why aren’t they saying, “You need to make the change now?” “We don’t give a shit about your excuses.” “We’ll take care of it in a decade.” That seems crazy to me, given the data that’s coming out.

I know you’ve dedicated so much of your work, research, focus as a creator, Whitney, for decades to this. How do you feel about this conversation of personal responsibility versus corporate and governmental responsibility? Do you feel some of the laws and legislation that are being passed are too slow or do you feel like they’re right on time? How does all this hit you?

I feel ignorant, to be honest. Over the past years, I’ve felt like I’m getting more and more behind in my knowledge and awareness on environmental issues. I have to reflect on how that’s happened. When I started my work with Eco-Vegan Gal, it was rooted in the environmental issues and veganism but I was passionate, involved and studying constantly. That’s what motivated me to start my work because all I wanted to do was talk about these types of things.

I was constantly immersed in it. Now not so much. I feel like I have more of a surface-level understanding of what’s going on. This is sparking me to be more focused on it. It’s interesting. I don’t know how that happens. What’s going on within me that has led me to be a little bit more lax about it? I’m not sure. I have to evaluate how somebody goes from being very active in something to less so. I wonder, “Is it like a numbing? Was it too exhausting?

In 2008, when I started Eco-Vegan Gal, part of the reason was I wanted an outlet because it didn’t feel like anybody cared as much as I did or I shouldn’t say anybody. It seemed like most people in my life did not care. I had a job at the time and I was going to classes. I went to this amazing program in Santa Monica about being more eco-friendly. It was like an in-depth training that I paid for. I read books and going to any event I possibly could to raise my awareness, including all the festivals that were happening, big and small, local activities going on. I made all these environmental activist friends. It felt like there was all this momentum.

It shifted a lot since then that culture doesn’t seem to be there in the way that it once was, which is interesting. Maybe my bubble grew and I started to feel like, “I know more people that care about the environment so I don’t have to push for it quite as much. I don’t have to stay as woke.” It felt like watching content creation grow and all the people that have been talking about zero waste and eco-friendly living.

It got to the point where I’m like, “I’m not as needed as it was in 2008 but I don’t know if that’s true.” It’s a long-winded answer to say that I feel so ignorant about a lot of things that are going on. Certainly, I’m eco-minded but there are a lot of things that I do. I question whether or not they’re the right things to do or I’m fully in alignment. I also remember when I was learning about Greta Thunberg. I felt intimidated by her in a way.

 

Maybe it gave me perspective into how a lot of people feel when this is discussed because it’s overwhelming. Things are so far along and we’re moving at such a small pace to solve it. It’s like almost this numbing effect. I’m glad that this report came out as strongly as it did because I feel like we need it to make a shift. Although what’s confusing to me as I’ve read through articles on this and watch videos is I don’t know what we do from here.

It seems like these articles are saying like, “Climate change is real. All of the things that we’ve been worried about are starting to happen.” I’m not sure at this point what to do. I bet a lot of people feel that way. I’m sure, coupled with the fact that we’re in the pandemic still and we’ve got so many human rights issues going on. There’s so much in our face. It feels like we have so many problems to solve and that’s draining.

I was thinking about this, Jason. Since I started tracking my energy and mood through an actual app on my phone, I’ve been so aware of how low energy I felt. Despite the fact that I feel like I’m “doing everything right.” There are certainly more things that I could be doing. It feels like there always are but I feel like I’m doing all the basics. I’m working out at least twenty minutes a day, moving my body in some way or another. I’m super hydrated, tracking my water intake, eating a lot of unprocessed foods, super mindful of everything I’m consuming, prioritizing sleep, working on my mental health and doing all these things, yet I feel like I have low amounts of energy and I can barely get through the day. I know you felt the same way too, Jason.

It feels stronger than I’ve ever noticed before. I don’t know if my awareness is heightened or if there’s so much collective stress going on. I lean towards that because a lot of people are expressing this in ways that I’ve never noticed before. It seems like burnout has never been discussed nearly as much as it had in 2020. It was not a term that people spoke about as commonly as they do, anxiety, all of these things. All these people are experiencing that.

My point being, Jason, is it’s hard to solve problems when you feel drained. You feel helpless and drained because you’re helpless. There’s this ongoing loop. I’ve noticed this a lot since I started getting passionate about the environment. Growing up, I was interested in recycling. Recycling has always been a thing as far as I can remember. It was part of the way I was raised. It was the thing that you did. I wouldn’t ever toss certain items out in the trash. I was the type of person in college that would print out my papers on double-sided paper to save a sheet of paper. I still do. I don’t print that much. I’m always thinking about those little things.

To your point, the data coming out about how all of these things we’ve been conditioned to do are not nearly making as much of a difference as we think. It’s either feeling like, “I’ve spent all this time, energy and sometimes even money trying to be more eco-friendly and you’re telling me it hasn’t made much of a difference.” That’s so frustrating. Maybe part of me has become more lax because I’m like, “Does it matter anyway? Do I need to buy zero waste things, which are expensive and incredibly inconvenient?”

I got passionate in 2021 about paying more attention to zero waste details but I’m shocked at how expensive zero waste products are. We talked about this in an episode of This Hits The Spot, our private podcast. I bought this dish soap bar. I was excited about it. I was on a mission to reduce anything I could. Getting this almost zero waste dish soap bag, it came in a little eco-friendly packaging but I was thinking like, “It’s not going to be made from plastic.” It was $17. That’s a lot of money. I did the math quickly. It’s like three times the price of buying a bottle of dish soap.

It’s the financial investment to buy eco-friendly things. I bought a Tesla. Teslas are out of reach for a lot of people’s budgets. It’s a huge stretch for my budget. A huge percentage of my income goes towards paying for my eco-friendly car and the charging involved. It’s also a big inconvenience. It’s my second electric car. I’ve noticed a lot of people are hesitant to get electric cars.

Going back to your point about Biden, Jason, maybe they know that the world is going to be so resistant and still is resistant to electric cars. Our technology is not advanced that quickly. Tesla is one of the only companies that’s figured out how to set up systems for the cars enough so that you can drive pretty much anywhere. There are tons of electric cars on the market but a few of them have as much range as a Tesla.

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I don’t know if any of them have the infrastructure set up in the way that Tesla has. It’s not as accessible financially or on a convenience factor. These are the things that I pick up on talking to other people about being eco-friendly. It’s challenging, especially if somebody is already feeling overwhelmed, burned out and busy. There’s so much pressure that’s put on us as citizens that a lot of people want to block it out and can’t handle it. Maybe they’re already active with something else. They might be vegan and super involved with animal rights, involved with Black Lives Matter or any of these other human rights issues that we have that take a lot of time and energy to be involved with or maybe building their own business.

Jason mentioned our sponsor, Embody Me, which is a phenomenal resource that we’re going to talk more about. One of the big pain points that Embody Me is focused on is helping people that feel busy and overwhelmed. That’s such a common challenge for many of us. I know as a business owner, it’s a huge issue to try to get a lot done. It never feels like I have enough time. Here we are with this huge global climate issue and we feel like we’ve run out of time. How scary is that for people that feel like they didn’t even have enough time to begin with and you’re like, “Time’s up?” It’s tough.

To your point, Jason, it’s very frustrating. I remember when an Inconvenient Truth came out, which was 2006 or 2007. That was when I was starting to become active in my own education and choices. That was years ago. I remember seeing that documentary and feeling like we’ve got to make a difference and this big change. We have seen changes happen. There has been a lot of growth.

From my perspective, the zero-waste movement has built up a lot. There’s a lot of younger people. Meaning, younger Millennials, Gen Zs are very active and aware. We have the whole movement of straws, even though statistically, straws don’t make as much of a difference as we’ve been led to believe but the whole avoiding plastic straws became a big movement, which is a difference.

We see a lot of brands focus on their packaging, prioritizing some of these initiatives and making donations. We see people like Bill Gates get very involved, Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore. We’ve seen big figures that have a lot of influence and money get involved. It feels like we’ve made progress and yet this report is also saying that we haven’t made enough progress. That’s where it becomes tricky. That balance between what we do in our everyday lives versus what are the businesses doing and what is the government doing? How do we get on the same page?

It’s frustrating because it already feels like we’re not on the same page with the pandemic. In the grand scheme of things, the pandemic feels like a short-term problem compared to climate change, which is a pressing long-term issue that we have. If we can’t figure out the pandemic, which seems to have more structure in terms of what we can do, it feels a lot simpler to me relative to this, which climate change feels so complicated.

There are two places that my brain goes. One, I have faith that a lot of people are becoming more focused on the environment and starting businesses with eco-friendliness at the core of it. When I was looking through the Embody Me website, I see all these people working on these small mission-driven businesses, which is inspiring. That gives me hope because as we see the shift to a lot of entrepreneurship, it’s exciting because people feel more empowered.

Embody Me is also focused on women. It’s exciting to see women feeling empowered to rise up. The earth is often associated with the very motherly feminine energy. Women play an important role in driving this conversation. There’s a reason that Greta Thunberg, for example, has this strong, passionate, feminine energy that’s pushing things forward for the younger generation, incredibly important.

The younger generation is going to be a very high percentage of entrepreneurs and small business owners. That excites me. With a lot of masculine energy and huge corporations, which is the opposite of all of that, it does feel tricky to get them on board. It feels like they move at a slower pace. They might need that 9, 10 years to get their acts together and figure things out. Maybe that’s why a lot of these changes are taking so long.

 

I don’t know enough. Part of my ignorance, Jason, is I don’t know how quickly we can make the changes. Is this what this report is saying? We’ve run out of time because all the changes that we need to make are going to take too much time. By the time we’re able to implement them correctly, it will be too late or it already is too late. I don’t know if it’s that conclusive and I hope it’s not. We’d have to collectively drop everything and every person would have to get involved. I don’t know if that’s going to happen, sadly.

We can do things like buying from small businesses, supporting entrepreneurs, but it’s tough when we have the convenience of Amazon. A lot of people purchase from big businesses like Amazon and buy cheap things. The convenience and the cost are huge focuses for many people. Why? It’s because a lot of people, I believe, are burnt out and overwhelmed. They strongly desire convenience because that’s all they can handle and/or they’re struggling to get by. The economy is in rough shape for a lot of people.

If they don’t have the money to spend $17.50 on a dish soap block, that would seem crazy when they could go to the Dollar Store and probably buy a bottle of dish soap that’s going to last them for a while. A lot of people are going to make that choice. Is it that’s making a huge impact on the environment? Maybe not but the fact that those purchases continue to drive these businesses to cut so many corners, I think that’s part of the bigger issue. To me, it feels like we all have to work together but I don’t know how we’re going to get there.

When push comes to shove, things can get done pretty quickly. If I look at the historical context for corporations, Whitney and the government working together to make quick changes, I think back to World War II, the automakers, Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, the big three, as they’re often referred to. In my hometown of Detroit, instead of building cars and trucks, they started to build tanks, B2 bombers, trucks and military vehicles. They didn’t have the tooling and years to prepare for that.

It was like the government went to the automakers and said, “We need you to build war machines for us. We need to win this war.” They did that at lightning speed. It was incredible how quickly those automotive corporations pivoted to meet the demands of the government. In my opinion, if the will of the people were such that the government would pay attention, I don’t know what that would be. I don’t think signing petitions is going to do it.

This is tough in a pandemic but somehow physically asserting ourselves to say, “We’re not going to wait ten years for you to mandate these fuel economy standards, to say 50% of the automakers fleets have to be electric or hybrid. The world is on fire and flooding. People are dying. It’s likely based on the data of the IPCC. It’s going to get a lot fucking worse quickly.” “We’ll wait ten years.” You don’t have to wait ten years. Look at World War II. You pivoted so quickly when the onus was magnetizing and galvanizing the entire Western world to say, “We need to defeat the Nazis and the Third Reich. We need to make this happen.”

That happened fast, Whitney. If we had the same sense of urgency to win World War II and defeat the Nazis and the Third Reich as we did with the climate crisis, crap would be happening way faster but we don’t have the same sense of urgency on an institutional, a governmental or even a corporate level, corporations like Tesla aside. Most of these corporations don’t have that same level of fire under their ass to make quick changes. That’s why it will take nine years.

I don’t believe it has to take nine years. Would they maybe sacrifice some of their profits in the short term, perhaps? What good is your trillions in a world that is dead? I’ve put this on social media a lot. “What good is all your money if you’re living on a dead planet?” You’re not going to be able to spend trillions of dollars on a dead planet, newsflash. Your shareholder value doesn’t mean a thing on a dead planet.

I don’t understand the sacrificing of long-term survival and stability for short-term profit. That seems to be the mantra. I do think they could pivot and shift a lot more quickly. I don’t know if they’re not taking it seriously enough or if profit is put ahead of survival. The idea of it’s taking a long time is bullcrap to me.

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Looking at history, Whitney and the historical record of what we did in World War II many years ago, we can pivot a lot quicker. I just don’t think the motivation is there. I hope the motivation gets there. The other side of this too, Whit, is when reports like this come out, there can be a variety of emotional reactions to this from human beings but one reaction that concerns me and the reason I say it concerns me is because I’ve felt this, especially when I read this report. I felt so depressed and sad. If all of our individual collective actions from the research and the data that’s coming out are not making that much of an impact as we had hoped they would, it could engender in people a feeling of, “What’s the point? I’ll buy my muscle car and giant SUV. I’ll keep eating my meat because who cares? It’s not making as big of an impact as we’ve been told.”

My fear and concern are people saying, “Darn it,” when they see this data. “Let me live my life because we’re all going to die anyway. The world is on fire. It’s flooding. It looks like in the year 2100, we’re all going to be burned to a crisp and humanity is going to go extinct.” That’s my fear. People could interpret this as, “I don’t care anymore. I was planning on doing something but it appears that me doing something doesn’t make a difference anyway.” I’m sure that people will interpret this that way. Some people will. Part of me is almost like that. It’s not like I’m going to go out and buy a Hummer, although there’s an electric Hummer coming out, as an aside. My concern is this could engender a deep feeling of hopelessness and narcissism in people. I don’t know that that is a good thing.

It’s important, at least from my perspective, to not get too in our heads about this because we do need data like this. Unless we’re fully educated, we may not be making the right decisions. It’s important to turn to true experts on the subject matter. I went to check out what Greta Thunberg said. She responded to it in a tweet thus far. She said that, “The report doesn’t tell us what to do. It’s up to us to be brave and take decisions based on the scientific evidence provided in these reports. We can still avoid the worst consequences but not if we continue and not without treating the crisis as a crisis.”

It’s vague. People, to your point, Jason, are going to need some to-do list. It’s also tricky because when I went to her tweets, underneath it, somebody had asked, “What do we do?” There was a string of conversations. It felt like people kept saying the same things that I’ve heard over and over again. For me looking back, it’s like, “I’ve done all of those things and things seem to be getting worse.” I imagine for people like me, there’s the sense of taking that personal responsibility but still seeing it get bad. That can feel hopeless but that doesn’t mean that we should stop. I do feel more motivated.

One thing I’ve been working on is more about recycling. In fact, I got a great book. It’s called Can I Recycle This? It’s a beautiful picture book. It’s by Jennie Romer. This book gave me a lot of hope, Jason. It’s presented in a way that resonated with me because it didn’t feel overwhelming. It is very positive and clear. I keep it in my kitchen near the recycling bin. I look at it every time I decide whether something will go in the trash or the recycling bin.

It’s raised my awareness about items because I’ve recognized through further educating myself and recommitting to that. There’s a lot of things that I was wishcycling. I don’t want to do that anymore. That’s part of where I started making my move towards more zero waste. Another thing I did was join a group called Buy Nothing Project. It’s something that happens all across the country and I believe in different parts of the world as well.

It’s a way for you to connect with your community, even in big cities like Los Angeles, to borrow items, give away things or acquire things from your neighbors. Those things give me a lot of hope because coming together as a community is incredibly helpful. I use that Buy Nothing Project to borrow a VCR from someone so I could digitize some old tapes. I met this lovely woman that I never would have met otherwise. Things like that are part of how we make this big shift.

I also think one of the biggest takeaways that I’m seeing while perusing articles is that politics is one of the most important elements of climate change. We need to get more involved and be more aware. That’s something that I have not spent a lot of time on. My whole life, I have not felt that interested in politics mainly because it confuses me and overwhelms me but that’s not a great excuse. I started to get more involved during the election and I want to be even more involved with local governments too, not just national and know what’s going on.

We can vote with our dollar more. You and I have been slowly making progress towards promoting Amazon less. On our show, we use a shop called Bookshop, which allows you to support local bookstores. Going to local stores as much as possible is a great short choice if it’s worth the inconvenience to you, A and B, a lot of times it’s going to be a little bit pricier. I want to go back to the fact that things need to be more within our means.

 

I’ve noticed over the years, there’s been a lot of shaming around people’s choices, myself included. Sometimes I buy things out of convenience or out of a low cost. I’ll talk about something and people will be like, “That’s made from plastic. The ingredients are not good.” They get on this high horse of shaming you. I’m not at a point where I’m zero waste. It’s a long journey for me. I have a lot of compassion for others that aren’t there yet because of the convenience and cost factor.

All of this is taking those slow steps but by doing them, you start to feel more empowered and less hopeless, Jason. That’s something that is important. Maybe we don’t have as much power or control as we would like or as the world needs but we can do our best to remain motivated, empowered and hopeful because that’s what’s going to keep us on the track towards a good direction. If we’re going to come to some huge catastrophe where it’s the end of humanity, I hope at least that we do that with hope in our hearts rather than live out the rest of our days, feeling miserable, sad and depressed. I certainly don’t want to do that.

One thing that I want to address is in those times where you don’t know what to do, I cannot encourage the community more. That’s one of the reasons that I felt like this is a good tie-in for our sponsor, Embody Me because it’s all about community and wellness practices that support you in moving forward. One thing that is exciting to me is their focus on entrepreneurship. That’s another thing that we can each do.

Sometimes people are working for companies that they don’t align with when deep down inside, they want to do something of their own on their own. It’s not an easy path to be an entrepreneur but it is a way that you can contribute as well. If you know how to make something, for example, you can produce things to sell, that can make a big shift because maybe somebody will buy something that you’re making out of your home versus buying from Amazon.

I’m seeing a shift with that too online. We’ve got platforms like Etsy, which have challenges. They’re not a perfect business but it is a very well-known, trusted platform where you can sell your own things. This entrepreneurship journey can be challenging. With Embody Me, what I love that they’re doing is encouraging entrepreneurs, giving them a place to connect with one another and work through a lot of these tough challenges but they also offer general wellness tools as a virtual wellness studio.

One of the most helpful things when you’re feeling stressed and sad is meditation, dancing, EFT tapping, all of these little things that you can do to connect with yourself on a deeper level and take you out of those dark places. I’ve found it’s hard for me to stay on track with those alone but when I have a community that I’m involved with, I feel inspired and motivated. I’m proud for us to partner with Embody Me. We have a special link for you so you can try out a seven-day trial. If you enjoy it, you can get 20% off your first month of Embody Me after that so you can dive in to these connected communities and find people that support you in your wellness journey and entrepreneurship. Talk about these things openly.

I found one of the best things about the wellness community, despite all these flaws, which there are many. The health and wellness communities that I’ve been part of all have this deep desire to support one another and make progress together. I have found that it’s a place where you can ask the tough questions, get advice and start figuring out how to make this stuff work. Check out EmbodyMe.live. If you use the code Wellevatr, you’ll get that seven-day free trial and then 20% off your first month, you can dive in. They’ve got manifestation classes about yoga. They have all different types of yoga. They have face yoga, which I tend to store a lot of tension in my face. I’ve been working on things like gua sha and facial massages so I want to try that.

Also being held accountable for meditation, Jason, I feel like that’s incredibly important. As much as I want to work on using less waste, being better about recycling and getting more involved in politics, I need to also work through a lot of my burnout and overwhelm. The number one thing that I have not been doing that I know would help me immensely is meditating. I want to recommit to that so I can have more of this energy and motivation to do the hard work that is required.

I’m in a different spectrum from you, Whitney, in the sense that you’ve been consistent with moving your body in your daily movement and fitness routine. That has completely fallen off of the radar for me 100%, whereas my daily meditation practice is rock solid. I’m looking forward to taking more classes with Embody Me. I know that when I sign up for a class and I’m with a community whether that’s a virtual like this virtual wellness studio or it’s live, I have observed myself over the years showing up for my life in a different way. When there’s community, accountability and an energy that I connect with, it helps to keep me on track.

It's really hard to solve problems when you feel drained, and then you feel helpless, and then you feel drained because you're helpless. Share on X

For you, dear reader, if you feel that same way that you need accountability, you’re craving community, you want something consistent that you can show up to like I do, Embody Me is a great platform for this. It’s EmbodyMe.live. We’ve got that code, Wellevatr, if you want to jump in and enjoy that free seven-day trial. I need that. I’m not moving my body. I don’t feel shame around it, Whitney but it’s one of those things that I don’t know what the emotion is. It’s not shame but it’s like I know I need to do it but I’m not doing it and I feel bad about it. Having something like this, I know for me, will help get me back on track.

That’s important because as you’re reading this episode, I’m thinking about like, “What do you do with all of this so that it doesn’t remain stuck in your head, heart and body?” One of the reasons I’ve done so much yoga is because that movement helps me move through tough emotions and let out the issues in your tissues. I feel a lot better. Even when my energy is lower, I do have this consistent sense of feeling stronger in my body when I move it every single day, at least twenty minutes a day, which is recommended overall for health.

It’s tough. It’s hard for me. When I am not as active, Jason, it is hard to get back into it but it’s like everything that we’re talking about. This is not an easy work. It’s not easy to work on yourself and on planetary issues. I did find one article. You mentioned CNN, Jason, which is a new source I trust. I went on there and I was like scanning through it. I’m like, “This is so much.” The report is 3,000 pages long.

A lot of the news reports on it are not helpful to me because it’s all these paragraphs and they’re not well-organized. It’s like, “How do I move forward? What do I do?” I’m a problem solver. I get very frustrated if I can’t solve things. One website that I found well-organized for my brain is Electrek.co. It’s titled, The IPCC Climate Change Report, What It Says and What We Can Do written by Michelle Lewis on August 9th, 2021.

She does a great job breaking down the basics. What is the IPCC? Why is this report important? What are they saying about global warming? She breaks it down into bullet points. Number one, humans cause global warming. Number two, greenhouse gas emissions will persist but reaching net-zero will help. Number three, it’s warming and ultimately it’s in our hands.

What does the IPCC report say about impacts and risks from climate change? She goes in and breaks down the difference between the global warming changes, the degrees of it. She talks about the sea levels. If we lower global warming, we can reduce the impacts on land and the ocean temperature if we take action. Climate change is going to affect our lives but we can lessen the impact and we have the power to do something about it.

This article thus far has been the most helpful and hopeful that I’ve read. I feel like this is a good way to wrap up this conversation link to this. She shares what the bottom line is, the bad news and the good news. The bad news is that some planetary changes are irreversible. The good news is that almost every country in the world is signed up to The Paris Agreement. Didn’t Trump take us out of The Paris Agreement while he was in the office? I wonder where we stand with Biden’s administration.

Yes, Trump did remove the United States from the Paris Accord. I believe that one of Biden’s first executive actions was to rejoin. I do remember that when he got in the office. He almost immediately rejoined it.

That’s good news. The bottom line, according to this article, is if we cut global emissions by 50% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, we can stop and possibly reverse global warming. Maybe this ties into Biden’s order about the electric cars by 2030. It’s part of that plan. There are quotes from climate scientists in here and then it says, “Are we doomed?” No. If we do what we need to do, lowering global warming, minimizes the likelihood of hitting these tipping points, we are not doomed.

With the collective stress going on in your life, you might feel drained. But remember that there is always hope. Share on X

How do we do that? We stop using fossil fuels for transportation, electricity and heating. We switch to renewables, electric cars and other electric appliances. We plant more trees. We stop burning the Amazon. She also included a tweet from Al Gore, who said, “One of the most important lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic is that when scientists are warning about a looming threat, we ought to listen. The IPCC is once again sounding the alarm on the climate crisis and their warning is clearer than ever.”

This is a wonderful resource. It makes me feel better. It doesn’t give us exact steps but I suppose if you want to examine your life, how can you reduce your use of fossil fuels in transportation? This is the reason that I bought a Tesla. Is a Tesla perfect? No, there are certainly flaws with it. Plenty of people like to point out the issues of Tesla. The reason that I wanted to buy a Tesla is because I believe from my viewpoint or at least in 2018 when I got the car, that Tesla was the company most committed to it because it’s a fully electric car company. There aren’t that many. There’s Rivian, Tesla. Who else, Jason?

There’s Lucid. Fisker is coming out. They’re debuting their new electric SUV at the LA auto show if it happens in 2021. There’s Nikola, which may or may not come out. There was a growing handful of them but by far, Tesla is the gold standard.

Tesla is very involved in solar power. There’s going to be flaws to a lot of them. It’s nice to see other manufacturers offering electric cars but they still offer non-electric cars. This is part of the issue. Who did I want to support? That’s why I chose Tesla. I try to keep in mind how much I’m using the car, where I’m charging it and all of the factors involved with the car. It’s not the perfect solution. Can I walk somewhere? I try to walk when I can. I don’t have a bike but having a bike is a great option. Taking public transportation is great. All of those choices have a ripple effect.

They can leave you to feel more empowered. Being mindful about your electricity usage. What do you have turned on? We’ve talked so much about screen time and devices. If we can reduce electricity, maybe we get outside and move our bodies more. Myself included. I have a bit of an addiction to TikTok. It’s where I go when I want to feel better. I also know I feel great when I spend more time in nature. Speaking of my car, one thing I’m going to be documenting on the show like I did in 2020 is my upcoming road trip. I’ll be leaving a few days from the day this episode comes out.

Jason, it’s been fun thinking about being on the road, going to national parks and how I’m going to live my life without being in a home and a hotel. I’m going to be camping in my car for at least a week. I love that. I’m so excited to go see the parks. Hopefully, the wildfires are not an issue, speaking of climate change. I know when I take road trips that I’m less off. I’m not using electricity as much, aside from charging my car but I’m not on my computer and phone.

I’m very mindful about how I’m using toilets, showers and food. Every detail that I have to think about when planning a camping trip gives me an opportunity to do things differently. My experiences in 2020 and 2021 camping for the first major times in my life have shown me how little we need to get by and how much better I feel when I’m in nature and doing the bare minimum in each day, except just enjoying life. We have to find a way to do more of that in order to protect the planet but also to protect our sanity.

If anyone needs camping, road trip and eco-friendly travel tips, I will be sharing a lot of those in some upcoming episodes. I will continue to share what I learn. I encourage you to check out that wonderful new book, Can I Recycle This? It’s such a lovely resource. Please don’t give up hope, Jason and dear reader. If you have a lot of hope, whatever you can pass on because there are people out there that need your hope. You can spread it around as much as possible. Encourage people and get more involved with your community too. You don’t have to travel. Taking a walk, joining groups, tapping into other people and supporting them. If you want to join Embody Me, that’s a wonderful way to meet new people, get support from them and offer your own support while also taking great care of yourself.

With Embody Me, if you want to do the free trial, you can use the code Wellevatr at EmbodyMe.live. Everything will be there for you to make this as easy as possible because we’re all in this together at Wellevatr.com. We thank you so much for reading and going on this journey with us. We know it’s not easy. This is an uncomfortable subject matter but thank you, Jason, for being willing to explore it as painful as it can be sometimes!

 

Important Links

*We use affiliate links in our show notes. This means we receive a small sales commission if you purchase an item based on our recommendation. 

• Embody Me
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• CNN.com
• Eco-Vegan Gal
• This Hits The Spot podcast
• Can I Recycle This?
• Buy Nothing Project
• Bookshop
• Electrek.co
• The IPCC Climate Change Report, What It Says and What We Can Do!

 

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