Wrapping up Climate Action Week with "what-ifs?"

Last week was a week designated for taking action regarding the Climate Crisis our planet faces. Of course, only one week out of the year is 51-weeks-short of what we could be doing, and I believe, should be doing.

I started the week by writing to two Orange Village officials about the environmental impact of a supposedly “green” housing development going up not far from our home. One wrote back, the other promises a phone call this week.

In the middle of the week I wrote to our Ohio U.S. Senators regarding climate. Senator Portman hasn’t responded (he probably will), and Senator Brown sent me a very comprehensive email stating his position.

Our main project this week was to eat locally-grown and produced vegetable-based meals. Perhaps you saw the post about that. As the week ended, I think we fulfilled that commitment quite well, and I don’t feel any worse off for it. I confess that it’s a bit of a challenge to think about where we go now food-wise, given our attention to planet-healthier eating options for a whole week. As I indicated in my original post, these are not entirely foreign practices for us, but maybe we’ve at least moved the marker a little closer to a truly sustainable diet.

Posting bogs about these acts is also part of my action. I realize my readership is extremely small, so I don’t expect to have much impact. I am not generally comfortable with participation in mass demonstrations, even though I know they can be very important. So if I write something that perhaps increases the awareness of one or two persons, that’s a least a small contribution.

I end this Climate Action week with a cluster of “what-if” questions that keep rattling around in my mind. I will try to state them as clearly as I can:

“What if we as a human race began to do all the things the scientists tell us we must do to counter the more drastic effects of climate change, and then discovered that the climate would have stabilized even if we had not done them? Are not climate-positive actions good for and beneficial to us without regard to their impact on our planet? Is doing the right thing for the sake of our planet’s future also doing the right thing for us as individuals and as societies?”

Do those questions make sense? Are they worth considering? I plan to keep working on them.

Thanks for reading.