The personal part

The purpose of a tourniquet is to stop the bleeding so that a wound can be closed. We need to reach carbon neutrality, or balance, as a society, as soon as possible.

38.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere every year right now by humans from fossil fuels. Up to half of that can reasonably be absorbed by Earth’s current natural resources and removed from the atmosphere. In other words, just to stop the damage, we need to eliminate at least half of our current carbon output. Let’s say we have 7.5 billion people on Earth and combined we need to only put out 18 billion metric tons of carbon into the air. That gives us 2.4 tons (4800 lbs) of carbon allowable per person. Once we achieve that, we are now Carbon Neutral as a society!!!

Now, how are we going to do that? I can make a few guesses about you – you are so busy that you always feel behind, you don’t have enough money, you certainly don’t have much spare time, life is challenging, and you need the small joys in your life to keep going. You want your kids/grandkids/humans in general to be able to live past 2050 and you know that’s doubtful if the current course we’re on doesn’t change, but it feels like you’ve been told your whole life that you should recycle everything, bicycle everywhere, wash and reuse foil, eat vegan, and generally not get to have any fun; meanwhile, all you hear is bad news about the environment. Even if this time is different, how can one person actually make a difference?

Guess what? WE ARE NOT GOING TO ASK YOU TO CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE THAT MUCH!

I’ll say it again. You are not going to have to change your whole lifestyle and do without modern conveniences! You are going to be involved by: Talking to people you know, pressuring community and country leaders, experimenting with riding the bus, and spreading the word about the solutions to as many people as possible.

I’m going to be focused on America in a lot of these numbers, as that is where I am from and as America is one of the most wasteful as well as most stubborn countries out there. (To other countries, feel free to extrapolate from this and I’d love help translating this document into other languages. PLEASE CONTACT ME if you can help with this.)

I also want to mention humbly that I’m simply building on the decades of amazing work done by millions and millions of people all over the world for generations. Most people want to be kind to the Earth. It’s just we’re all dealing with a lot of learned helplessness. The youth climate movements are what broke me out of that – I have tried so hard for so long, but I had pretty much lost hope. They’ve revived me and I want to help you find your hope and your fighting spirit again.

OK now, on to the next part of first aid for our only planet.