It looks like 2020 was Europe’s warmest year on record, going up 0.72F over the previous year. Well, that’s Europe, right? Sure. Worldwide, 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year. Which puts us at 2.2F warmer on average than the planet was back in the pre-industrial period according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Now, I don’t care who you are, but that’s something that should get your attention.
How much should it get your attention? Well, sustained warmer temperatures mean more melting ice which could cause some problems for coastal areas in the near future. How long will that take? Perhaps the best answer to that question is, ‘why does that matter?’ Instead of asking whether we need to put up sandbags or the grandkids will, maybe the better question is, ‘what can we do about it?’
What indeed. After all, we’re just individuals who are trying to muddle through life as best as we can. We don’t set policy, most of us don’t control massive corporations that can make the necessary advances to minimize or even roll back pollution. However, we are still people who can influence all of that. How? By sharing our data. Sharing our behaviors, how much we produce and consume and exactly what it is that we produce and consume. That information can help organizations to see what policies are effective in incentivizing various behaviors and which are failing. It can also help guide companies concerned about the environment to see where there is a demand for different products that will help contribute to reducing carbon emissions.
A prime example is in transportation. Electric cars have been getting a lot of press lately, and not without reason. The advances in that realm have been significant. However, the process to produce the necessary batteries are not necessarily environmentally friendly. That process leads to a lot of heavy metal pollution, to say nothing of the fossil fuels needed to produce them. And of course, most of the power used to charge those batteries comes from either fossil fuel plants or inefficient wind farms. So, how can our data help drive alternatives?
If general dissatisfaction with the current situation is known, companies are more likely to research alternatives like hydrogen power. Already, it’s possible to add hydrogen power to a conventional vehicle as a supplement. Turning it into something that could power the whole vehicle is just a matter of scale.
Of course, city planners can also make use of data from the locals to change zoning laws, allowing for more small shops to exist in what are currently residential areas. Or more homes in shopping districts in the form of apartments above businesses or restored brownfield projects. These approaches incentivize people to drive less not through coercive penalties and burdensome taxes but by simply making it easier to walk to where you want to go. Instead of having to drive ten to twenty minutes to go to a grocery store or a coffee shop, a person could just walk out the front door for a ten-minute stroll.
Yes, those seem like small things that at best can make local life more pleasant. Yet, just like humanity is made of individuals, so the planet is made of particular places. If the environment improves in a number of those particular places, it will necessarily improve things for the planet as well.
So, what can you do? Sign up with TARTLE and make your data available to the policymakers and companies that are trying to improve the environment for you and your kids. Then, instead of taking the earnings, you can donate them back to the organization of your choice so they can get more quality data to make better decisions and recommendations. That’s how it works, one small action at a time.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
