How We Can Change Climate Change

Given my busy life, I try to to make time to impact at least one important social issue.  There are lots of important problems in our world but I believe the most pressing is Climate Change (often known as Global Warming).  I won't spend much time here teaching or debating the issue as its pretty widely known (look at the EPA site or Wikipedia for relatively unbiased info or watch the Inconvenient Truth from Mr. Gore).

This is a tough problem to tackle as it has a relatively slow impact on our planet which doesn't affect our daily lives at the moment ('the frog not knowing it's slowly boiling in water' analogy is appropriate) and meaningful progress requires the actions of millions across political, geographical, and cultural boundaries.  Finally, humans (especially older ones) are creatures of habit - and habits are hard to change.

I believe one way to spur change is to appeal to those in a position of strong influence to adults, to those who we care about enough that we would change habits to be a good role model - that group is our children.  If we can get children to become aware and then care about climate change and its impact on their world, they may be able to cause change in every household on our planet.   Despite popular culture portraying kids as silent in the household, their voice is heard by parents and they can influence through our hearts like no other.

The hard part is making the issue of Climate Change real and interesting to kids.  I believe the answer is to put a face on climate change and use emotional appeal.  The face is in the form of the tens of thousands to potentially million species (many which are cute and somewhat cuddly) that will be endangered by climate change (check out a great article from National Geographic explaining this).  The idea is to have each household and/or classroom "adopt a critter" that is endangered, learn about the animal, establish an emotional connection, understand why they are in danger and go to their parents with a list of actions they can take to make a difference to save this animal - and the world (e.g. changing energy consumption, engaging in the political process, etc).

This idea came about at a great conference I attend yearly called TED which offers inspiration from people presenting great ideas - such as Al Gore around Climate Change and EO Wilson on biodiversity and species extinction.  The community of people attending TED makes it really special as you can find someone else that is passionate and a leader in making things happen.  My friend (and former CEO of Snapfish competitor - Ofoto), James Joaquin, is a fellow TEDster and working wih me on the plan - he has given a great moniker to our idea - "Critter Crisis".   We welcome your ideas and thoughts in making Critter Crisis a reality...

I believe the millions of children in the world are a catalyst to combat this crisis and they are also the group that will be impacted most by climate change.  I truly hope we can leave this world a better place for them...with their help.

Comments

[Jay]

Global warming is creationism for leftists-- a religion that pretends to be scientifically based, and on which they are intractible because they think the "Experts" have told them its true. But which, of course, the science doesn't support and even the "experts" they cite don't claim what the religious want to believe.

If you have any success in "fighting global warming", millions of children are going to die.

If you are a rational person, go read the mises.org site. Go learn some economics and you'll see that what you are actually advocating is wholesale murder.

[Jay Gould]

I remember a commercial from my childhood with an Indian that shed a tear when someone would litter.

Anytime my parents would litter, I would utter the words, "mom don't make the Indian cry"...

You're correct, children are very powerful influencer's. In advertising they call it "nagging advertising".

[Shantanu Bhagwat]

Raj:
Nice post except that I am not sure that "Climate Change" is the "most pressing" problem facing is. See this:
http://global-themes.com/a-chill-amidst-talk-of-global-warming/

Also, to suggest that Inconvenient Truth is "relatively unbiased" is stretching things a bit (unless that was deliberate?) - see the last comment on the fore-mentioned post.

[Yuanping Zhao]

Globe warming comes from greenhouse gases(GHG). The largest GHG source is CO2, which mostly comes from automobiles today. As car engines are the largest CO2 makers currently, we must reduce engine CO2 emission. But where is the solution? Based on the current 25% engine efficiency, the whole world lacks feasible solution and technology until now:

High Efficiency Integrated Heat Engine (HEIHE) is just invented and patented recently. HEIHE integrates multiple engine theory and practice into one engine body —— compound combustion, heterogeneous combustion, staged-combustion, combined cycles, multiple power strokes, multiple working fluids, multiple operation strokes and multiple engine efficiency contributors. HEIHE comprises twin compound cylinder structure, with the primary cylinder being the primary combustion and/or expansion cylinder; the secondary cylinder being the secondary combustion and/or expansion cylinder. Power strokes driven by expansions of different working fluids such as air-fuel combustion products and steam, as well as compressed air during pneumatic hybrid braking power regeneration mode, are integrated into one engine block. Twin cylinder structure provides the secondary compound expansions of three (3) different fluids as to harness the energies that would be lost with the fluid exhausts or during braking. All of these make HEIHE work around six (6) cycles with twelve (12) operation strokes. Among six (6) working cycles involved, four (4) cycles contain four (4) different power strokes but only one of the power strokes consumes the fuel. Thus the fuel conversion efficiency could be greatly increased, or even be doubled comparing with the conventional internal combustion engine (ICE). Its innovative engine structure has been posted at wfeast.com for comments and its prototyping funding supports.

The inventor of this green engine is expecting to see double fuel convention efficiency, thus double gas mileage, once it is implemented. Based on HEIHE architecture, 21st Century engine revolution is waving to us. I believe any VC including Mayfield’s investment will definitely trig this engine revolution, making this innovative green engine a reality.

HEIHE — Welcome to our energy hungry world!

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