The Power of Contributions | Author: Andriy Kumanovskyy

While keeping those already conscious about the environment educated is great, it is more powerful bringing awareness to those who aren’t at this stage yet. Even though the trend is shifting, it remains that the majority of people on Earth aren’t on board with the level of work necessary to ensure that life has a place to thrive for generations to come. The reasons may range from apathy, misinterpretation that the environment is a ‘passion’ for a select some, or a general ignorance and disconnect towards the urgency of the issues. While the goal isn’t overhyped fear mongering, many environmental issues are alarming enough to justify a reasonable amount of panic, as is often stated by the likes of Greta Thunberg. Panic can be a good triggering source for action.

This is where the power of contributions can come into play – accelerating this forward to the mainstream. Each person who contributes has the power to share this on a personal level with friends, family, and beyond. This will bring more people into not just awareness, but action. A few effective techniques include making these issues personal for people (because they are), as well as having a concrete basis on logic and reason as to why a shift towards sustainability makes sense.

The 90+% scientific agreement consensus on anthropogenic climate crisis aside (not to mention the widely known effect of oil industry lobbying), even if the climate crisis was debatable, the action of mitigating it is logical. The same applies to other pressing issues such as biodiversity loss and waste issues related to plastic.

It’s also personal. I’ve found many apathetic people have at least one interest related to the outdoors or the natural world – and they would surely hate to see it go. This is of course ignoring the logical, but often forgotten aspect of the environment being the complete origin for all of our life support – food, water, air, etc.

If you have an environmental idea, process, solution, story or anything else to share and would like to be part of the solution, please do not hesitate to step up as a contributor for The Reduce and Reuse Institute! The contributions don’t have to be 1-2 page article posts, but rather ‘Q&A sessions’ that can be as short as 3 questions. These can easily be answered over a messenger service such as Facebook. This is about the responsibility we all have to collectively act on the most pressing issues first – issues that affect our health and safety, big time.

It’s also personal. I’ve found many apathetic people have at least one interest related to the outdoors or the natural world – and they would surely hate to see it go.

Beyond this, we would also like to ask all of our readers to sign the pledge on the front page with their name, as well as finish the statement: “The environment is important to me because…”.

Some examples of responses include:

• “It is my home and an indispensable part of us all”

• “It provides for us everything we need, we should provide for it”

• “I like to play in the environment; it always makes me feel better”

The Reduce and Reuse Institute will also be starting to make use of letters pertaining to environmental causes. These can be signed by citizens, as well as have content added on. These causes will be pushed to Parliament and other environmental entities in government demanding ecologically focused change, and change is most effective when presented in large numbers.