Combating climate change: it's a marathon

At the Financing Europe’s Energy Needs conference on Wednesday, which, I might add (and completely impartially), was a huge success, speaker Russel Mills (Global Director of Energy & Climate Change Policy for Dow Chemicals) described the climate change mission as a ‘long marathon’ and profoundly questioned, ‘how do we win this marathon?’

In an attempt to inspire the pessimists and sceptics amongst you I wanted to take Mr. Mills’ incredibly apt metaphor and extend it somewhat.  I wanted to describe the efforts of those who have started us all thinking about this global problem and educating us on how to begin tackling it as the coaches training us all before the big race.  I wanted to talk about the need to invest in the proper equipment and the need to have strict rules because, after all, we can’t be taking shortcuts.  I even had ambitious plans for a pun on pre-race carb-loading/pre-Copenhagen carbon-loading.

However, whilst searching for a motivational picture to accompany such descriptions, I came across this rather interesting article which led me to a new train of thought: Thinner is better to curb global warming, study says.

The conference brought up a number of ideas on how to deal with and finance climate change and future energy needs, from Emissions Trading Schemes and Clean Development Mechanisms to EU FP7 funding for non-nuclear clean energy research, to name but a few.  But whilst these measures are of course essential to managing the big picture, it is still important to consider the role that we as individuals can play in combating this problem.

So, what a pleasure to now know that each of us can do our bit for the environment not just by turning off lights and keeping the heating on low, but by cutting out the chocolate, avoiding the chips or, say, by running a marathon.

Jess