Monthly tips about sustainable living are designed to inspire you to adapt them to your personal circumstances and locale and to help you generate other ideas about how to live a more responsible life, socially and environmentally. If we all pitch in by individually reducing our consumption and adopting a simpler life, we can collectively mitigate the severity of climate change, reduce human suffering, and keep the Earth a livable place for future generations.—CHRISTINE MULLER
“Every choice a Bahá’í makes … leaves a trace, and the moral duty to lead a coherent life demands that one’s economic decisions be in accordance with lofty ideals, that the purity of one’s aims be matched by the purity of one’s actions to fulfil those aims.”
—Universal House of Justice, 1 March 2017
April 2020, Christine Muller
Within one month, the daily habits of people around the world have profoundly changed because of a dangerous virus. This proves that we humans have the capacity for fundamental change – but only if we truly realize a threat. We also learned how important it is to listen to science. Now, scientists have told us for a long time how urgent climate action is. The suffering and number of deaths caused by the coronavirus will pale compared to the suffering caused by climate disruption. We do have the knowledge about how to avert a climate catastrophe with fundamental changes in our energy, food, and transportation systems as well as with adopting a more simple lifestyle (see previous tips in this newsletter). The real problem is the lack of will. The tip of the month is to think about how we can promote actions to address the climate crisis with the same determination and effectiveness as when combating the coronavirus. This will save many lives and, most likely, even human civilization.
