Top Environmental Concerns and What You Can Do About Them

If you don’t believe in saving the environment, you need to take a hike.

Fresh air, blue sky, green grass and a healthy spattering of dirt are some of those simple gifts that we forget about while sitting in classrooms and offices across the nation. But there’s a lot to learn from the parts of the world that don’t send insistent emails or blast their political opinions all over the internet.

The world is bigger than that – and it has bigger problems, too.

Here are a few environmental issues we’re facing right now – from the largest in scale to the little things you can do to change them.

Critics  say the climate is always changing and that greenhouse gas levels won’t cause the Pacific Ocean to engulf California. However, even skeptics can see that pollution has caused real issues in cities worldwide.

Smaller scenes in this big-picture dystopian vision play themselves out over cities like Los Angeles, where smog makes life a little bit less breezy for the city’s residents.

California is also a good case study for the world’s other environmental concerns and government attempts to deal with them.

Gov. Jerry Brown has done his best throughout his tenure to deal with these environmental challenges. But his attempts at reform show that good intentions aren’t always enough to create practical, sustainable change. For example, Brown’s “cap and trade” program is a way to regulate businesses’ greenhouse gas emissions in order to make the air cleaner. Great idea, right?

Unfortunately, the benefits of this program have been debated. It’s not easy to regulate factories into perfect harmony with the environment.

California lawmakers have also clashed with farmers who grow lucrative luxury foods in the midst of a drought. How can California’s economy thrive while protecting water resources?

And though attempts to support clean energy sources in California have widespread support (electric cars are a popular idea, but few drive them), they’re also expensive, and they sometimes fall down in the state’s list of concerns.

California lawmakers are also discussing other questions in an attempt to balance people’s economic well-being and their treatment of their environment: What about cleaning up the oceans? Or protecting endangered species?

Since California is a leader both in environmental regulation and in economic growth (hello Silicon Valley), the rest of the nation will be watching to see how this plays out.

Since you probably won’t be freeing dolphins from fishing nets or discussing greenhouse gas emissions with CEOS and environmental scientists this weekend, you should think small. (Besides, that’s where all nature’s superstars are, anyway – ladybugs and hummingbirds don’t get in on board meetings, either).

You know the drill: Reduce, reuse, recycle.

It sounds simplistic, but living naturally is good, and good for you. Besides, you probably won’t be able to save any endangered animals or clean up the oceans all by yourself, but you can cut apart those little plastic rings that hold your soda cans together so you don’t strangle Dumpster-diving birds.

You also know the lifestyle advice: Go outside. Appreciate nature, and your body will appreciate you. You were made for each other.

By walking (or biking, or running, or playing Frisbee) in the world you help preserve, you can clean out your mind, as well:

“The multiplication of technologies in the name of efficiency is actually eradicating free time by making it possible to maximize the time and place for production and minimize the unstructured travel time in between,” wrote Rebecca Solnit in “Wanderlust: A History of Walking. “I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness.”

The world was not made to be consumed. It was meant to be cultivated, enjoyed, and respected for its capacity to bring us the simple joy that comes from wandering around outside.