The Hunt for a Decent Global Warming Charity

Some articles of interest:

News video speaking to the 12 degree increase in Arctic temperatures and their impact to the Inuits.

UC San Diego college article on how politics got in the way of doing some goodness

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nation's committee, gives solutions on global warming, still a bit vague on what the solutions actually are.


I found myself at Charity Navigator typing in global warming as my keywords. So intellectual honesty, I did this back in November as well when I started to brainstorm the idea.

The thing then and now is the same - as there is no one solution, there is no one non profit organization that is working to stop global warming. Why this is seems simple to me: since there are many contributing factors to this issue, there are equally a number of contributing solutions.

So the answer for me then would be to create a matrix of charities and give in weighted amounts to each depending on how much impact each has towards solving this issue, right? Gee, with JitterBook just starting out, I'm not seeing a lot of money going to any one charity. I think it might be better to pick one or two and start there.

The link to Charity Navigator goes directly to the page of charities that match my search criteria. There are a number of charities there that look worthy of JitterBook's money, but I want to take a deeper dive before committing.

What's next?

So first some interesting articles:


- Scientists talk about shooting sulfur dioxide into the air to curb global warming:


- It's okay to be a capatilist and be green:


- River species to decline by 12-25% over the next 50 years:

- And my personal favorite: Global Warming could shorten the length of an earth day (think about it):

Now back to the journey. So far I've discovered there is a lot of passion about global warming and only one shared vision; that it is occurring. Why it occurs - better not go there. How to solve it - again, lots of opinions. So how do I contribute?

I looked at StopGlobalWarming.org. Seems logical and easy, (so very easy), but something doesn't sit right about this group. They say they aren't political, but have a lot of political backing . They also don't appear to be non profit, in fact they appear to be a spin site of the Tides Center, a for profit company whose business is to sell social innovation. I'm not saying they are doing the wrong thing, but there isn't a way to measure their impact. Also, just the home page alone is trying to sell you cars and books and Microsoft, wow. It looks like this is how big business does global warming.

I wanted to stay with the non-profit organizations. In the suggestion given by one of the developers of JitterBook, "keep the blog entries short", I'll leave this entry at this: I next headed to "Charity Navigator" for my next step.

The Evolution of Misdirection

In pouring through the news briefs, it's interesting to watch the opposing theory that states that global warming is caused by oceans, sun activity, anything but human origin. The story broke with the video I pasted below and was quickly challenged by other scientists, each stating the other is wrong.

The evolution here is that in recent articles, the source of the movie that started this view is omitted and now "new" stories are coming out saying essentially the same thing; that a) global warming is a natural phenomenon (with supporting theories by intelligent scientists and b) we are being scared by corporations looking to capitalize on this green movement (I suppose I belong to "b").

The concern here is that this opposing story is gaining ground, which could stall this call to action that has been taking hold of late. I think it's human nature to do nothing rather than do something. We are such adaptable creatures and will certainly rally to a cause if we our backs are against the wall. But throw in a seed of doubt and the momentum wanes. This is why conservative political views will always have a large measure of popularity. It's simply easier to point out the faults of others and do nothing than to create and implement a solution. The hill is steeper and rockier for the team that wants to change the paradigm.

Forget global warming for a second, think global changes. Our oceans our being fished up to three times sustainable rates, we are losing species to extinction at a rate of 100 to 1000 times historic background rates, each day we lose an area of forest twice the size of Paris. Beyond man made CO2 vs natural solar phenomenon, we - us humans - "man", we are having an impact on the planet, without question.

When it comes down to the question, "should I do something to help?", the debate of whether global warming is natural or man made is moot. Of course it's natural, but on the same hand, it's hard to deny we aren't playing a large catalyst in this natural evolution. When you see a house on fire, you don't first try to figure out why, you get some water and try to put the fire out. One thing we are learning in all this is the earth is in a delicate balance with a lot of different factors. We are definitely a factor in the balance and any change in that balance.

Just as a story can be peddled and rehashed, re-invented and reborn, we need to evolve as well. The solution for global warming, global deforestation, fishing, poverty, drought, global anything - is do everything you can to help create sustainability of our resources.

Don't get me wrong, we should understand what is causing the problem, it helps in pinpointing a more exact solution, but there is so much low hanging fruit where we can help, right now without ever needing to know the cause.

Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4563499.stm
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0704/feature1/index.html
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40837/story.htm