Getting Things Green -  I know, this is a bit of a departure from standard productivity discussions, however I truly believe that there is no more important a topic than our desperate need to transition from our current wasteful ways to more earth-centric sustainable means of powering our devices, heating and cooling our homes and offices, getting from place to place, and dealing with the inevitable detritus that comes from just about everything we currently do.

As a group people that practice GTD tend to be the best of the best.  The most productive, the most effective and many times the most influential amongst their peers.  We are the early adopters, the beta (or even alpha) testers, we were the ones that had a smartphone four years before Apple decided that phones were the next big thing, we are the people that have VCR’s with the clocks set to the correct time and we’re the people that as a group have the ability to effect change on a truly grand scale.  In short, GTD practitioners are an enormously powerful group of smart, successful, and unusually persuasive individuals.

Though it may be somewhat cliche to say so and with apologies to Stan Lee: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

So, accepting as a basic tenet that we (GTD’ers) as a group have this power, it really is incumbant upon us to use our special skills - our ability to see and even set trends, our fearlessness as early adopters and most particularly our ability to influence others in a positive way to move ourselves and by extenstion those who are within our sphere of influence to make a concerted effort to Get Green.  That is to commit to reducing our personal and household energy consumption, to buy (and/or produce) environmentally sustainable products and to use our influence as well as our votes to effect this same type of positive change on our respective societies.

As a scientist first and a writer and technology entrepreneur second I have to tell you that personally I believe that their is no more crucially important thing that you can do than take steps to accomplish the goals stated above.  Not only does the welfare of the vulnerable societies in less permissive environments depend upon our magnanimous behavior in this regard, but also our own local neighborhood and even closer to home the future of our own offspring.

The impending climate crisis is no laughing matter.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but most scientists now agree that we’ve already gone beyond the point where consequences will be insignificant.  In fact, we are probably perilously close to the point where consequences will be profound to a degree that should terrify any rational individual and especially one with children.  After all, our children stand to inherit the earth in whatever condition we leave it to them - we may not live to see the fruits of our ignorance and our unwillingness to change but god forbid that we have to face the terrible fact that the people whom we love the most stand to suffer to any degree as a result of our unwillingness to take steps that could have prevented or at least minimized the effects of our current ways.

Okay…in spite of (or perhaps because of) that rather gloomy introduction I hope you’ll read the remainder of my reporting today and more importantly make an effort to take advantage of the actions you can take, the purchases you can make and the regulations you support that can help us to help ourselves out of this dire predicament.

Tags: Getting Things Done //