I have just completed the final 2 weeks of the University of Exeter's Climate change on Futurelearn. The first part of this MOOC was a bit of challenge with quite a considerable amount of technical and scientific information and lots of re-reading on my part. Surprisingly I did not do too badly with the online tests but I'm still a bit uncertain how much of the fine detail I have retained. However, I can honestly say my knowledge of climate change is far more informed than it was at the beginning of January.
The last part of the course reverted to more practical considerations on how we can act now to deal with climate change, by looking at the design of our cities and buildings, engaging communities in renewable sources of energy rather than taking a pedantic top down approach. Working in HE, as I do, you notice smaller incremental but important changes to address climate change. These range from well organised groups, promoting green working and sustainability that carry out work place audits, to recycle bins, motion sensor lights, green roofs and transport schemes encouraging, cycling and car sharing as well as less paper handouts in meetings.
For my part in the last 2 years I have exchanged a 100 mile circular work commute for a half an hour walk to my place of work and I follow #walktowork on Twitter where you can see tweets and pictures from around the world of other doing the same. Having a tablet has considerably cut down my paper consumption - possibly at the detriment of my handwriting some may say, so I still like to scribble the occasional note. I am also a fan of sustainable fashion and thrift purchasing. I also live near to town so do not have to travel miles to shop. Personally, one of my main challenges is cutting my air miles, I don't travel excessively but I do fly about 4 times a year because I like travel and I also have family that lives in States. I know my regular use of public transport does not offset this.
So what I have taken away from this MOOC, I think NIMBY lecture made a very provoking point, that the whole of the world is our back garden, so we all have collaborative responsibility to take care of it. We know that weather is unpredictable but climate models do show and can predict that climate has changed and will continue to change because of the anthroprogenic impact, on the atmopshere, the lithosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere. And without sounding cliched we need to act now. It will be interesting to see what place the environment has on the political agenda in this economically challenged, fast food, fast fashion, next tech. devise upgrade culture we live in with the UK elections looming.
