Relationship Therapy Starring Mother Earth

Mother Earth said her piece this winter. It’s clear she isn’t happy with our relationship. Though Mother Earth hasn’t listed any formal demands, it’s clear we’re in dire need of relationship therapy if we’re going to continue living, breathing, and growing our presence on Earth. With that in mind, many places all over the world have begun their journey to relationship therapy (so to speak) and have made headway on Mother Earth’s informal demands.

It’s clear we need global change. It’s clear we need to change how we’re treating the environment and reimagine how we’ll fuel our work, cars, and more. It’s clear that we need a big change.

To make a big change you must start small. Sustainable change is essentially a habit and habits are formed from consistent repetition. Large-scale change has to start somewhere, somewhere small, for it to mean anything in the long run. This is why cities are absolutely key to a low-carbon future.  

One city, one state, and one country can’t completely reverse the negative effects of pollution enough to solve all of Earth’s problems, more and more American cities are putting practices into place regardless of their regulations, initiatives, and policies with the goal in mind of helping to save our planet.

There are cities all over the country this is possible. These pioneers are paving the way for other cities to follow in their footsteps. The United States has a growing list of cities that are making the pledge to become 100 percent carbon-free in the next 50 years. Scratch that, in less than 50 years, some U.S. cities will be carbon free. These green cities are, but not limited to, San Jose, C.A.; San Francisco, C.A.; San Diego, C.A.; Portland, O.R.; Salt Lake City, U.T.; Boston, M.A.; Atlanta, G.A.; St. Louis, M.O.; and Orlando, F.L.

Even though some cities are making the pledge to become powered by renewable energy alone, other cities are finding ways to become greener too. “Going Green” is becoming a socially acceptable way of saying you’d like tax incentives for solar power. Though solar power is an incredible way to generate power while harnessing Mother Earth, it isn’t the only way a city can “go green”.

Any relationship expert will tell you that there are many things each person is responsible for – however, in our case, humans are responsible for the issues in our relationship with mother earth. It’s our time to employ other efforts to rectify them. With that being said, there are many different factors that can help a city stand out in its efforts to combat pollution and reduce their carbon footprint. For example, some cities have an exponentially large number of electric car charging stations, such as San Jose, California or Portland, Oregon. Other cities harness solar power through panels on their schools. Additionally yet, other cities will capitalize on residents’ desires to be more green by giving tax incentives for electric car purchases.

Though our methods of going green may differ around the country and the world, our goal is the same. We all want to improve our environment and fix our relationship with Mother Earth. After all, counseling gets expensive.

We might as well do what we can to help our cities, and our world, become more energy-forward.

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