Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Anyone else completely overwhelmed by the news, what’s going on in the world, and the predictions of where we’re heading? 🙋‍♀️

It doesn’t look good. With the current climate crisis happening in Canada, it puts the urgency in our face. The climate crisis requires action — individually, collectively, and corporately. We’ve put some thoughts together on how we can confront it.

Ground yourself in the present moment. Take time to breathe deeply and tune into your senses. Let go of anything that pulls at your attention for a moment and find a grounded place of peace. Sink into that clear space. It is Here that we can centre and find our way through the chaos.

Rather than be overwhelmed by the thought of where you should be, focus on what you can do Here. Chaos feeds chaos. When it comes to a crisis we need to be steady, strong, and have a clear mind. We can set ourselves up for success by stabilizing ourselves now. Yes, there’s a lot of work t o do. But right now, you’re sitting reading t his article 😉 — let’s pull into what we can do in this space.

Learn and relearn. The best way to start is to educate ourselves. There are plenty of books on the climate crisis, podcasts, and activists who have a positive outlook without sugarcoating the situation. The situation is terrifying, but pure doom and gloom won’t help. We need solutions, and we can find them together.

Observe your everyday lifestyle and find ways to be more eco-conscious. It feels like a small effort, but if everyone takes steps to change, it’s a big step in the right direction. We can do this room-by-room at home or in our day-by-day movement.

• Reduce waste by eating the food you buy. We throw out too much food and it has a bigger impact than we realize. We can tackle this by buying only what we need and learning how to preserve and store food so it lasts longer. (Zero Waste Chef is one of my favourite resources.)
• Learn how to compost and give back to the earth with your scraps.
• Do your best to not buy plastic. Look for refilleries near you for your bulk needs.
• Cut back on meat, especially from factory farms. If you’re not keen on going full veggie, adopt the “meat’s a treat” mindset and buy from a small, local butcher.
• Be conscious of your use of fossil fuels. Limit trips and carpool when you can.
• Bike or walk where you can, when you can. (This is trickier during winter in Canada, but you can make it a goal for the spring.)
• Turn off the lights when you don’t need to use them.
• Hang your laundry to dry instead of using the dryer. This is better for your clothing, your electricity bill, and it lowers your carbon footprint a smidgen.
• Support local stores and avoid buying from big box corporations.
• Grow your own food. Even if that means having a single tomato plant and some greens on your balcony. Eating food that you’ve grown yourself is one of the best feelings.

The pandemic threw us back a few steps when it comes to being zero-waste, plastic-free, carpooling buds. It’s frustrating and completely out of our control. Be gentle with yourself if you’re further from your goals than you’d like to be. We can always make new goals that work for now and do our best.

Demand. How we’re living our daily lives has an impact, but a larger issue is the big polluters that shame the little guy into feeling bad about taking a long shower. Corporations need to do better. Yes, big box stores make our lives convenient, but they’ve had their time and they’ve really messed things up. We need corporations and the people in power to take responsibility for their actions. Get loud about it with how you spend your money. Let’s get their attention by putting them out of business.

You can be loud in many different ways. Maybe it looks like:

• Joining an activist march
• Getting involved in politics
• Starting a composting movement in your community
• Reading books to your children
• Being more in touch with Mama Earth
• Writing about it

Talk about it. We need to watch the language we use when it comes to climate change. We’re facing a climate crisis . The world is seeing climate disaster and destruction. There’s nothing comfortable or fluffy about it. This is a terrifying situation. But we still have to talk about it, because ignoring the situation doesn’t make it go away.

How Franc is pitching in. We’re always looking for ways to become a more earth friendly business. We’re far from perfect, but we’re big fans of moving forward imperfectly and doing the best that we can with where we are. We calculate our total shipping emissions every month and that number becomes our monthly offset cost. This cost neutralizes our shipping emissions, protects forests in the Amazon rainforest, and contributes to certified projects complying with best-in-class carbon offset protocols and standards. Currently, our offset initiative funds the Jarí Para REDD+ Avoided Unplanned Deforestation project in the Amazon Rainforest, a Verified Carbon Standard project certified by Pachama .

We’ll always encourage you to shop consciously and do our best to bring you quality basics.

Together we can educate ourselves, have hard conversations, take steps towards lowering our carbon footprint, and keep ourselves grounded in the present moment. If you’re in a space of influence, use it for the best. We’re more powerful than we realize. Let’s use our power to create a more beautiful future than the one that’s been predicted. This can either be our final hour or our finest hour. I’m ready to fight for it to be our finest.

Let’s do this.

_________

Jade is a writer, potter, and gardener living in a sleepy town in Northern Ontario. They love growing food, creating functional stoneware, and hermiting with a book as much as possible.