Part of what has helped inspire us to move onto a sailing vessel in Central America is the desire to live a lifestyle more in balance with nature.
As New York City residents, our carbon footprints is already relatively slight relative to the rest of the country, I use a bike-sharing program to get to work, my girlfriend Andrea either rides her Vespa or takes public transportation twenty some blocks north. We live in a tiny studio apartment in the East Village that takes about ten seconds to cool down or heat up.
Sure, we could eat less red meat, but part of the wonder that is living in New York City is the ability to get the best, most environmentally-sustainably raised cuts of beef (and every other animal) at the most competitive prices, which makes other, more animal-friendly choices more difficult to make, especially when you know you're about to get onto a sailing vessel for the foreseeable future.
With our solar panels and water maker our sailing vessel is going to be at least theoretically 100% off-the-grid, allowing us the ability to support ourselves without a direct connection to anything or anyone (assuming we learn how to fish). We're going to be extremely environmentally-friendly, taking more from the sun than we give back and yet in no way will we ever be able to make up for the amount of damage we've done simply by the virtue of being Americans (if one looks at the sheer economic consumption statistics).
This is just part of why we are inspired to try and make what small difference we can to exhibit that there is another way to make a living, another side to the sphere of constant economic growth, another place where competition and community live and work and play hand in hand, together as one.
Thing is, a fundamental change in the way we all live needs to happen if we're going to do things like keep the coral on our planet from being bleached out of existence.
If we want our grandchildren to know what other species look like outside of Youtube videos we're going to have to get radically serious about not only preventing climate change -- but reversing decades of damage with sustained proactive international campaigns -- think something like a Green New Deal for the entire planet where the goal is to take as much carbon out of the environment as we can -- as quickly as possible.
The fact that our oceans are warming is not up for debate. It simply is not unless you refuse to believe in science. The fact that our coral is in danger and in lots of cases dying, leaving the intricate ecosystems of our one global ocean in grave peril, facing a crisis at the core of its existence, is also simply without a rational doubt at this point either.
Catastrophic events like Katrina in New Orleans, like Harvey in Houston, or Irma in the Caribbean, are going to happen with increasing frequency, doing billions in damages, killing thousands of people in low lying areas worldwide. At some point, we can't keep burying our heads in the sand and saying that nothing unusual is happening when there are record-breaking storms literally year-after-year is crazy. The emperor is naked and it's because the planet is warming up.
If we let global warming continue to happen it is very much on us, on our generations for letting it happen. We can't blame everything on other people, we can't shirk responsibility forever. It's time to spread the word, time to take action, whatever action you can to try and make a better world, a cleaner ocean, a cooler planet for the generations to follow.
National Geographic has 100 Practical Ways to help combat climate change. Paul Hawken's new book Drawdown has an impressive catalog of things we need to do to reverse global warming. Greenpeace has some suggestions on how to get involved to take action against climate change. The Nature Conservancy also has ideas on what you can do to help out. David Suzuki offers up 10 ways you can stop climate change. Project Aware has some great ideas for divers to get started taking action.