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Now that classes are ending, finals week is coming to a close, and there is no more time needed to be dedicated to cramming and endless studying, I find that I have a lot more time to reflect on this past year and my choices throughout. This year, as I transitioned out of high school and into college, I made a promise to myself to try and shed my skin of nervousness and social anxiety. I wanted to stop being afraid to walk up to someone and talk to them, even if I didn’t have any clue who they were or what we did or did not have in common. I came into this new college life with a certain philosophy in mind, words that my father told me before I moved onto this scary new stage of my life, “In college, if you aren’t a little nervous you aren’t doing right”. With this words in mind, I bravely stepped foot into an entire new world that had previously been unknown to me.

I have found that the world isn’t as intimidating a place as it used to be; where I would once be reduced to a shy, silent guy sitting in the corner minding his own business, I now find that I am able to socialize and talk with whoever is around. I have made a lot of friends on my floor, and gotten to know a couple people very well in particular. Despite my fears to the contrary, I have made some very close friends.

Part of my stepping out of my comfort zone involved my Earth Month Action Plan; the third and fourth steps of my plan were both new experiences for me. Another part of graduating high school and moving on to college is learning to operate as an adult citizen of the United States; having been put into such an advantageous decision, it is only right for me to exercise my rights and abilities. I wrote to the state representatives for Ohio and told them what I thought about renewable energies and how crucial they were to the continued well-being of the United States.

Not only did I flex my rights as a citizen, but I also learned about how to support a cause that I feel strongly about. For the first time, I made a donation to a nonprofit charitable organization by my own volition and using money that I had earned myself. These two events were both fairly inspiring; they really demonstrated the degree to which the circumstances of life change as one transitions into adulthood.

Overall, I have to say that I have had a very successful and transformative year. I have left my comfort zone, and learned a little bit more about how to operate as an independent person, citizen, and student. I look forward to furthering the progress that I have made, and continuing onward with my new friendships and life experiences in tow. I am ready and waiting anxiously to see what the next year holds in store.

The first two weeks of my actions for Earth Month have progressed without any difficulty; after all, they are my two easiest tasks. The first action that I partook in was simply research–something that I had already done a fair bit of for this project. I learned a lot of interesting things about renewable resources (mostly by perusing web-pages), and I feel that this initial task did a good job of preparing me for my next task: spreading the word. For my action next week, I am going to inform people in the local campus area, as well as people whom I know personally, about renewable resources, energy sources, and how they can be better utilized here in Columbus. I was thinking of going around and asking people at random, speaking with anyone who would give me the time of day. I’ve decided, however, that perhaps that is not the most effective strategy; I am therefore planning to make posts on Facebook and other social media platforms about my issue. I will supplement this by talking to people who I’ve met through my classes, and telling them what I have found out. I’ve yet to perform this action, but I plan on making a post soon and sharing it on my Facebook wall. Something that this project has revealed about myself  is that, although I am more-or-less comfortable with the subject matter, I am still a little nervous about sharing my knowledge with others. I feel passionately about my issue, and I can delineate freely with my friends and family, but when it comes to approaching strangers I tend to clam up and get rather nervous.  Nevertheless, I am excited to continue on with my Earth Month action plan, and make donations to the cause and write to my representatives. For now though, I will focus on preparation and accumulating information.

My four-part Earth Month Action Plan is as follows: during the first week, I will research ways that I can personally reduce my nonrenewable energy consumption. I will accomplish this by scouring the internet for popular methods to reduce energy consumption, as well as by meeting with my more eco-conscious friends and seeing what methods they employ to reduce their energy consumption. My second week action will be to spread awareness of renewable energy methods, and how an individual can be able to have an impact on their nonrenewable energy consumption. I will accomplish this by speaking with whoever I can, and explaining to them what I have learned. I may create a pamphlet that I could distribute, as that would greatly increase my ability to get my ideas across. My third week action will be to donate to an organization that is dedicated to increasing awareness about renewable energies; I am going to attempt to make the donation to the American Council on Renewable Energy, but I am not sure if they currently accept donations. Regardless, I will do what I can to contribute to a renewable energy related nonprofit. My fourth and final action for Earth Month, will be to call or write to my local representatives and tell them that it is important to their constituents that they support renewable energy. Now more than ever in my life it is important for me to stress the power of my vote, and hopefully by doing so I will be able to make a difference.

The speeches given by the representatives of both St. Stephen’s Community House and the Community Refugee and Immigration Services, as well as their answers to the questions posed by the audience afterwards, served to further reinforce in my mind the importance of nonprofits—especially to the average, everyday person. The work that these two organizations do enriches the lives of those who have few other options, and is done because the volunteers and organization members believe it to be the right thing. This is exactly the motivation that is required in an effective nonprofit, and I think those motives translate very well into a nonprofit organization dedicated to renewable resources. Although people who get involved in renewable energy nonprofits cannot, typically, work as directly with members of local communities, the actions they take and the causes they promote are being carried out because they are the right thing to do. ACORE, for example, is working to encourage businesses and investors to be more confident in contributing to the renewable energy business—they are doing so because they believe that renewable energy is better for the environment, is a better pathway to success for businesses, and is overall much better for the planet than nonrenewable energy sources. The most essential thing for a nonprofit to succeed is the passionate belief that what you are doing is right, and that is something that comes easily to anyone supporting a renewable energy nonprofit. Because of this, I believe that nonprofits are a viable avenue for change in the energy sector.

When considering methods through which one can further the progress of the renewable energy movement, the idea of utilizing nonprofits tends to fall by the wayside. Thoughts about increasing the role of renewable energy in providing for our residential, commercial, transportation, and industrial needs typically concern themselves with increased profitability in relation to nonrenewable resources; due to their very nature, nonprofits do not seem to cater to those expectations. That having been said nonprofits are, in actuality, a very powerful and often underutilized tool for generating interest in and providing opportunities for companies that have the power to switch to renewable energy sources.

The video that I found (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7adnUQqVgKM) relating to renewable energy and nonprofits was created by a nonprofit organization known as ACORE (a.k.a. the American Council on Renewable Energy). It was created and posted on YouTube in order to explain the organization’s purpose and role in the financial sector. The video, although brief, does very well at achieving its goal. ACORE accomplishes its goal of promoting nonrenewable energy sources by bridging the gap between the financial sector and the producers of those energy sources; the American Council on Renewable Energy is made up of both scientific experts with an in-depth understanding of the science behind climate change and renewable energy sources, and business experts who understand finances and the economy. By having such a diverse and talented corps of experts, ACORE can not only provide useful information to lawmakers and the investment community, but by doing so can instill confidence about the renewable energy sector in those important people. By bringing serious investors and lawmakers to the table, ACORE is able to create a growth market for the renewable energy sector that would not be there otherwise. ACORE provides a direct connection to the people in charge of policy making and determining the direction that companies are capable of converting to nonrenewable energy sources, or of supporting the nonrenewable energy sector in general. Not only that, but ACORE also dedicates themselves to educating the general public as well, which is an important factor when dealing with lawmakers and policy creators.

People from all backgrounds and walks of life can make a difference by joining, or even creating, their own organizations for increasing awareness and generating interest in the renewable energy sector. In fact, it is possible to become a major player in the community very quickly—provided you are already in a position of wealth or power. If not, however, it can be difficult for your average person to influence the same degree of measurable change through this particular avenue; the ability to catch the attention of investors and lawmakers is severely hampered if you’re not an expert in a field that would pique their interest. Despite this fact, don’t think that members of the general public are incapable of contributing to the renewable energy cause. Even if you are not an expert, there are several things that can be done by the average person that can help renewable energy gain traction. that through donations, direct action, or even simply lending their name to a petition or members list.

I found the Environmental and Natural Resources fireside chat with local community leaders and organizers to be a very fascinating experience. Hearing about the level of success that the community organizers have had since they started was a very inspiring thing; it was really nice to hear from people who genuinely want to make a positive change in their community, and who are not afraid to go out and make that change happen themselves. Both speakers started out the same way–they noticed a problem in their own lives, shared their observations with the community, and then rallied support in order to make positive change.

The first speaker did a very good job of gathering like-minded individual’s together. She noticed that there was a problem concerning female bikers in her community, and so she took it upon herself to rally the local women and begin the path towards positive change.  She then expanded upon her previous observation, pursuing permanent change in multiple communities outside of her own. She pushed for more open streets, more paths for bikers, and more social, human interaction in cities. All of this sprung from one small move, and I think that the blossoming, cascading nature of social movements is an important and beautiful thing.

I think that I would like to, perhaps on some smaller scale, attempt to make the same sort of change as the two speakers that I met at the fireside chat. Although I do not have a very specific idea of what I want to do in this regard, I would like to perhaps creating a pamphlet that I could distribute informing whoever I can about renewable resources.

Community organizing is capable of playing a significant role in the context of renewable energy; communities, whatever their size, can work on transitioning from nonrenewable energies to more renewable/greener energy sources. This can be either through individual action or through the action of an entire community petitioning for change through their local or federal representatives, or even direct action such as implementing renewable energy into their businesses and personal homes. There are lots of different ways in which a community can dictate its own energy future in a positive way.

The Ted Talk that I have selected that pertains to this issue mentions a town called Greenville, in which 3,000 residents worked at the same refrigerator factory that had been in the town for multiple generations. In the story Jennifer Granholm talks about how all 3,000 of those jobs are lost when the company who owns that factory decides to move their manufacturing operation to Mexico. She then goes on to talk about how renewable energy would be able to both spur community growth by creating jobs and protect the environment by reducing the countries dependence on unclean fossil fuels. In order to make the transition from nonrenewable to renewable energy sources a more palatable and attractive course of action, she proposed incentivizing the states. There were two methods that she proposed that would be able to get this mission accomplished. She proposed a federal incentive, in which all of the fifty states would be able to opt into a renewable energy program wherein if they met a certain goal (say, 80% of the state’s energy consumption comes from renewable sources rather than nonrenewable sources), they would receive a monetary bonus from the federal government that they could spend on the state. The second, and more community involved of the two proposals, was offering private sector incentives. If high net worth individuals and companies focused their respective communities into creating a cash incentive to the states, the same goal could be achieved all while bypassing congress.

There are readily apparent benefits to communities that would arise if the States were to participate in this incentive system. Reliable jobs would be created in areas that would be dedicated to producing the physical energy systems (the turbines, the solar panels, etc.), which would then be supplemented with steady and high-paying maintenance jobs at the actual locations of energy production. Jobs that would be taken by facilities dedicated to an increasingly nonviable form of nonrenewable energy would be converted into much more stable jobs. The stability of these prospective jobs is granted due to the stability of the resources they produce; clean energy is something that can be produced ad infinitum so long as there is demand. Furthermore, the jobs would be more stable still due to the fact that they are being state sponsored; the state benefits from both the federal government/private incentives, and from their new jobs and energy production. If communities, in whatever shape or form, band together to incentivize and promote renewable energy sources the problems with nonrenewable energies could be gone in the span of a decade.

There are a great number of issues unique to society today that plague the world around us. Some examples of these issues are climate change, food labelling, mental health, and sustainable agriculture/energy; there is a whole host of problems that demand attention—far too many for any one individual, or group of individuals, to tackle alone. To surmount the seemingly insurmountable, an effort must be made by each and every one capable of making a difference. The demand for skilled and capable volunteers from all walks of life has never been greater, and neither have the stakes wagered on success. The complexities of each of these individual issues demand careful forethought and consideration into how they might best be confronted, however. In this article, I will be exploring three particular issues that have caught my attention, and how the Three P’s of sustainability apply to them.

The first issues that I encountered in my research into the topic of sustainability was the issue of wildlife preservation. This issue is related very intrinsically to the Three P’s; people are directly affected by the presence of wildlife on this Earth, the planet, of course, greatly benefits from the preservation of wildlife in all of its forms, and profit is very easily derived from wildlife. As an individual, I am very much for taking measures to ensure that wildlife is preserved, both so that I myself may reap the benefits of the natural world, but also so that wildlife and untamed nature is around for future generations to enjoy. Society benefits from wildlife in many ways, both from its ambient presence and from active participation in the natural world. It is a very healthy thing for one to involve themselves in nature (through activities such as camping, hiking, or even simply walking through reserves), and giving open, unrestricted access to every citizen is a great boon to any society. As for profit, well, profit has been derived from wildlife since the beginning of the human race, and it is important for the world as a whole that it remains a resource to be tapped into.

The second issue that I uncovered throughout my research concerned the topic of mental health. Mental health is something that, as are most global issues, has deep, ever-expanding roots that worm their way through all of the many different facets of society. People are complex creatures, and the many intricacies of the human mind have not, any possibly never will be, completely mapped out. Every individual on the planet has both a unique psychology and physiology, and the interactions between those two elements are things that need to be studied intently so as to provide the highest quality of mental health treatment. Studying mental health is just one side of the coin, however, and actual policy put into effect that is dedicated to healing and understanding individual people who need a helping hand is equally important. People benefit directly for mental health study and treatment, as their general wellbeing increases the greater their mental health is. The planet benefits directly from a population with stable mental health. Finally, profit increases because the profit margin for a society where every citizen, worker and employer both, is operating at their fullest potential is far greater than a society in which people are dealing with crippling mental health issues.

The final issue that I explored is the issue of sustainable energy (which ties very closely in with the separate but related issue of climate change). The issue of sustainable energy truly is one that is utterly unique to this generation, as no generations prior have ever had the same opportunity to embrace renewable energy as we have now. People will benefit from the transition to sustainable energy immensely; the health benefits alone of living in a society that doesn’t emit 20 pounds of carbon dioxide for every gallon of gasoline it burns outweighs any benefits to remaining fixated on fossil fuels. The planet benefits for precisely the same reason the people do; pollution affects humanity as well as the rest of the world in equal measure. Although there is much profit to be had through the production and distribution of unrenewable resources, it is not a model that can be sustained due to the negative effects it causes in every other category. Renewable energy is a better model, as it is truly sustainable as still has a profit margin to attract companies interest.

Of these three issues that I have researched, I chose to select sustainable energy as my issue to explore. I chose this issue over the others that I was considering because it is something that is readily accessible to most people. By limiting my personal amount of nonrenewable energy usage, promoting renewable energy whenever possible, and by spreading awareness I can truly have an impact on the world around me. It is something both truly important, and easily contributed to, and it is what I chose to focus on as my issue here in ENR.