We live in a world in which resources to sustain human life are rapidly diminishing. We have polluted the air and water, and made choices that have resulted in biological and geological changes that will alter life on Earth for centuries. Natural resources including fish, plants, animals and trees have been depleted to a degree that many species are unable to maintain a sustainable level to regenerate themselves. Landmass is changing from forest and prairie and marshes into eroded scrub and desert. More than 40% of the world’s productive agricultural land has already been exhausted – a destruction that increases daily.
Planetary warming hastened by the impact of humans’ large and growing carbon footprint threatens to leave our children a planet unrecognizable to our ancestors. The relationship between this drastic change in planetary climate and humanity’s use or misuse of resources has implications that are only recently being understood. And there is more bad news on the horizon just as we begin to recognize what we have done to the Earth:
- More than 650 coal-burning electric plants are scheduled to be built in China and India, expelling five times the carbon saved by adherents to the Kyoto Agreement.
- Large developing countries are drilling wells 3,000 feet deep as their need for potable water drives them to access the last of the fossil water resources in aquifers that have sustained civilization for millennia.
- Deforestation, erosion, and salinization of soil continue to extinguish indigenous species of plants, animal populations are being reduced to pockets of biodiversity, and growth of food is no longer possible in vast locales.
- Each of these effects increases the impact of the others, with the result being a planetary loss to future generations of humans that challenges the imagination.
The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (made up of 113 nations and 2,500 scientists who have authored 30,000 peer reviewed reports) provides the world with overwhelming evidence that we are in a state of global warming which is not likely to be reversible and which will have a profound impact on life forms from plants and bacteria to humans. If we cannot reduce the impact of global warming soon, the lush green valleys and ice capped mountains that exist today may never bee seen again on a human timescale. If we fail, the next time our forests and land are replenished, man will likely not be walking among them.
Clearly, our highest priority must be to address the issues of a warmer world immediately, and to rapidly adapt to this reality by changing lifestyle and habits. We must inform our friends and neighbors that the winds of change are not in favor of today’s status quo. We must enlist them in our insistence that policymakers take bold measures to protect the public’s interest in life itself.
Our political leaders need to be motivated by popular demand, voices of informed individuals and groups that push, cajole, and educate them. Instead of fearing charges of extremism, they should fear being voted out of office for failure to protect those who have entrusted them with care of the global commons.
We have the knowledge and ability to make good eco-friendly choices in our everyday lives. We must avoid the temptation to be cynical, discouraged or uneducated about survival’s enormous challenge; with simple decisions about our housing, our transportation and our lifestyles we can make a positive impact on our environment even now. To do this we need local and international communities in which the knowledge and know-how for sustainable living can be shared and made into a vigorous mainstream in which politicians and policymakers and manufacturers and home-dwellers will demand to participate.
We at Live Green, Live SmartTM are devoted to education about sustainability, and to creating a green community where individuals like you can share your ideas, green housing projects, transportation and lifestyle changes, find resources for becoming a better green global citizen, and where you can find links to the world of eco-friendly organizations and companies. Together, we can help consumers worldwide make good decisions and good eco-friendly choices.
I am too much of an optimist to believe it is already too late to save this world. With many small steps by individuals and all the other green organizations we can live in harmony with our planet. There is an old Chinese saying: It is easier to move a mountain one stone at a time.” Each of us needs to move one stone to protect our environment, and soon we will have moved a mountain.
Peter Lytle
About Peter Lytle
Peter C. Lytle, President of BDG Partners, Inc. and the Executive Director and Founder of Live Green, Live Smart, LLC.
Mr. Lytle founded BDG Partners in 1992 after leaving a successful career as a senior executive with several Fortune100 Companies. He has proven to be a most effective entrepreneur and businessperson by taking companies he has invested in from bankruptcy and under one million in revenues to over $600 million in revenues in less than two years. He is a successful business coach, with clients across the country, a well-known business stabilization specialist and strategic planner and is considered the foremost authority today in the area of Predictive Modeling (an update on Deming's House of Quality.) Mr. Lytle often acts as the Chairman or CEO of companies in transition and works with Boards of Directors on organizational and strategic planning.
Mr. Lytle is the founder and Executive Director of Live Green, Live Smart, an International organization, focused on environmental initiatives to design low impact, green, sustainable and environmentally friendly housing. Live Green, Live Smart created under Mr. Lytle’s leadership one of the world’s greenest homes, which was awarded by the US Green Building Council its first LEED for Homes™ Platinum Certification in December of 2007.
Mr. Lytle has served as Chairman and CEO of his own firms and the firms of others: Humanetics Corporation (pharmaceuticals), Primo Piatto, Inc. (the 2nd largest pasta company in the U.S.), Velocity Express (largest same-day shipping company in the U.S., NASDAQ), St. Croix Computing (postal mail management and security firm), Oak Ridge Sports, Inc., Agrotec Inc., AbleNet, Inc., Marchese & Associates, Inc., North American Heritage Brands, Inc., and The Franchise Development Group, a firm focused on socially responsible franchise development, which includes College Nannies (largest nanny provider in the country), College Tutors (one of the country's top tutoring firms) and POCP, LLC,
He has served on numerous Boards of Directors for public and private corporations and nonprofit organizations. He served as Vice President & General Manager of Business Development and Advanced Food Sciences and founded Results Technology, the largest contract research firm in the country, for Land O' Lakes. He was a senior executive with Beatrice Companies in marketing and a co-founder of the Wilderness Recreation Association.
Mr. Lytle is a frequent contributor of articles and research papers to the media and is also a frequent speaker, and guest lecturer at colleges, organizations and business seminars. He attended the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa and began his career as a teacher.