Lorrie Heber

Lorrie Heber

Lorrie Heber is the director of White Violet Center for Eco-Justice, a ministry of the Sisters of Providence. You can find her on Twitter at @LorrieHeber.

Earth Day Every Day: What smoking and climate change have in common

We’re on the front lines of perhaps the biggest battle of our lives: climate change and the need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions by shifting energy generation from fossil fuels to renewables like solar and wind. Again, vested interests in the coal, oil and gas industries have undertaken major campaigns for decades now to preserve their industries.

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No time for despair: climate change reality

So, why must we change? Drought, floods, fires, extreme weather, uninhabitable places, rising sea levels, species extinction, refugees, disease, food insecurity, inescapable heat … I could go on. Virtually nothing that we know about Earth is untouched by climate change. And no one.

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Finding balance with sustainability

But failing to assess the full cost and the real “good” is a prime source of environmental, social and economic degradation and has long-term consequences for the viability of life on Earth. Finding balance with an eye to the long-term when weighing environmental, social and economic factors is at the very heart of achieving sustainability.