Sunny, green hills and a person with a backpack standing on a cliff, perhaps envisioning a sustainble future?

SaraNewmountain

Catalysing climate action for individuals and organisations

The need for decisive climate action

Warm welcome to my website and my first post! My name is Sara Nyberg and I'm very excited to share my knowledge and thoughts about climate and other environmental topics. Read about who I am on the page About me. I will write facts from climate science and show what causes how much emissions and deep dive into certain topics or technologies. I will also have a big focus on how you can get involved and take climate action: as an individual, consumer, employee and as a citizen. I hope that you will learn something and get inspiration to take more action - yourself, and with other people. I plan to write something around every second week, so follow me on social media (LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter) to know when I publish the next post!

Why do I write about environmental and sustainability topics?

I have been engaged in the environmental movement for 14 years and have learned a lot during this time. Since more people need to know more about the climate crisis and the solutions, to act upon it, I want to share my knowledge about it - see the page Learn more! I also want to share tips on how to get engaged, to do something to contribute to a more sustainable future - see the page Take Action!

Through my texts I want to help others to:

  • understand why the climate topic is important and that the situation is so urgent;
  • realise that we can (and have to!) do something to stop global heating;
  • get engaged and to take action; and
  • understand that it’s more than only climate - we need a system and inner transformation as well. I aim to connect an outer transition to an inner transition and personal development.

My mission is to catalyse climate action. The coming ten years are very important - we need to cut global emissions by more than half. And very latest in 2050, the global emissions need to be (net) zero, according to climate science compiled by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). But the latest report (6th Assessment report) shows that we need to reduce the emissions even faster than that to avoid a climate catastrophe. In other words: The whole world economy needs to become climate neutral in only three decades! It can feel a bit scary to hear that we need to change basically everything, but the human species is very adaptable. And some changes you won't see as much (e.g. how the electricity is produced), or you can continue in a relatively similar way (drive an electric car, instead of in a fossil fueled car *).

A lot of good initiatives, products and services are already being developed, but the current trend shows it's not enough - we need to act faster! The speed of the transition needs to increase. How can this be possible? I believe it can be done through more collaboration and sharing of knowledge, ideas and good solutions, and of more people being involved in the change.

Many people feel that they don't know enough about the climate topic, don't know what (more) they can do about it, and/or don't have the time and mental capacity to deal with the climate issues. However, they might want to do something, and need a bit of inspiration and nudging. If you feel like this, I want ot invite you to follow my blog to learn, to be more confident, and to know what you can do - one action at a time.

My view on the current state of the world

We live in a meta crisis: not only in a global health crisis, climate crisis and biodiversity crisis - but also the mental health problems are increasing, many people lack a sense of meaning, there are large inequalities, people eat too much food - or too little, we have wars, and continuing large scale poverty. According to research from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, two out of the nine so called planetary boundaries have already been transgressed, and another two are close to.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by these complex and global problems and you can be tempted to ignore them, but the truth is inconvenient. Making a parallel to the movie Matrix: do you want to live happily unknowing about the truth and keep on living in the system as it is, or do you want to know the truth - and change the system to something better?

It is still not too late to act on these global challenges - we can still change our world we are living in. For the climate, it is not too late, but it is very very urgent. We can still change, and we need to do massive changes (both individual behaviours, and also the whole economy and politics) to stay below 2°C, and aim towards 1.5°C (warming compared to preindustrial times), which is the goal of the Paris Agreement. As the special report on 1.5 degC from IPCC shows, the negative consequences are much larger with 2 compared to 1.5°C, so we really should have 1.5°C as a target - or reduce the emissions even faster than that.

Why write about climate and energy topics?

We have many crises to tackle, but one can only do so much with one's time. I'm aware of the many different challenges, but I will focus on environmental sustainability, and mainly on climate issues, because that's what I'm most passionate about and know most about. I totally admire other people who engage in for example biodiversity and gender injustices, but I can't cover everything. I will also bring in energy topics, since I have a big interest and have studies energy systems engineering in my master degree.

Setting the expectations...

The target group for my posts are mainly young people/young adults, since most people in my network who I currently reach out to are around my age. However, it can be read by people of any age. Regarding engagement level, I mainly want to reach out to people who are aware of the climate issues, who take some actions to reduce their carbon footprint, but who don't know much more and who aren't engaged. Secondly, I target people who know a bit more about the climate topics and are a bit engaged, but who would like to do more.

I want to write regularly and aim to publish a post every second week. However, I do this in my free time, so other things might need to be prioritised at times. The concept might change over time as I develop the website. I plan to write posts within the five following categories: Get involved!, Knowing the facts, Take action!, Inner transformation and Zooming in.

Note that I am writing on this website in a personal capacity. I do not necessarily reflect the opinion of my employer South Pole. However, the vision of the company is "Climate action for all" and the mission "We accelerate the transition to a climate-smart society" which is fully in line with my own aims.

I would love to hear your feedback! I have a lot of ideas what I can write about, but it would also be very interesting to hear from you, what you would like me to write about. So don't hesitate to reach out to me with either what I have written about, or what you want to read about in the future!

Until next time,

Sara Nyberg

* However, it is more resource and energy efficient to travel less. If you need to travel, then you cause lower greenhouse gas emissions when using public transport (for short distances), or trains and buses (for longer distances) - compared to traveling in a car.