End of the Year Update: 2020
2020 has been a crazy year. We’ve all had to do a lot of staying at home. Some of us have lost loved ones. Some of us have lost jobs. Some of us have lost homes. There’s was a lot of suffering and a lot to be sad, angry, and frustrated about…but it wasn’t all bad news. We had some good news too.
There were so many uplifting stories of people fighting on the frontlines of the pandemic in hospitals, battling wildfires, for racial equality, and so much more. There was a lot of good news in the world of the environment as well! Sure, we could focus on the bad: CO2 emissions are higher than ever and no country is anywhere near meeting their greenhouse gas emission targets, the US government has been doing everything it can to remove environmental protections, and many species are going extinct. But since it’s the end of the year, let’s take a moment to appreciate a few of the positive things that happened in the environmental world this year.
Good Things That Happened to the Environment in 2020
- Climate leaders won elections: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are making big promises to lead the fight against climate change, not just here in America, but on a global stage. And not just the presidential election, but many other senate seats were also won by advocates of climate action.
- China and many other countries set targets for net-zero emissions.
- Renewable energy, specifically wind and solar, have become far cheaper than fossil fuels as a source of electricity and 90% of all new energy infrastructure that was created in 2020 was renewable
- Coal and other fossil fuels are in their death throes: oil pipelines like the Dakota access pipeline were shut down, and renewables are taking over. The oil industry is still fighting to stay alive, but in a world where they lose, not just in environmental safety, but on pure economics, it’s a hopeless battle.
- Major banks have declared they will stop funding fossil fuel interests. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Chase, Wells Fargo, and CitiBank have all jumped on that bandwagon, signaling the start of the true end of the fossil fuel era.
- The ICE car is also on it’s way out: EVs were sold in numbers unheard of until now. The energy transition has come and it’s hitting the transportation industry now. It’s time to go electric.
- Climate awareness and concern for the environment were among the top 3 concerns of voters for the 2020 election according to some polls. Climate activism has grown and grown and thanks to movements like the Sunrise Movement, 350.org and others, we now have so many people pushing the government to make big changes to help the environment.
Verdant Growth: Going Forward into 2021
In my case, the pandemic left me with half a job and a lot of extra time at home, so I decided to start Verdant Growth, a place where I blog and make YouTube videos about the environment and track my own journey to be more environmentally friendly. In some ways, I feel like I’ve succeeded: I learned so much about how to set up a blog and a YouTube channel, how to make and edit content better and faster, and how to be more effective in social media.
However, I also feel like I haven’t quite hit on the content that I want to produce. I haven’t found the content that is right for me. For me, the blog and the YouTube channel are both a learning process, and I’m still trying to figure a lot of things out. But going into 2021, I have some general thoughts about what I want to do with my blog and my YouTube channel going forward.
The Verdant Growth Blog
I love my blog! It’s been a great learning experience for me, and I continue to improve my writing. My blog has been my place where I write about what I learn: as I learn to be more environmentally-friendly, I post about what I learned. But it’s often not any information that is new. Most of what I write is compiled from all the different resources that I read and put together in my own words. I like the content I’ve made, but recently I feel it lacks the personal touch that could be more interesting to more readers. So in 2021, I’d like to start doing more frequent posts, but with more of my own thoughts and opinions. Thoughts that may not necessarily be original, but will be more personal, showing more of who I am, rather than focusing on facts, data, and information that could be gotten elsewhere (and probably more well-written).
The Verdant Growth YouTube Channel
I love my YouTube channel too! It’s also been a huge learning experience and a lot of fun to create! I spent 2020 learning how to make YouTube videos: how to film, edit, post to YouTube. But now I’ve reached a point where I start to think deeper than just the technical aspects of how to make a video: What can I do to reach more people? What can I do to have a bigger impact? How can I connect with more people? How can I bring something new to the environmental activism movement? What can I uniquely contribute? So for 2021, I want to try new things, and make videos that are a little different than what I’ve made until now. Here are some of my ideas:
- Debate/discussion videos; videos where I meet and talk with people about climate change and the environment. Not just with people who already believe in and are fighting for climate action, but also with climate denialists, people that lean conservative in their political thinking, and people from other activist movements like Black Lives Matter, or vegan/animal rights activists. All of these problems are connected and by connecting these communities, we could make huge strides in all of these fields.
- Short, easy-to-watch videos about the environment: bite-sized facts, tips, and advice that you can pick up and watch without committing 10+ minutes to.
- More videos about me and my own personal live and environmental challenges: getting to know more about who I am, and connecting with my audience on a more personal level. Maybe even doing something WITH subscribers together like group challenges, or group discussions.
These are all just kind of my initial thoughts on what I want to focus on for the next year. I’m sure some I’ll give up on, others I’ll persue, and I’ll also find new things that I want to do as time goes on. But I’m also interested to hear more from you guys. What kind of content do you want? What would you like to see from me? Do you have any ideas for things I could be doing better? Comment them down below!
Onward to 2021!
It’s been a long year, and I hope you’re all surviving it well. Whatever your situation is, keep pushing to be better. Keep pushing forward on the road of life. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Even if you can’t see where you’re headed. If you can keep doing that every day, you’re gonna end up farther along than if you had just sat there on the road thinking about what to do. So take action, get out there and find what you believe in. Find what you value. And then start making the changes you need to to live by those values. I promise, if you do that, you’ll always end up a better person than you were. You’ll be happier. And then you’ll make others around you happier. To make yourself happy, and then to bring happiness to others. Isn’t that really the most fundamental goal in life? It is to me.
Thank you guys so much for coming along with me on this Verdant Growth journey. I love what Verdant Growth has become, but it’s not done growing yet. I’m still slowly shaping it into the brand I want. I really appreciate everyone who has supported me. Full disclosure, recently I was starting to feel a little down with the blog and YouTube, not sure what I want to do and where to go. But a few friends that I talked to recently have made me see that it has had an impact on some people, and just knowing that was enough to reinvigorate me to double down and get back to work on building…whatever this is that I’m building. So really, truly, thank you everyone for reading and watching.
Happy holidays, a happy new year, and to a better 2021.
Eugene~
Verdant Growth