Lean

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

By Jon Miller Published on October 15th, 2009

Goats at Google.JPG More than 10,000 blogs are writing about climate change today. That’s pretty amazing. It’s not quite like writing 10,000 letters to liberate political prisoners. It’s an interesting way to use the internet to build awareness about an issue. Visit the blog action day website to see more. My personal favorite is the green tour of the Google campus, featuring lawn-mowing goats.
I don’t have a lot to say about climate change. Things change. Things change back. Climate change is such a big, vague problem that it’s hard to know how to put it in perspective. Who can guess the effect of climate change on the world, much less on the personal level of how we live. During my travels over the past 16 years I have heard many time from people that the weather has been weird. People in Finland talk about feeling the “Spanish breeze” in spring. Here in Seattle we have had the cold winter, wettest winter, hottest summer, driest winter, the odd tornado and so forth. I’ve been caught in torrential rains and floods in Japan and other parts of Asia. But these are just anecdotes.
It’s not often that we can see such big changes coming our way. The largest breakthroughs in technology, geopolitics, and our local environment tend to be sudden. Is it even possible to tackle an issue the size of climate change globally? The only way any problem can be effectively countered is for everyone with influence to take a stake in it. The most viable solutions themselves will most likely be local, specific and low cost. Keep an eye on goat futures.

Jon Miller

Jon has dedicated his 25+ year career to the field of kaizen, continuous improvement, and lean management. Jon spent the first eighteen years of his life in Japan, then graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s in linguistics.

David
October 29, 2009 - 7:45 am
Reply

It’s refreshing and encouraging to read an article from the USA that takes this issue seriously. A good friend of mine, Nick Owens, is director of the British Antractic Survey. He sees the global effects first hand. Best advice from me is ‘Think Global: Act Local’. Any ideas of how we could apply this in the workplace?