It’s been a while since my last post, but for good reason. I have moved back to Canada from the UK to work full time on The Gaia Project. I’ve spent several months talking with literally hundreds of people about what we can do here in New Brunswick to combat climate change.

So what exactly is The Gaia Project?

Well, the hope is that The Gaia Project will grow into a social enterprise, offering for-profit environmental services, that will in turn fund our educational out-reach programs. We’re looking at the possibility of green event planning, and carbon auditing as possible for-profit services in the future, but right now, we’ll be starting things off with our charitable, educational programs.

We’re going to go to schools and deliver an interactive, project based, and continually engaging program to students to encourage them to take their interest in climate change beyond recycling. As we develop these programs more fully, I’ll be posting some updates here on the website.

And the website is for….?

The website could become many things, and I’m hoping to hear from all of our readers what they think about the current layout, and what they would like to see on here in the future. Current plans are

• Articles posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday covering climate change news, ideas and solutions
• Information on our educational programs, including additional resources for students and adults alike
• Forums, where you can get together and voice your opinions, ideas, and explain why you have given up showering to save the planet (or at least that’s what you’re telling people!)
• A home page for our future business endeavours

So what makes The Gaia Project different?

Climate change is not a new problem. We’ve suspected something has been going on for decades, yet we haven’t done anything. There are a number of reasons for this, but I believe that one of the big ones is that so far, the voice of the realistic environmentalist hasn’t been heard.

I’m not asking people to abandon their fridges like Green as Thistle. I’m not asking you to cut yourself off from the electricity grid like Greenpa. I’m not saying that we need to make wholesale changes like No Impact Man. These people’s efforts are admirable, and can serve as lessons to us all, but let’s face it, cold showers aren’t most peoples idea of a good time!

I’m hoping that The Gaia Project can fill this niche. We recognize that we’ll keep consuming energy at an ever increasing rate, and that conservation isn’t going to get us to where we need to go. We realize that people are willing to make small sacrifices, but don’t want to see wholesale changes in their quality of life. And we understand that fighting climate change can be done from within a (relatively) free market system. We’re non-partisan realists, not idealists.

So let’s make the small changes where we can, and force our governments to start the type of institutional level change we need to maintain our quality of life at a lower cost to the planet.

All I am asking for us to do a little better.