Hi, my name is Emily.

I created this blog to solve a problem.  Every day, I read headlines with dire warnings about climate change.  We need to act soon, before it’s too late!  But what to do about it?  Do my individual actions even matter?  And if they do, then which actions really matter?  Paper, or plastic? It comes from my own struggle to get my arms around the scope and scale of the climate crisis and to understand how my own actions fit into the bigger picture. There’s a lot of information out there, but it’s not always easy to get a good perspective on where we are, where we need to be going as a global society, and the extent of our individual power and responsibility.

I went to school for a very long time and got a PhD in Ecological Engineering because I wanted to learn to help human society work with and not against the natural environment.  Over the last few decades, it’s become increasingly clear that climate change is the biggest, baddest environmental problem we’re facing right now.  And while there are engineering challenges to tackling climate change, the bulk of the work we need to do involves individual and societal change.  We already have most of the technology we need to do the first few decades’ worth of work to reduce global carbon emissions.  What we’re lacking is the will to act, and clear direction as to where to start.

Low Carbon Simplified is meant to be a resource for those who are concerned about climate change, who want to know what exactly the threat is, what governments are doing about it, and what we as individuals need to be doing.

My goal is to put the latest science and current events in context, and to present it all in clear, plain terms that everyone can understand.  A lot of excellent work is being done all around the web and the wider world — this site relies heavily on those resources. I hope I have found a helpful way to piece it all together into a coherent picture.

All the best,

Emily Mitchell Ayers