Acting sustainably is a natural consequence of our core beliefs, and is one of the reasons we are in the Internet business.
We believe that a fundamental problem with human activity on Earth is overconsumption of resources. A side-effect of this overconsumption is pollution, which in turn affects the Earth’s atmosphere — especially its concentration of CO2, as illustrated by the graph on the right.
The increase in CO2 concentration acts like a blanket, retaining more of the solar energy hitting the Earth. This greenhouse effect causes an increase in the surface energy of the planet, which crucially has different effects in different areas.
Since the surface of the Earth consists of irregular landmasses and oceans, and because the Earth is rotating, the climate systems (and therefore the weather patterns) vary greatly from location to location.
When energy is added to a dynamic system, it becomes more volatile — and this is what is happening to the Earth. Therefore we see some areas becoming warmer and drier, while other areas become colder and wetter — or snowier, such as during the arctic blast during the 2014 winter in the US Midwest.
We are therefore going to see more volatility and more extreme weather in the time to come. This will affect both human and animal populations severely, and naturally vegetation as well.
Even if all of the above weren’t true, despite all the evidence, Runbox’ view is that we may as well decrease overconsumption anyway, move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy, and generally decrease our negative impact on the rest of the biosphere.