Amidst news of foreclosures, unemployment and bankruptcies, it’s good to hear that the global financial crisis may be helping our climate, as the growth in our greenhouse gas emissions have slowed down, for now at least.

Mankind is presently facing two of the greatest challenges that it has ever encountered – a world economy that has almost collapsed and a global ecosystem that is on the brink of being uninhabitable if we do not change immediately.

It may seem like we’ve suddenly been hit by a double-whammy, but the inevitability of these crises have already been observed, discussed and warned for many years prior to self-fulfilling themselves. The root of both these problems may be traced back to man’s greed and selfishness, weaknesses from our inherent makeup that will drive us to our own destruction unless we can wake up to what’s going on.

The recent global financial and environmental crises are powerful events to help us alter our mindset about a lot of things. If we look at them from a positive light, they are in fact what we need to force us to change.

The economic recession has brought about lower wages, relatively higher living costs and a depleted standard of living which has led people to be more open to lifestyle changes, especially if they are financially beneficial.

Combined with government efforts to promote green initiatives, the current global financial crisis may turn out to be the last hope of shocking us out of our ecological complacency.