Taking Personal Climate Action
As our climate crisis escalates and world leaders fall very short on their commitments to meet the 2016 Paris Agreement target of no more than 1.5 degrees C of warming beyond pre-industrial days (we are already at more than 1.0 degree C), it is easy to experience a build of up energy in the form of frustration, despair, and even rage.
This energy wants to be turned into action!
If you have the privilege of even considering what to do with your energy beyond the constraints of day-to-day survival like many people around the world, then it is your responsibility to take action. Taking action will also serve your own well-being, and the planet's, and is essential if we want a different outcome than the one that we are currently headed for.
Personal action can fall into two categories:
A - Actions for Lifestyle Changes: the actions that you take to change your life and lifestyle to reduce your own carbon footprint and to align your energy with the outcome you want.
B - Actions for Demanding Systemic Change: the actions that you take to use your voice and your personal power to demand for the massive systemic changes that need to be made.
For more resources on the science, the demands, and the actions you can take see my recent blog post TURNING ANGER INTO ACTION.
This energy wants to be turned into action!
If you have the privilege of even considering what to do with your energy beyond the constraints of day-to-day survival like many people around the world, then it is your responsibility to take action. Taking action will also serve your own well-being, and the planet's, and is essential if we want a different outcome than the one that we are currently headed for.
Personal action can fall into two categories:
A - Actions for Lifestyle Changes: the actions that you take to change your life and lifestyle to reduce your own carbon footprint and to align your energy with the outcome you want.
- Reduce your meat consumption. Oxford University researchers have found that if the world switched to a diet based on fruit and vegetables greenhouse has emissions could be reduced by 66%!
- Reduce airline travel. Your single short-haul flight puts your personal carbon emissions beyond that of what many people in other parts of the world produce in a whole year, and put you well beyond what the planet can actually sustain.
- Buy less, buy smarter. The products we buy account for an average of 16% of an individual's carbon footprint. Check out this great tool to help you calculate the carbon footprint of your purchases. A fantastic book for getting a better understanding of the true environmental cost of the things that we buy, eat, use and do (even sending an email!) is "How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything".
- Green your home - with care! In my Possibility Podcast interview with Chris Magwood of the Endeavor Centre he tells me that buildings could actually be constructed to be a carbon SINK, if the right materials were used. But beware if retrofitting, not all "green" actions are all that green, so do your homework! For example, petroleum based insulations have a huge carbon footprint. Use cellulose, wool, hempcrete or straw instead!
- Reduce your car travel, or get rid of that car entirely. Researchers from Lund University and the University of British Columbia found that going car-free could save 2.6 tonnes of CO2 in a year! If you must own a car, consider an electric vehicle, although be aware that these do not come without an environmental cost too. Better to do without one at all, or if you are in a city that offers it, go for a car share. Of course the Netherlands can show us how!
B - Actions for Demanding Systemic Change: the actions that you take to use your voice and your personal power to demand for the massive systemic changes that need to be made.
- ENGAGE. Know what is happening. The science is out there. The IPCC gives us until 2030 to turn things around, after that it might be too late. In a recent letter to the EU, Greta Thunberg and three of her climate youth advocate allies state that even this is too long, and I would agree. If you are planning for your retirement, or saving up for your child’s university education, then you want to know what kind of future is ahead if we don’t change the trajectory.
- TAKE ACTION. USE YOUR VOICE and YOUR WALLET. DIVEST. Demand the truth and demand action. Sign petitions and add your name to the various open letters to government (sign Greta's latest open letter to EU leaders), write your letters and emails, protest. Share all this information on social media. Talk about it with your friends. Educate. Create works of art to engage and inspire. DIVEST! Ensure that whatever investments you have are not actively supporting the fossil fuel industry! Make it your personal job to speak the truth and demand for change. There are so many resources to help you here.
- KEEP BREATHING. We must be the pillars for our children that they need. We cannot leave it up to them to fix by either being (a) so overwhelmed by our own anger/grief/despair etc or (b) so detached from participation that they feel they have no strength behind them. Processing both the scientific facts and the resultant emotions so that we can be the strongly rooted elders and allies that they need us to be, aligned with truth, clarity, and courage, is vital.
For more resources on the science, the demands, and the actions you can take see my recent blog post TURNING ANGER INTO ACTION.