Anchorage was 90 degrees yesterday for the first time in history. So what I’m going to do about it? I’d love to stop climate change in its tracks and make a cooler planet for everyone including my kids. But can one person make a difference? I’m not sure, but I’m about to saddle up and take my best shot.
Sure, it’s going to take policy changes, laws, and action by governments and corporations. That’s the top down approach.
But tilting the planet in a cooler direction is also going to take individual change. And that may mean some pretty radical adjustments to our consumer lifestyles. To get started, I made myself a checklist of actions and habits within my own control, that likely will cause a reduction in greenhouse gasses thereby leading toward a cooler planet. I call it my personal climate change accord.
The inspiration for the items on my list comes from many sources. But the gist of my thinking is that there are two main areas in which I can effect change. The first is reducing energy use, and the second — and much larger area — is reducing my purchases of manufactured goods. The manufacturing industry is by far the greatest driver of climate change, well above and beyond automobile or coal emissions, or any other single form of energy consumption. This is because everyone buys things, and since the 1940s our consumption of newly manufactured goods has increased massively. I do not have facts to back up this particular claim, but I do have some facts showing human sources of climate change. I found them in a 2016 CNN article and then used them to make my own chart of Human Sources of Greenhouse Gasses:
My takeaway from the CNN data is that consumer purchases are an important driver of climate change, and that reducing my purchases of manufactured goods can only help. Even without the facts, on an intuitive level, I can see how ordering a screwdriver from Amazon.com produces a lot of energy-using activity. Much more so than simply walking next door and borrowing one from my neighbor.
So with lofty goals and nervous expectation, I unveil my Personal Climate Change Accord for 2019. Even if you think my list is ridiculous, I hope you will be inspired to start thinking about making changes in your own life.
Midlife Maestro’s 2019 Climate Change Accord
I pledge to:
- Drive less
- Reduce household electricity use
- Buy used and of good quality
- Maintain and extend use of equipment, household goods, tools, and clothing
- Look for every opportunity to avoid supporting new manufacturing
- Rent, share, borrow
- Engage in and beyond my own community as a friend, helper, teacher, and general advocate for humanity.
- Learn to repair, build, and maintain my possessions. Become a generalist, absorbing new skills as needed, and teaching others how to do the same.
- Choose modular systems that can easily be repaired
- Reduce waste
- Make or find creative substitutions for typical consumer products, especially those that are made of, or packaged in plastics.
- Change my thought patterns to shift away from a buying mentality and toward a creative problem-solving mentality