The Reach of Personal Climate Actions
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How can my personal actions reduce climate change? This is a question that can stop us from doing our own small parts.
Most of us are not ready to lead protests like passionate Greta Thunberg who moves others to action by public and dramatic example. I, for one, am not ready to find a boat to cross the Atlantic as she did to eliminate one airplane’s carbon footprint.
As a more realistic start, I’ve been encouraging individuals to choose one of five entry points for considering their personal climate options. It’s a simple idea of picking only one of five climate layers: Food, Stuff, Energy, Habitats, or the air and water of Life Support. (You can rate your interest in each of the five HERE.)
When you focus on options in just one layer, you will naturally begin to rethink their climate change connections on your own. However, to increase the reach of your small actions consider two kinds of ripple effects.
Consumer Choice Ripples
In much of the world, it’s holiday season, full of special eating events. Let’s say you’re looking at how to keep your favorite traditional foods but still reduce their overall greenhouse gasses wherever you can.
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
For all the Food you buy, you already have the first kind of ripple effect: consumer choice. For example, you’ve may always have some special cheese, or other imported ingredient, that is shipped to by plane or ship. If you can keep the heart of the tradition while substituting a more local version, you’re connecting your small actions to helping climate change. Two years ago, I took a similar look at my traditional holiday cookies, and the amount of shipping involved was quite surprising.
Even if your one choice is tiny, it gets added to those of other consumers to spark change. Remember, someone is always scanning the digital records of who’s buying what. Just as the American markets responded to the demand for gluten-free goods, they can follow our shifts to goods that lower greenhouse gasses.
Social Sharing Ripples
“What you do influences your friends and family and will help create the political space for governments and businesses to take action. That, in turn, is likely to encourage other people and other countries to do more. ”
To further energize the power of your small change, tell someone about it. It doesn’t have to be a funny or dramatic story, just a simple comment about changes that work (or that don’t) to plant seeds of change. We become examples of how to consider food choices from the perspective of climate change as well as what tastes great and sparks memories.
Do Something, Tell Someone
Rather than heading into the New Year with dramatic resolutions of how to help the planet, honor your own small changes. Add some actions small enough to fold into your already busy lives. Let them ripple into your thinking about their climate connections. Keep on the lookout for both consumer choice and social sharing ripples that can increase the reach of your actions.
Happy holiday season to all and feel free to share your experiments in creating climate ripples with a comment below. To start getting these posts by email, subscribe below as well.
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#personal climate actions
#food waste
