How-To Change Your Life: 11 Steps to Carbon Neutral

No, it’s not about your lightbulbs. It’s in your head.

A lot of the emphasis in my childhood was on being responsible for yourself – not simply in the sense of providing for your own needs, but actually taking responsibility for who you are, and how you behave. The obvious corollary was learning how to change. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not impossible. Nor is it magical, mysterious, or something involving $300 /hr therapists. But it does take work – and a bit of know-how.

My father explained it to me quite succinctly, when I was around 17 and I decided that I needed to start putting my laundry away, rather than leaving it in a stack on the dresser (which quickly became a heap on the floor.)

1. Build up some momentum by changing a few simple, easy things. This can get you into a habit of winning at change. (For instance, every time I wanted to do this I would switch to brushing my teeth with my left hand. It’s easy to remember, and a great daily sticking point).
2. Then WAIT to start on your change until you’re ready to WIN. It’s more important to do it right once, than it is to do it right now.
3. Find something that you can do every day, even if you’re changing how you react to an annual event (like thanksgiving with the inlaws). It will give you a chance to invest additional energy and attention on your decision.
4. If you get through the first week without missing a day, you’ve got a beachhead. Making it through the first month gets you most of the way there. After that, it’s all about the rest of your life.

I’ve been struggling, every day for some years now, on trying to plan how I can change my entire life. I have to get to the point where I KNOW that my work, my lifestyle, and my household, have a net POSITIVE impact on the planet. And just to be difficult, I’ve challenged myself to do one better – I have to do it in a way that everyone I know can copy.

This means no hermitage, no fleeing to the remote wilderness, no proposals of massive population reduction (unless I can suggest a huge population that we could do without – other than lawyers and lobbyists, of course).

I don’t have a plan, yet. But I’ve started moving, anyway, and I think that’s helped me a lot. (At least, I feel more relaxed about it). Rather than attacking a huge project that I can fail at, here’s how I’m getting moving:

1. Do one thing, right now, that you can do again every day.

Bicycle to work. Bring your own coffee cup to Starbucks. Turn the thermostat down two degrees and put on a sweater. Say “Hi” to your neighbor on the way home.

2. Read one book

It doesn’t even matter which one – just making a tiny commitment to getting educated will, in the long run, help enormously. If you’ve got socially- or environmentally-aware friends, borrow a book from them. If not, hit your local library, and grab something that inspires you. As a last resort, you can browse my bookshelf.

3. Tell one friend (what you’re doing)

Military recruitment works on pride, nationalism, and shame. If you can embrace the planet as your country, and life on it as your kinsmen, then you’ve damn well got plenty to be embarrassed about. Once you’re moving, you owe it to your friends to embarrass them as well.

4. Ask one question (in public, if you can)

As has been oft-reported in the blogosphere lately, no one is asking the candidates anything about their platform, especially when it comes to global warming. Never be too embarrassed to ask a dumb question – that’s what got us into this mess in the first place. Now, here’s a dumb question for you: What happens to the smoke that comes out of the exhaust pipe?

5. Skip one trip (in a car)

Not only might you feel great about the pounds of CO2 you’ve kept out of the air, but spending those extra minutes with your children, wife, or dog will help you learn to value slooooowing down. (For added value, give your son or daughter a “get out of the car, free” card, and let them decide which trip you skip. No milk at breakfast time? Maybe it’s time to learn how to cook eggs.)

6. Buy one less (gift, coffee, etc.)

From an early age, we’re taught to equate success with acquisition – of a beautiful woman, a nice car, a big house, a “good” job, etc. It’s taken me years to admit that I often buy coffee, not for the rush of the caffeine, but for the safety-blanket feeling I get from spending money on something expensive that I don’t need. Try getting all the way up to the counter, and then simply not buying it. Not only will you be ahead by a few bucks, (and a few ounces of CO2), but you’ll have a beautiful moment to confront your addiction to consumption.

7. Change one vote

It’s not every election that gets me fired up – I often feel like I don’t even have anyone I could, in good conscience, vote for. But frankly, that’s a cop-out – there’s always some opportunity, usually at the local level, to make some thoughtful contribution to democracy. Try sitting in on a local City Council meeting, or even a School Board meeting. Did you realize that grade-schools in Arizona are planting trees to offset the Carbon Output of the SuperBowl?

8. Pick a reason

This is the “Vision Statement” part, the “Dream Changing”. For many of us, it’s as easy as the four-year-old asleep in the next room. For some of you, it will be your faith, or perhaps your sense of honor, duty, or even guilt. Whatever it is, try and find a personal vision of a future of the human race.

9. Embrace inconvenience

I’ve blogged about inconvenience before, but I’ll state it here again. (Credit goes to the Author of the “Post Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook“, Albert Bates). If you run out of gas and have to push your car to the side of the road, it’s a lot of hard work. Imagine pushing that car up and down hills, for a distance of 25-30 miles. That’s the equivalent of 6 weeks of hard labor – and when we’re debt-financing that on our carbon credit card, we’re making a down payment of just $3.00.

Walking to the store, cycling to work, carpooling across town, buying from local grocers instead of big-box stores, even taking the time to understand the issues – it’s all inconvenient. It takes time. Embrace it.

10. Measure yourself

Fat people don’t look at scales. What you measure, you change. It’s not about setting goals explicitly; it’s about digging further and further into the truth, until the goals state themselves.

I haven’t found an online “Carbon Output” estimation tool that I really like yet – when I do, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, try keeping track of how much you spend on gas, heating oil, water and electricity. (Those are easy to total up once a year). For the go-getters, you can compare the pounds of garbage you bag up every week, with the pounds of recycling and/or compost.

11. Strive to do better

Striving is a simple idea – that we’re not done, yet. That we’re responsible. In my family home when I was growing up, we had a big mirror in the front hall, with a sign under it. The sign said “The Buck Stops Here.”