There is a well known anecdote of a man walking along a beach and seeing thousands of starfish that have been washed up on shore. Without water for a short period of time, they face certain death. so he starts picking them up one at a time and throwing back in the ocean. A passerby comments "there are so many, you can't save them all - how does it matter?" The man throws a starfish into the water, turns and says "It matters to that one".
The lesson, of course, being that while a task might seem enormous and beyond our capability to address on our own, that is no excuse for inaction. Focusing on the piece that we can fix is sometimes the catalyst that can show others the way forward to act in their own way. Very quickly you go from one person to an entire movement that will make a noticeable difference.
This story is, of course, very relevant for the modern day problems such as overpopulation, poverty, resource consumption, pollution and climate change. It has come to a point where one cannot distinguish the independent and dependent variables as the different issues are all interlinked. In trying to get our hands around the entire problem, we get so wrapped up in complicated solutions that we even fail to take the first step. What results is a very detailed plan that never sees the light of day.
My humble contribution to reducing carbon emissions and (hopefully) slowing climate change is in eliminating one car from my life. Not buying a smaller car, or driving it less, or changing the fuel type - but essentially erasing it from ever being a requirement. The realization that I could do this came about as a result of having lived in the UK for a couple of years and seeing what truly walkable communities were like. While I did have a car there to get to/from work, I could essentially manage everything else (shopping, eating out, going to the gym etc) without ever needing to start the engine.
Now the US is of course very different from the UK and you would be hard pressed to find an environment here, other than in the middle of NYC or Chicago, where you could handle all your daily needs without a car. But I was lucky enough to live close to work (~ 3 miles) and there was a fairly frequent bus service that plied at all hours that I could use. To add to that, my wife travels during the week and we are both together only 3 days (Fri-Sun). I was able to convince her that we would not need a second car that would just sit idle during the week - and that she would have first dibs on it. So now I go to work and back on Friday by bus and we share the car on weekends.
Of course, this solution will not work for everyone. there are so many things that had to fall into place to make it work - my wife's travel schedule, the availability of a bus, the fact that we are able to do things together and don't end up going in opposite directions. It also takes some adjustment and planning to make sure our schedules are aligned - but in this age of the smartphone, how difficult is it to make plans in advance? Yes, there are times when we've had some conflicts because of "double booking" but those have been few and far between.
So by living off one car only, we have essentially "saved" the cost of a second vehicle - but did we stop it from being built? After all, auto companies are going to make the car whether I buy it or not (the same for practically any other consumer product - it gets manufactured without any owner in mind, and then companies spend tons in advertising getting you to buy it, and if they don't succeed then they trash it and start all over again). So I'm not sure whether my "sacrifice" has really helped in the grand scheme of things.
If you really want to make a change though, there are two decisions that will have the biggest effect - The size of your house - and its location.
The size of your house dictates how much energy you will use and also how much junk you will fill it with. Humans have this amazing ability to occupy the entire space they are given - a bigger house will not have any more open space than a small one because the tendency is to buy more things to put in it. And how many bathrooms can you use at one time? We would be so much better off if privately owned houses were at most 2-3 bedrooms (for a family with 2 kids) and there were community "guest houses" where visitors could stay close by if they were visiting. After all, how many guest rooms are occupied ever? Makes you wonder why hotels were invented??
The location of your house dictates how much energy you will spend in getting around to work and other activities. This is basically measured as high or low density living. So the ideal environment would be a small house/condo/aptt in a densely populated area (i.e. a city) and the worst would be a sprawling mansion in the boonies. I've chosen the former, or at least as close as I could get to city living.
These are choices that are made independent of the economics - that is to say, I did not choose this lifestyle because it is the cheapest for me, but I chose it because I knew I would enjoy it more than any of the other alternatives, and then proceeded to figure out how the rest of my life should be built around it. This is in contrast to the typical decision making process mandated for the "American dream" which says that one should pick the biggest house one can afford, live far away from other people where you have plenty of empty room such as a huge lawn where you can display all the junk you have in your house so that others can come and buy it.
If more people started to focus on what is really important, and also took a step to examine what part of their daily existence is truly important, they would perhaps make small changes that cumulatively alter the face of society.
The lesson, of course, being that while a task might seem enormous and beyond our capability to address on our own, that is no excuse for inaction. Focusing on the piece that we can fix is sometimes the catalyst that can show others the way forward to act in their own way. Very quickly you go from one person to an entire movement that will make a noticeable difference.
This story is, of course, very relevant for the modern day problems such as overpopulation, poverty, resource consumption, pollution and climate change. It has come to a point where one cannot distinguish the independent and dependent variables as the different issues are all interlinked. In trying to get our hands around the entire problem, we get so wrapped up in complicated solutions that we even fail to take the first step. What results is a very detailed plan that never sees the light of day.
My humble contribution to reducing carbon emissions and (hopefully) slowing climate change is in eliminating one car from my life. Not buying a smaller car, or driving it less, or changing the fuel type - but essentially erasing it from ever being a requirement. The realization that I could do this came about as a result of having lived in the UK for a couple of years and seeing what truly walkable communities were like. While I did have a car there to get to/from work, I could essentially manage everything else (shopping, eating out, going to the gym etc) without ever needing to start the engine.
Now the US is of course very different from the UK and you would be hard pressed to find an environment here, other than in the middle of NYC or Chicago, where you could handle all your daily needs without a car. But I was lucky enough to live close to work (~ 3 miles) and there was a fairly frequent bus service that plied at all hours that I could use. To add to that, my wife travels during the week and we are both together only 3 days (Fri-Sun). I was able to convince her that we would not need a second car that would just sit idle during the week - and that she would have first dibs on it. So now I go to work and back on Friday by bus and we share the car on weekends.
Of course, this solution will not work for everyone. there are so many things that had to fall into place to make it work - my wife's travel schedule, the availability of a bus, the fact that we are able to do things together and don't end up going in opposite directions. It also takes some adjustment and planning to make sure our schedules are aligned - but in this age of the smartphone, how difficult is it to make plans in advance? Yes, there are times when we've had some conflicts because of "double booking" but those have been few and far between.
So by living off one car only, we have essentially "saved" the cost of a second vehicle - but did we stop it from being built? After all, auto companies are going to make the car whether I buy it or not (the same for practically any other consumer product - it gets manufactured without any owner in mind, and then companies spend tons in advertising getting you to buy it, and if they don't succeed then they trash it and start all over again). So I'm not sure whether my "sacrifice" has really helped in the grand scheme of things.
If you really want to make a change though, there are two decisions that will have the biggest effect - The size of your house - and its location.
The size of your house dictates how much energy you will use and also how much junk you will fill it with. Humans have this amazing ability to occupy the entire space they are given - a bigger house will not have any more open space than a small one because the tendency is to buy more things to put in it. And how many bathrooms can you use at one time? We would be so much better off if privately owned houses were at most 2-3 bedrooms (for a family with 2 kids) and there were community "guest houses" where visitors could stay close by if they were visiting. After all, how many guest rooms are occupied ever? Makes you wonder why hotels were invented??
The location of your house dictates how much energy you will spend in getting around to work and other activities. This is basically measured as high or low density living. So the ideal environment would be a small house/condo/aptt in a densely populated area (i.e. a city) and the worst would be a sprawling mansion in the boonies. I've chosen the former, or at least as close as I could get to city living.
These are choices that are made independent of the economics - that is to say, I did not choose this lifestyle because it is the cheapest for me, but I chose it because I knew I would enjoy it more than any of the other alternatives, and then proceeded to figure out how the rest of my life should be built around it. This is in contrast to the typical decision making process mandated for the "American dream" which says that one should pick the biggest house one can afford, live far away from other people where you have plenty of empty room such as a huge lawn where you can display all the junk you have in your house so that others can come and buy it.
If more people started to focus on what is really important, and also took a step to examine what part of their daily existence is truly important, they would perhaps make small changes that cumulatively alter the face of society.
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