(Keep It Simple, Stupid)

You’re not stupid. But if your life is anything like mine, you’re busy.  I’ve got kids and a dog and a job and a house to take care of and never enough money to go around.  I know that climate change is bearing down on us, and I know that my personal carbon footprint is way bigger than it should be.  But if I add worrying about the climate impacts of every little purchase I make or thing I do to my mile-long to do list, I really might go crazy.  Maybe if the carbon footprint of my choices were printed on the label, like calories, maybe then I could at least try to choose the lower impact option.  But that’s not our world, at least not yet.

Luckily for us, it’s not really necessary to get into that level of detail just yet anyway.  There are some hotspots in our carbon footprints, where single actions have big consequences.

My humble proposition:

For the sake of our collective sanity, let’s focus on the big things first.

The Big Things (in no particular order)

1. The car
2. The power to the house
3. Heating and cooling the house
4. Flying
5. What food I eat

These five things are responsible for a really big chunk of my carbon footprint.  Exactly how big and how much they can be reduced are subjects for later days, but here’s a teaser if you need to know:

Let the Little Things Go

For now, it’s going to be ok to let the million little things go.  If I can get these five areas under control, that will do more good than remembering my reusable bags a thousand times.

This feels like a radical proposition.  It’s so much easier to fixate on the little signifiers of sustainability.  They’re cheap, they’re quick, and they let you spend all kinds of time on Pinterest researching crafty ways to reuse empty water bottles.  I get it. But the sad truth is that diligently carrying a travel mug to and from work every day isn’t going to save the world by itself (which isn’t to say don’t bring a mug when you can; mugs are great!). It’s going to require tackling much bigger things. I have limited time, limited energy, and limited funds.  I intend to spend them getting the biggest impact I can.

This blog is a guide to finding those big impact actions, and to figuring out how to get them done. My aim is cut through to the heart of what we all need to be doing if we’re to have a hope of stopping the destabilization of the climate.