This is a big year for humans and our planet. Our ‘leaders’ in Copenhagen accomplished nothing useful, so now we must take the lead. Fortunately, there are many very useful things you can do, or even better, your family or group of friends can do.
Even if you do just one thing per month, the cumulative impact is substantial. Of course, we need everyone doing these things, otherwise we all swirl down the toilet bowl of history together – not that there will be anyone to write it. However, these action items focus not simply on lightening your load on the planet – they also make you a leader, and that’s what we really need: millions of people leading, showing the rest of humanity and our so-called leaders how it’s done.
We simply cannot emit any more greenhouse gases (GHGs), and must begin pulling them out of the atmosphere (and ocean) immediately. The longer we delay, the less likely our survival. So make this your year to “go green” in your own ways. Here you go: One action per month to save ourselves:
| Month | Action Item |
|---|---|
| January | Get educated. The Canadian Earth Institute and the Northwest Earth Institute (U.S.) offer several excellent and simple courses, including: Choices for Sustainable Living, Voluntary Simplicity, Discovering a Sense of Place, Exploring Deep Ecology, Globalization and its Critics, Healthy Children, Healthy Planet, and Global Warming: Changing CO2urse. If you’re not sure about global warming, take the last course.
All courses are done in small groups and self-paced. There are no tests, and the only cost is for the workbook. It’s the best way to gain knowledge. |
| February | Go meatless on Mondays. It doesn’t have to be Mondays, but one of the best things you can do for the planet right now is eat less meat. The meat industry generates anywhere from 18% (more than the entire transportation sector) to 51% of greenhouse gases. Excess consumption of animal products is also blamed for most heart disease, so do yourself and the planet a favour and learn a few good vegetarian dishes. I recommend How It All Vegan!: Irresistible Recipes for an Animal-Free Diet and The Vegetarian Kitchen. The meatless Monday link also has recipes, but I haven’t tried them so can’t recommend them.
Note: If your meat is venison or free-range, hormone and antibiotic-free, and local, then it may actually be greenhouse gas-neutral. Unfortunately, very little meat meets these criteria. |
| March | Set an example. (January and February already have you doing that.) For your family, for co-workers, for friends, and for people you don’t even realise are paying attention. Humans are social animals, and we notice these things – and follow leaders. Be one. We need millions of leaders at all scales, from influencing a few to influencing millions. Take your meatless lunch to work. If you’re invited to a potluck, bring a vegetarian dish. (Make sure it’s really good!) Walk/bike/bus to work. Make your next car a fuel-efficient choice. Go from a two-car family to one. Go to presentations on climate change. Don’t be afraid to talk to people about what you are doing and why. |
| April | Go to Earth Day – it’s not just some airy-fairy thing, it’s our life support system and we’re breaking it – we need millions of people in the streets.
You can even plan an event if you’re the organising kind. |
| May | Attend a veggie potluck. Take/drag your family and friends. You’ll meet some interesting people, eat some great food, and you never know: you might need the ‘dirty smelly hippies’ someday. They’re the ones with chickens in the backyard who know how to live frugally…much like our grandparents used to. |
| June | Write your political representative demanding an end to subsidies for fossil industries. Enough with the bailouts of industries that are dying and doing their best to take us down with them. No more subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies. No more free rides for polluters. Any industry that still requires subsidies after 100 years deserves to die, and their executives tossed out on the street (or in jail). They are good at getting handouts, not good at running a viable business. |
| July | Eat local. Food is a necessity, and it is extremely foolish to rely on places thousands of kilometres away for it. Not only will you be improving food security – your own and your community’s – but you’ll slash your food-related greenhouse gas emissions.
This applies to restaurant meals, too. Bypass the chains and eat at a local restaurant that uses local food. You’ll cut your GHGs and provide local jobs. |
| August | Write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Ask them why they continue to publish dangerous denier falsehoods. Stress the dangerous part; remind readers that qualified scientists say we are playing with fire and are going to get very badly burned if we don’t grow up. The deniers who write in are fools who endanger us all. The paper would never knowingly publish harmful advice – yet they publish the deniers’ letters. |
| September | Arrange a live presentation of An Inconvenient Truth
These presentations are free, and most presenters have updated the original Gore slideshow to include the latest science, local impacts of climate change, and more solutions. All presenters are volunteers, including me. To request a presentation: Canada – US and world. |
| October | If your pet dies, do not replace it. If you are considering getting a pet, don’t. We are cutting down the rainforest for dog and cat food. That is truly insane. Pets are a burden on the planet, much as we may love them. |
| November | Go another day per week without meat. By now you should have discovered some favourite vegetarian recipes, so it really shouldn’t be a big deal to go veg two days per week. |
| December | Buy gifts made locally and sold in local stores. You know why everything is made in China? Because we keep buying it. Locally-made stuff is often more expensive, better quality, and certainly far more unique. Some ideas for local gifts: preserves (jams, jellies, and so forth), furniture (often real wood rather than particleboard), candles and soaps, plants, books…. You might be surprised how much is made nearby that you never see because it’s not in a major chain store. |
| Floater | Engage in civil disobedience. Do this whenever it makes sense. Either participate in a mass action (eg: national strike) or a smaller one (eg: torch a Hummer – just kidding!) that is secret. I do not recommend individual or small group civil disobedience, because it is too easy to be picked off by the authorities or ridiculed by the media.
Seriously, folks. We’re not going to get the action we need on climate change – or anything else – unless we get our hands a bit dirty. Our democracy is not so far gone that it is beyond resuscitation, but we will need to apply the defibrillator. We only resort to open-heart surgery if all else fails. |
To repeat: We simply cannot emit any more greenhouse gases. We are flirting with disaster, pushing to the edge of a terminal tipping point from which we cannot recover. It is time to grow up and live within our ecological (and financial) means. It is time to clean up the mess we made, and to stop making more! This is your year to be a leader, to be an example, to stand up and be counted as part of the solution.
2 comments ↓
It was a great list of New Years Resolution. I am hoping you will do all in the list and I trust you that you can make it.
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
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