If you have forgotten the meaning, forget the word. Sustainability is a noble and sacred concept. It’s made out of pure love. It implies that you don’t want to harm the fellow beings and steal their resources just because you have the means to. No body is watching. There are no laws to punish us for taking more. We are left to our own devices. Freedom can be a opportunity for self-discipline. When we fail, we need to the governments to step in and take some of these freedoms away. The freedom to pollute. The freedom to live a high carbon life. The freedom to consume as we please. The freedom to exploit resources ……. Every year, I track the resources I have consumed from Mother Earth and the life on it. Doing an assessment is my way of creating checks and balances. This assessment is not an answer finding mission but a question : How am I supposed to live sustainably ? What has helped ? How can systemic change help ? What do I need to do ?

{ I acknowledge the bias introduced from self reporting. I want to believe that I do less harm and it may have resulted in some cognitive dissonance.

I moved from the West coast to the East coast. My stuff came in a truck. I did not include the emissions from transportation into this calculation.

I did not include the emissions from the AI models I train at work. The company includes it in it’s system specifications.

My puppy eats chicken and brown rice based diet. I suppose I should include it in my carbon footprint. I am waiting for insect based protein to be approved in USA to make the switch.

I live in America and enjoy the benefits of this nation. I am a non resident Indian. I get a chunk of the military and infrastructure based ecological footprint from both the nations. I did not count that in.

My biggest one area of consumerism is clothes. Nothing else tempts me like the clothes do. Not jewelry, home decor, electronics, exotic vacations, interiors, appliances, cars, pottery, kitchen stuff, extra bedrooms, furniture, wine, eating out, …… The cloth is my gold. I purchased 21 items this year. 18 of them are second hand. 12 of them are cold weather items that I need to survive in this new climate. 8 of them are work wear given that my office has a dress code. I am however disappointed by the number of shoes I acquired.

My ecological footprint isn’t 1.3 Earths. Its 1.3+ Earths with 1.3 serving as the minimum that we are absolutely certain about. }

1.3+ Earths. Where is the extra .3 coming from ?

From the poorer people of the world.

From the current children.

From the next generations.

This is the climate truth. Some people are disproportionately effected by climate change in-spite of hardly contributing to it.

“We don’t need individual change, we need systemic change”

Let’s evaluate this statement. If the governments intervene and stop the fossil fuel companies, and get us to 100% renewables, this would happen :

Having clean energy would lower my ecological footprint but I would still be above my budget due to my air travel. Systemic change and individual change are necessary in my case. Lets examine other big contributors :

Meat. What is systemic change in this case ? Govt stopping us from eating meat ? Society shaming meat eaters ? A religion forbidding it’s followers from eating meat ? This requires individual change.

Food. What is systemic change for packaged food ? Cooking more fresh food ? Different kind of packaging ? What is systemic change for conventional agriculture ? Regenerative farming and more fresh food markets. I don’t understand enough about the food pipeline to comment on this.

Housing. Single family suburban living has many problems in my opinion. They increase dependance on cars. The cities get planned for cars instead of public transport. The land I live in has large-ish homes full of storage and extra bedrooms rooms that folks end up furnishing. Backyards don’t redeem themselves by becoming food forests. Instead, they house lawns, BBQ grills and patio furniture. The lawns are water guzzlers and anti-biodiversity. Less urban density and more value put on McMansions == more people deforesting the land to build suburbs with mansions + more people driving far from their work places. What is systemic change in this case ? Minimalism and small house movement ?

Size of the home. What is systemic change here ? Tax on mansions ?

Electricity. Individuals can go solar+batteries/microgrid. Or the govt can help us get clean energy. This area is the easiest to tackle in certain developed countries : the solutions exist. Pensions for the fossil fuel workers and retirement of plants is possible in the wealthy countries. No more gas pipelines. The political will is what is impeding progress.

Landfill Waste. Thankful for the zero-waste movement for helping me out here. I am not 100% plastic free or a mason jar trophy blogger. I take back my compost and plastic to the grocery store every month and put it in their bins. Things have changed after I got a puppy. She has a small-ish bladder and we have pee pads that she sometimes uses if I am stuck late at work. We hope to phase it out after she is becomes an adult in 2 more months. What is systemic change ? Tax on waste ? Better recycling facilities ? A shorter work week so that we have energy to do cores at home ? Universal basic income so that we may spend more on services ? Yes to all.

Car. I only woke up the the harm done by car culture this year. I used to think it was a matter of buying an electric vehicle and problem solved. If all the car owners ought to switch, we would create yet another ecological disaster from mining the materials required to built the EVs. The car tires are a source of micro-plastic pollution contaminating the air we breath. Reduce first and replace the reminder. I don’t own a car for now. I carpool with multiple coworkers. I use ride-share sometimes. Once the winter is done, I plan on biking to work. What is systemic change ? More urban density with people living closer to work ? Cities built for public transportation, not cars ? Measures to encourage less car ownership ? Cultural shift to not think of a car as a status symbol ? A buy back program for gas vehicles ? EV credits ? A ban on SUVs ? Social justice where the polluters pay for what they do to others ? A carbon tax ? I would support all the above. Meanwhile, less car is less harm.

Public Transportation. I could use it to get to work, but biking would be 2X faster than taking the bus. I seem to only symbolically use it when I am attending a climate protest with my activist friends. I want better public transportation. Yes to systemic change. I will start looking up bus routes and try to use it more. The more we use it, the more incentive the govt has to improve it.

Air Travel. This is my biggest environmental vice. Emissions from flying can cause sufficient harm to cause death. If I didn’t fly, I would be living within my ecological budget. I love to travel. I would rank it as one of my most important aspect of my being alive. When I first read about the carbon footprint of having a child, I told myself “yay, I can take 250 flights with this budget because I don’t have a kid”. I want to retire early and slow-low-carbon travel the world. This year, I switched to a plant based diet and all it earned me was one 2 hour round trip domestic flight. Flying is that harmful !! No other individual action compares if you live a standard fare lower-middle class lifestyle in America. I don’t know what else to give up to earn the budget for more flights. I have said no to two conferences this year. My career doesn’t like my decision. I turned down a job offer because it had too much air travel. I have said no to a trip to Asia on behalf of my company. This hasn’t been easy. But growth at all cost is something I don’t want to buy into – for myself, for corporations and for nations. I allow myself 2 trips per year. One for a vacation to see a new culture. One for a trip to see my family/friends. I plan to stick to this plan for the year 2020. Any excess travel has to happen via bus or train. As I build trust at work, I plan to ask for work from train option for long distance travel in the country. Emergencies like death or sickness are exceptions of-course. I do not feel flight shame as long as I limit my air travel to the 2 trips. However, I do feel the guilt. I must feel the guilt. When doing harm comes guilt-free, you become a monster. ( Learn the difference between guilt and shame. ) What is systemic change ? A hefty tax on frequent flyers ? Abolish the frequent miles programs that encourage people to fly ? Tax on kerosene ? More teleconferencing options ? High speed trains ? Cap and trade sort of limits to flying till we can clamp down the emissions ? Yes to all.

“So you think you are better than me ?”

I call this line, the small town syndrome. I am tired of listening to this statement. I have an answer : I overshoot every year. So I ain’t exactly winning purity awards here. A low carbon lifestyle does less harm given that we are in the midst of a climate crisis and a mass extinction. However, there is no winning for anyone till the emissions curve start going downward. All individual action is collective action. Collective action works because it gets imposed on the individuals.

https://www.footprintcalculator.org/

I highly encourage you to do your own analysis of your footprint and design your life to optimize it. How can you apply the principles of minimalism to allocate your ecological budget to do what you love and cut out the not so necessary ? Demand your government to take action so that it gets easy for you to stay within the bounds. For instance, having clean energy and high speed rail helps me with my budget. I won’t stop lobbying for it.

What next ?

This is how I see the ecosystem :

Individual : Usually a good starting place, but should not be the end of effort. When ever I would read stories from the history books : Indian independence struggle, Jews in concentration camps, slavery, wars, … and all the other horrible events, I used to think “I would have definitely been on the side that fought these evils. I would make the personal sacrifices needed to become a warrior. I would have fought the colonizers. I would have fought to end slavery. I would have hidden refuges facing religious persecution in my basement …” When I learnt about the harm done by climate change, my first thought was “I always thought I would be on the other side fighting. Now is my test. Am I who I thought I would be ? Would I give up my comforts and luxuries to do the needed ?” Sustainable living has made me confront some honest truth about myself. I discovered strengths and weaknesses in me that I never thought I had. Climate Crisis is one of the greatest threats to humans in my lifetime. What sort of climate warrior am I ? This is a personal test for me. Am I who I thought I would be ? The answer has been a mixed bag of yes and no. Lot more no than yes. Being woke is easier than taking action.

Household : My partner does not care for any of this. He finds all of my environmentalism inconvenient. I would like to spend time in conversation with him trying to be understood and to understand. To me, he is the average world audience who “believes” in climate change but it’s only in his “thoughts and prayers”. He laughed at me when I explained the concept of an ecological budget. He found the idea of ecological equality ridiculous and thinks it’s idealistic to think the world should work this way. If I can learn to talk to him about climate, I can go out in the world and talk to more people. My mother is now an environmentalist. I want to get my father on board too since he is in a position of power in India and can influence change. But teaching privileged patriarchal men new ways of thinking is hard. I want normal mundane conversations and laughter at home without me being on an agenda all the time. But how ?

Workplace : According to me, every job is a climate job ! If you can do your work with less emissions and build your product with less harm, you have made an impact. We probably don’t need more earth scientists telling us about the impending doom. We need everyone in every industry to factor in the environment in the work they do.

I have so much I want to change at work. We are a green company but we are lax about a lot of things. Even worse, folks I talk to use the excuse that the company is green to not live a green lifestyle. ( “I work at a women’s shelter. So I can beat my wife at home. We need systemic change, not individual”. We need systemic change, have become the magic words to say to deflect from personal responsibility. ) I started a reading group. Everyone has strong opinions on climate change, energy science and sustainability because they have been working for decades in the field. I am the newbie. They call me the ‘young optimist who is yet to be disappointed by life’. Most of the folk here have defaulted to nihilism after years of seeing the emissions rise. I think we are all ripe for a grass-root/political revolution.

Street : ?

Suburbs : ?

City/Town : Write to your mayor. Demand that they take climate action. Attend a town hall and talk to fellow citizens. Looking at climate change on a global scale is terrifying. But breaking it down by local actions helps. Joining a local environmental organization is the best way to have tangible impact. Citizens Climate Lobby is my chosen way to get involved. CCL has a local and national presence. The league of Conservation Voters has taken on emissions from transportation in the state, as their top cause. It’s a matter of plugging myself into the system and doing the work.

Catchment area : ?

State : Write to your senators. Demand that they take climate action. Join an organization and donate your skills for the cause.

Nation : I am working with an organization (CCL) that is trying to put a tax on carbon emissions. I personally don’t think regular citizens should be the ones fighting a crisis on this global scale. I don’t think children should be terrified for their future and resort to striking on the streets. We are supposed to worry about climate on top of what ever else is going on in our lives ? How many people have the time and energy to do this ? We vote to give leaders power, pay our taxes and we ought to do all the work ? Where is the political leadership ? Where are the representatives who will speak the climate truth and make the tough inconvenient decisions for us ? At the least, vote for climate policies.

Region : ?

Global community : ?

World : ? ( I work in Green Energy Tech. We have installations around the world. I hope writing this blog is one way to get involved on a more global scale. )

***

One thing all these items in the ecological hierarchy have : is the individual. Optimizing individual footprint was just the start. The green habits I have learnt will stay. For the year 2020, I want to do more outside my individual self. Citizens Climate Lobby will get a large chunk of my effort. I am considering joining League of Conservation Voters and the Sunrise movement too, just to meet more activists in real life to band up. These .orgs have a wealth of strategies and tactics based on location and political climate. I have a lot to learn when it comes to community leadership and action.

***

If you want to write a guest post for me with you sharing your ecological footprint and your own take on the subject, do let me know. How do you make sense of it ? What aspects do you see as individual and systemic change ? How do you make sense of your off shoot ? If you stay with in your budget, has it been hard ? How do you make sense of the world who as a whole is on track to use 1.7 Earths for the year 2019 ? If you have children, how do you feel ? If you want to have children, how do you feel about the problems they are inheriting ? How are you pushing for systemic change ? Do write to me / for us.

( However, I will not publish posts from climate deniers. )