Canadian mennonite article series: #10: moving ahead two - where to start, what to do
If you have become convinced of the need for change, then time is of the essence. Currently, globalization and the Internet allow you, with a few keystrokes, to purchase things, acquire information, and to share experiences with people from far and wide. This may not always be the case.
It is simplest to do nothing and wait for problems, if any, to arrive. However once you are convinced of the need for change, it is far easier psychologically and far less costly financially to undertake the changes before you have to. In other words I find it important to be ahead of the problem, not in a competitive sense in terms of being “ahead” of other people, but being at a level of preparation ahead of where you need to be. For example, I want my energy consumption to be dropping faster than energy prices are going up.
So where do we start? It is important for change to begin modestly. Insisting that people embark on a radical overhaul of their lifestyle is doomed to failure. We start small, and as our comfort level increases and with the support of others in our community, we go further:
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first minor adjustments,
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then major adjustments,
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then letting go of status quo.
The chart prepared together with this article (at the bottom of the page) is one attempt to give a comprehensive set of ideas, organized by topic and by the degree of change. Most of the ideas in the chart focus around the individual and the family, and suggestions for broader, community-level ideas would be welcome. I definitely see a very strong role for community in undertaking and supporting changes, and as an energy-constrained world is likely to become smaller, less globalized, I believe that significant leadership for change will be needed and most beneficial regionally, rather than federally. However I feel that change and commitment need to start with the individual, leading by example, and spreading from there:
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Individual
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Family
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Community
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Region
For most people, the bulk of their impact on the world can roughly be captured by seven topics:
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Food
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Water
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Electricity
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Natural Gas
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Gasoline
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Air Travel
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Material Consumption
By becoming aware of our habits around these topics and consulting the chart for ideas should give a variety of places to start. Furthermore, since each person's life situation is different, clearly the above list and the accompanying chart should be taken as suggestions, not as a prescription of what to do.
One of the easiest places to start is with water, since its use is easily perceived. The water use by my family is approximately 30 liters per person per day, less than one tenth the regional average, and saving us over $2000 per year compared to that average. However this huge reduction required only relatively minor adjustments in lifestyle – there's no outhouse and we're not bathing in a rain barrel.
In terms of electricity, our new freezer is twice the size and uses one third the power of an older model. The new fridge, bought after our old one failed, uses one fifth the power of our previous fridge!
Since moving in to our current home, we have reduced natural gas use for heating by 66% (by two-thirds) with a better furnace, more insulation, a programmable thermostat, and turning down the temperature, saving us nearly $1000 per year. We wear sweaters and slippers, all winter, and sometimes it's a little uncomfortable. But we need a bit of a reality check – having a house heated to 18C all winter would have seemed like an incredible luxury throughout most of history.
And there lies the tragedy – comparatively modest adjustments, still maintaining a fairly status quo lifestyle, if undertaken by everyone, would buy our society a great deal of time to adjust and would greatly stretch fossil fuel supplies. But people won't adjust until forced to, meaning that our society will slam into limits at full speed, shattering status quo and being far worse-off.
To be sure, there are a number of ways in which my family's lifestyle veers away from status quo. We have no TV, no air-conditioning, no dishwasher, I walk to work, and we never water the lawn. There have been some sacrifices, for example that I allow myself far, far fewer trips to academic conferences, which has negatively impacted my work. However in the grand scheme of things, these seem like a fairly trivial price to pay.
The accompanying chart of ideas is just a starting point. Each person will have their own perspective on what they are called to do and how to live. I hope that the past ten articles in this series have given some overview of my own perspective in these matters. Whether you agree or disagree with my specific opinions and conclusions is not so important; what is critical is that the broad issues of limits, energy, and lifestyle be present in our thoughts, discussions, and prayers.
A Personal Path to Enviromental and Societal Sustainability PDF