What Is the Average Person Doing About Climate Change?
Is It Enough?
What should ordinary people do about climate change?
For the past 17 years, we’ve never owned more than one small car. Four of the past 17 years, we didn’t own a car at all. Currently, everything that I need can be purchased within a two-mile strip of my home. Post office, groceries, dentist, doctor, gas stations, hair salon, you name it, all close. There was a time in the last 17 years when I could walk to everything I just mentioned, because I was living in Europe a good many months out of the year.
The US didn’t plan their cities around walkable neighborhoods, nor do they have an abundance of public transport for the most part.
I’m not a big consumer, so, I don’t make much trash. I’m a conscientious recycler. The older I get the less I need. I think I have enough clothes to possibly last me for the rest of my life. I’m 71 so that helps.
I use things forever. I have a coat that I still wear that is about 17 years old. It’s a bit frayed now but I’ve never found a perfect replacement for it, so I keep wearing it.
I try not to waste food. I rarely eat out.
I still fly — to see my daughter on the west coast and before COVID I flew to Spain every winter. I justify the flights because I miss my daughter and while in Spain, I never even rent a car let alone own one.
Does that balance things out?
I know when I examine my first world privilege, I can clearly see that I’m one of the rich girls. I get to choose whether to make sacrifices or not. A fantastically large portion of the human population never have that choice. I’m firmly in the top 10% richest people in the world. To qualify is quite easy. Many people, however, never step foot on an airplane or own a car or have enough stuff let alone extra stuff to throw away.
They have little to contribute when it comes to fixing climate change.
They’re not the big consumers, flyers, drivers, and wasters out of the billion people that populate the planet. They’ve always lived the poor but simple life.
Still, I only eat small amounts of meat.
But when I look at all the prepackaging of the food that I purchase from the store every month, I wonder how we will ever lower the vast amounts of trash we rich people create? Do I need to be a vegetarian?
Would that make a difference?
I live in a region that has four distinct seasons. Our winters generally start in December and run through the first of March. It can get pretty dang cold. I’m talking below freezing. I keep searching for a backup power source in case of power outages which are becoming quite common across the United States. The quest so far has only given me a clear picture about why ordinary people like myself don’t have solar or some other form of eco-friendly power source.
In my region you’re either on grid with the electric company or you’re off grid on your own.
You can’t do both. So, if I lose power, I need a battery backup system to keep my natural gas furnace running. If the power outage is more than a day, I need a way to charge the battery backup as well. Either system is expensive to install, I’m talking thousands of dollars expensive.
So, I’m currently forced to keep the natural gas system that came with my 1970s house.
Am I doing enough? I’m sure my friends who live in Florida run into the same problem with their AC. I have cold winters and they have hellish summers. Actually, our summers can get pretty bad, too. I have central air which I know is a luxury in many parts of the world. I’m lucky.
So, what do I give up and would it even help?
I’m far more practical than the average rich person in the world. It seems the richer they are the more they waste. I’ll never forget in 2020 when the message to regular people like myself was to STAY home. Don’t travel, especially air travel. Help us keep COVID deaths from spiraling but then I read that the Obamas went to their winter home in Hawaii. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not picking on the Obamas per se. It just came as a slap in the face because I knew they were urging Americans to be cautious.
Who needs two houses in the first place? Right?
Of course, it’s the rare individual who wouldn’t like to own several very nice houses with all the amenities as well as the option of flying first class let alone flying in a private jet. Even the most climate-change-aware people would find it hard to resist such a glamorous lifestyle.
C’mon. You know I’m right.
It’s confusing and frustrating to receive little to no assurances that big business will ever cooperate or that the government will get busy and upgrade our infrastructures, make alternative power sources affordable, or support innovative ideas. Biden has begun to address some of those issues, but it’s a slow process to enact the fixes because our country isn’t particularly interested in investing in our social well-being.
Sometimes, I think it’s hopeless and figure that I might as well party until the ship goes down, but then I look at my granddaughter and I know that’s not possible.
What are you doing to fight climate change? How much are you willing to change if a comprehensive plan was ever developed and then implemented?
Feel free to comment.
Teresa is an author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
