Knock knock, it's your carbon calling
There has been a guilty re-awakening in this household about my carbon emissions. Back in 2010, when 10:10 rode that gorgeous spirit of optimism about protecting the planet (itself laced with lamentations about how little we’d done since 1994 in Rio), I set out to reduce my carbon emissions by 10%. I smashed it. It felt easy, back then, to have a small carbon footprint – eating meat or not was the main pain point (I love meat. I do not love that its production has such deleterious effects on the planet). And then, I emigrated. Long haul flights, even with modern planes and claims of reduced emissions per flight, became common place. In fact, I long for them still (fourteen days until it is legal to fly out of the UK as a British citizen. But who’s counting?)
In the absence of company in my new gaff, it’s my carbon footprint I’ve been talking to, like a crazed aunt. My, haven’t you grown!
In lots of ways, emissions reduction is a no-brainer. For me, peak 'stuff' seems to coalesce with peak despondency. This cycle of want stuff, buy stuff, be happy runs in ever shrinking circles and we know, deep down, that the stuff doesn't make us happy. So, why can't we stop buying?
For the first time in a while, I wrote a story. A fiction. You know, one of those fabrications sculpted from the very material of imagination. Not only did I write a story, but I shared it in progress – reading it aloud, and working it with an editor. Not only did I write a story and share it in progress, aloud and with an editor, but I actually submitted it to a fiction competition. Submission day: a red letter day. Why did I feel equipped to write a story? Because the prompt was to imagine a future in which we’ve actually done something about climate change. We stood up, we consumed less, we shared, we turn toward each other and away from corporations and possessions. It was a future I sorely needed to imagine.
In the story, the ‘event’ that started the new world was a mass walk out. A tipping point, a moment of awakening in which those that prop up systems we’re familiar with come to the collective understanding that what they are doing serves those at the ‘top’ a great deal, and serves themselves in the barest way. They decide to leap across the yawning chasm between what they know and what they don’t. A chasm, in my mind, between self sovereignty and servitude. I think often about the devil of convenience. Would we want half the stuff we have if we had to make it ourselves, or track it down, or wait a month for the pedlar to come to town? Convenience has distorted our sense of what it is to labour, what we're capable of making with our hands, the deep satisfaction we can get not from what results but simply from doing. Homes and minds cluttered with stuff that it’s so easy to acquire is part of the root of our moral turpitude. It’s also, I think, why carbon offsetting has become popular – it’s a convenient way to assuage one’s conscience, to avoid doing any of the hard work of righting the wrong we’ve been doing to the planet. To be asleep on the job.
The question of stuff is, as I said, a no brainer. Heck, I’ve even joined a library, am reading library books. But the bigger tumult for me is travel. Travel that helps us expand our world views, encounter difference, challenge our assumptions and step a little way out of our comfort zones. Not all travel is like this, of course. There’s mindless travel, just as there’s mindless consumption. But, for the very cross I have to bear, travel is it. I know I’ve become kinder, more gracious, much more accepting and more inquisitive, the more of the world I’ve seen. But, my personal betterment isn’t justification to continue jeopardising our chance to actually have a planet that will sustain life in decades to come. Travel might not even be necessary for that betterment. I know that. The point is not that we have to find a way to be at peace with difficult knowledge. The point is that we all have difficulties in acting to mitigate the climate emergency. We must feel the discomfort, the hardship, the pain and the distress and we must rail against it. The way forward is not an easy path to walk. But fuck ease, I say. Who wants an easy life, anyway?
Back to the practical matter at hand. I just completed an insight timer 10 day challenge about eco-anxiety. It was a reckoning. I can’t turn this around for myself in a day, of course, and my desire to see the world is incredibly hard to quash. I’m even not sure I want to. But instead of lashing myself over this desire, I’m looking to what I can do.
First, I wanted to calculate my carbon footprint again, so I can be inspired and measure the impact of my actions (with varying degrees of crudeness). Carbon calculators are ten a penny these days, especially since the market for offsetting emerged (see, again, moral turpitude – oh the temptation of sub-contracting your emissions so someone else can mitigate them) and so I thought it might be helpful to work through a bunch. My findings are here.
In my bid to try and eat more plant-based meals, I filled the fridge with vegan food. I looked around for bulk buy grains and pulses in Halifax and found this neat little company (nationwide, so far as I can see) that supply bulk goods in reusable packaging – so you can order, decant and return the containers. Zero waste, once a month, with carbon neutral deliveries. For my UK lovelies, that’s the Good Club.
Last thing to share is the big surprise that came up when I was calculating my footprint. Where my money is saved and invested matters! A whopping 1+ tonnes monthly was part of my emissions calculation when I said ‘don’t know’ to whether my money is with decarbonised investors. Happily, on doing some digging, all my banks and building societies are fossil fuel divested and have other green credentials to boot. This note is a tough pill for US readers, though – lots of the big banks are practically criminal when their investment portfolio is reviewed. I know the atm network is absolutely stacked against your favour, dear ones, but I hope this little guide might help: Mighty Deposits.
I know I'm missing the big kahuna here: diet. I have a huge hunch that you're all hearing about nefarious beef from other places, though. In other words, better brains than mine are on that case. And, we don't need to be comprehensive yet, we just need to take a big, brave swipe.
Happy slashing, y'all.