Small steps

Going green doesn't always seem simple. Sometimes just thinking about all the things that you are supposed to be doing is overwhelming. People live in the suburbs and have to drive to work every day and have a family to worry about and don't feel they can afford to rush out and buy all new green products. It's completely understandable that these people might start to feel guilty about not doing enough and just succumb to the realization that they'll never "reduce the family's carbon footprint" or be "green" enough.

Fortunately, there are very easy and very small things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. The Ask Umbra page on Grist provides two simple steps that will make a real difference: air travel and eating meat. You can check out the facts on the Grist article; they make a compelling case. A couple of round trip vacations by plane will emit more CO2 than a year's worth of driving. And reducing the amount of meat that you eat, even one day a week, makes an enormous difference.

Think about how easy it would be to follow that second piece of advice. Pick one day of the week (how about Monday?) and have a meatless meal. You don't have to sign up for the PETA email newsletter (trust me, their emails are sent out with impressive frequency) and you don't have to watch any nightmare-inducing, Alec Baldwin-narrated videos on the state of the meat industry. Just pick one day, and skip the meat. Order the Eggplant Parm instead of the Chicken Parm. Get a salad for lunch; try out a new recipe for dinner. It really is easy, and I promise that you will not starve or waste away to nothing or suffer some horrible disease brought on by third-world level protein deficiency. All you that will happen is you will begin to reduce your footprint in a quantifiable way.

This blogger posts his adventures in what he calls "Occasional Vegetarianism." He has given up eating meat one day a week. Actually, that sounds like a punishment. Let's say this: for one day a week he is eating vegetarian meals. It's an opportunity to try new things, and that seems to me to be the best attitude to have.

So don't get down in the dumps about the things you cannot do. Nobody is perfect, and some people have to fly for business. But instead of feeling guilty about the things you can't do, concentrate on the things you can do. Take a few minutes to think about your habits, and identify the small steps that you can do.

All right, is that rah-rah enough for you? Good luck!