Yesterday, I reported on my not so green moment, when I chose to drive instead of riding my bike. And I went through the meditative exercise of retracing my thoughts during those decisive seconds. Buried in that bag of thoughts, are some personal truths about why my actions do not match my green thoughts and promises. Today I want to reopen the bag and look at each random thought for insights:
‘Laziness. Priorities. A drop in the invisible cloud of CO2. It won’t make a difference. I am having so much fun, don’t want to be bothered. Habit. Comfort. Convenience. How bad is it anyway, to drive such short distance once or twice a day? It can’t hurt that much. Effort, I don’t want to make the effort. The weather wasn’t even that nice. My time is precious. The extra time spent biking, I can use doing other ‘more productive’, more important things, such as working on green projects. Nothing is going to happen if I drive instead of biking. No consequences. I don’t have the discipline. What’s in it for me? The car, so fast, such a proven entity. I can zip in and out of places. I know, I should bike. But it’s such a small thing. Today, I can ’sin’, only once, maybe twice. I will get it right some other time. Ah! the immediate pleasure of blogging away, versus the higher satisfaction of a clean conscience. Big, instant pleasure over small dent in my green conscience. Pleasure wins. I can’t even see that CO2 anyway. It’s invisible. A crime without the evidence to prove it. Everybody else is driving anyway, or almost everyone. I am too wrapped up into the moment. The present supersedes any hypothetical concerns about the consequence of my small actions for the whole planet, myself included. There are two issues. The lack of immediate consequence for my action. And the dilution of personal responsibility, the big pot problem.’
Here is the list of 16 psychological barriers that are a part of me, and I dare to make the leap, most of my fellow human beings as well:
- I am inherently lazy, and will opt for what is the easiest, most convenient solution.
- Becoming green is only one of many personal priorities, behind others such as work, family, and social obligations.
- Behavior change is made up of many many small actions. Taken separately, each action feels ridiculously small and insignificant.
- When I pollute the air with my car, there is not physical evidence for me to see, and experience directly.
- I am a pleasure driven creature. It is hard to sacrifice immediate pleasure for a higher future benefit.
- I am a creature of habit, and I don’t like change.
- I do not like to sacrifice my comfort.
- I am already pressed for time, and am not willing to trade off some of my current activities for greening efforts.
- I am constantly comparing the personal rewards from my various activities, and will choose the ones that bring highest rewards.
- If there are no direct negative consequences to my actions, I will continue to engage in the same behavior.
- If there are no direct positive rewards to my actions, I have little incentive to engage in those actions.
- I do not have the personal discipline to be green.
- I console myself with the idea, that tomorrow I will take action, just not today.
- Most of the clues I get from the outside world are not helping, and only reinforces my existing habits.
- I tend to live in the present, and have a hard time adjusting my behavior to accommodate future imperatives.
- The emissions I generate get lost in the big pot called Global Warming. Gone, without my name written on them. Anonymous.
See, how much can be learned from just looking inside! I invite you all to go through the same exercise. Next time you find yourself wavering in your green-ness. Stop and sit with your thoughts. Write them down, and mine them for your own insights, just as I did here. From that newly gained consciousness, I guarantee you, a new behavior will emerge soon. It is also important to share what you find, as it will help take the global warming debate to a deeper level.
La Marguerite 
This is a very good list. You’ve got a lot of self knowledge. I hope you don’t see these barriers as something fixed, but as things to break down. Maybe you can use some of my suggestions.
“I am constantly comparing the personal rewards from my various activities, and will choose the ones that bring highest rewards.”
Are you sure about that? Maybe you’d feel better if you’d choose the things that would be best for the world, or nearer to you, your loved ones. I found that focusing on personal rewards is counter-intuitively less rewarding then focusing on others.
“If there are no direct positive rewards to my actions, I have little incentive to engage in those actions.”
You should try to be green not from guilt, but from a positive act of love. Loving other people feels good. Try to connect your behavior to people you care about. Each choice you make is affecting them, if only through lost opportunity. Try to feel your actions as acts of love.
In general, change “I have to” to “I want to”. Of-course the ‘want’ must be based on a primary emotion, and when your true physiological needs are satisfied (food,safety,shelter) the most powerful emotion is love.
Also, you must know that because of the fact your blogging about your struggles, if you’d show a positive development, you will truly be affecting lots of other people by inspiring them to do the same, and by providing an example of how to do it.
A final remark:
As you as you put love in the equation, you need to consider your whole life. It could very well be that time spent on your day job (I don’t know what it is) could be better spent doing something else. Even looking for a new career might be a better use of your energy at this moment in time than changing even more of your consumption habits. Regarding your comsumption habits, I think you’re way ahead of most people. You need to consider decreasing marginal returns in each area of focus. Maybe calling your mom or a long lost friend would do better for the world at this time (just a wild guess).
That was/is a very brave, open, and honest appraisal. Kudos.
And it is very inclusive, covers most everything. Certainly anyone reading it must think, “s***, this is me too . . .”
The difficult thing, and the thing that is never discussed — it is much too radical to really discuss– it doesn’t matter what we do any more, individually or in large groups. The issues left unsaid are the growing global population and the exportaion of western style consumerism to the rest of the world.
In 2006 over 21 million new cars were sold to first time car buyers in China, India, and Eastern Europe. If we got rid of 21 million cars in America we would just break even.
India is on an air-conditioning rampage and has no restrictions on the types of refrigerants used.
NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY wants to do a carbon impact study on pets (cats and dogs) — a multi-billion dollar industry that could have more carbon impact than cars. How many folks take their dog for a ride to the beach so the dog can have a run while the owner sits on the sand? NOBODY wants to go there with those kinds of questions.
If we do not make a major global push to slowing down and even reversing the population numbers we can not control the environmental impacts. Talk to any rancher, they will tell you how many animals they can keep on a given piece of acreage — they know if they exceed that, the acreage will be damaged and the animals stunted and sick. That is where we are with global population — and this growing population is using more and more stuff, and the global conglomerates all see this as a good thing. It is all about growth, growth, growth . . . bigger, bigger, bigger . . . more, more, more.
So I really do appreciate your honest evaluation of your own motives and thougts in doing or not doing what you do. But you, and individuals like you, are rare and uncommon when compared to the expanding numbers of the numb and unknowing. I know that you will continue to do the best you can in the situations and circumstances you find yourself, and will I and thousands of others . . . even many thousands, maybe even a few million, but we can never catch up to the immense damage being done by the billions of others who just go about their business and their lives lemming-like searching for “happiness” in their next acquisition.
The one consideration that most do not recognize is that the environment is truly an almost closed system — there is only one external input, solar radiation. The eco-system will take care of itself, there will come a “tipping point” where the sum of our negative impacts will propel the eco system into some kind of catayclismic spiral that will result in a multi-billion person die off. Nobody wants this to happen, but we have our heads so far buried in the sand that even to talk about it incurs anger and name calling.
Well, you keep refining your impacts. And I will continue to invent and innovate and manufacture as low key as I can. And a host of others will be working with us — but I believe all we may do is pass on a worsening situation to a generation perhaps even less equipped to cope.
Ach, even of all that — best wishes for a joy filled holiday season.
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I am inherently lazy, and will opt for what is the easiest, most convenient solution.
Me, too. It’s easier for me at home to put on a jumper and have a warm drink than to pay for the installation of a heater/aircon, which would require a lot of paid work.
Becoming green is only one of many personal priorities, behind others such as work, family, and social obligations.
I don’t think they’re either/or priorities. I don’t see that growing some of my own food, turning off appliances when not in use, having wind-sourced electricity, etc at all harm my work, family and social life.
Behavior change is made up of many many small actions. Taken separately, each action feels ridiculously small and insignificant.
I think of it as like “good manners.” Each opening the door for someone carrying heavy bags, each standing for a pergnant woman on the bus, each “please” or “thankyou” or “you look nice today in that dress” is by itself ridiculously small and insignificant. But they add up to make a pleasant and courteous day-to-day life.
When I pollute the air with my car, there is not physical evidence for me to see, and experience directly.
You mustn’t have a very strong sense of smell. I can smell car exhausts, and often see them out of trucks or bady-tuned cars.
I am a pleasure driven creature. It is hard to sacrifice immediate pleasure for a higher future benefit.
That’s a matter of what you get pleasure from. We just had a salad lunch, using lettuce I’d grown. It had a stronger taste and better texture than that from the supermarket, and being to put food on the table I’d grown from seed also gave me pleasure. I also get pleasure from lower power bills, from feeing vigorous and energetic because I’m fit from walking rather than driving, and so on.
I am a creature of habit, and I don’t like change.
New habits are quickly made. I remember old Thoreau talking about his house in the woods, saying he hadn’t been there even a week when his steps had worn a path from his door to the lake.
I do not like to sacrifice my comfort.
In what way do you have to sacrifice your comfort? Is a jumper and hot drink more comfortable than gas central heating? Is biking along less comfortable than sitting in traffic? Is a small old tv less comfortable to watch than a giant plasma screen?
I am already pressed for time, and am not willing to trade off some of my current activities for greening efforts.
Are you pressed for “time” or for “effort”? Lots of people say, “I have no time.”
“Could you go down to the shops, we need some milk.”
“I’m busy, I have no time.”
“We won $10,000 in the lottery, could you go down to the shops and pick it up?”
“Sure!”
We make time for things which are important to us. The average Aussie watches two hours of tv a day, and when researchers asked people to record their emotions when watching tv, the most common emotion was “mild depression.” If we’ve two hours a day to be mildly depressed for “entertainment”, I think we can bear to (say) hang the clothes out to dry instead of putting them in the dryer.
I am constantly comparing the personal rewards from my various activities, and will choose the ones that bring highest rewards.
As you should. As I noted above, it’s just a matter of what you find rewarding.
If there are no direct negative consequences to my actions, I will continue to engage in the same behavior.
Most people are bound by things other than that. If I’m walking down the street and tell someone “get the fuck out of my way,” or if I abuse wait staff in a restaurant, or run a red light, ninety-nine times out of a hundred there’ll be no direct negative consequences to my actions; but I still don’t do it. We’re bound by what we feel is right and proper to do or not do, regardless of whether there are direct negative consequences to it or not.
We just need to change our own sense of what’s right and wrong to include greenie stuff.
If there are no direct positive rewards to my actions, I have little incentive to engage in those actions.
Again, it depends on what you consider a positive reward. Saving money, getting fitter and healthier (very important in a country without socialised healthcare!), knowing that you have “green good manners” and so on – these are direct personal rewards, if you consider them such.
I do not have the personal discipline to be green.
And some people don’t have the personal discipline to go to work every day, or stay faithful to their spouses, but we don’t let them off that easy 🙂 Just stick to it.
I console myself with the idea, that tomorrow I will take action, just not today.
Tomorrow never comes. We have only today. “Tomorrow I won’t screw around on my wife.” Yeah, sure 🙂
Most of the clues I get from the outside world are not helping, and only reinforces my existing habits.
We do need a kind of integrity, which is at the same time a kind of indifference to the world. It’s the kind of strength white people had who treated black people with respect in the days of segregation in the US, South Africa or Zimbabwe. “Sure, not everyone else is doing it, and every day I get messages to do things differently, but I’m right and they’re wrong.” You need to be a bit of a bastard, to be able to say, “screw you all, this is what I want to do.”
I tend to live in the present, and have a hard time adjusting my behavior to accommodate future imperatives.
Again, this is something like good manners, or saving some of your wages for the future. There’s no immediate benefit, but you just feel it’s the right thing to do.
The emissions I generate get lost in the big pot called Global Warming. Gone, without my name written on them. Anonymous.
And I could anonymously rip up the tyres of every car on the street, crap on their lawns, and steal their mail. Who’d know? In the big scheme of things, who’d notice? Well… I’d know.
Meryn, Doyle, Kyle,
Thank you so much for all your thoughtful comments. And for your very different perspectives. You are making the discussion so much richer.
Doyle,
I agree about the pet problem. I have thought about that as well, and may actually write an article about the subject. As you may have noticed, I kind of enjoy a bit of controversy once in a while . . .
Regarding the overpopulation situation, again, I could not agree more. I have written about the topic before. As you alluded to, this is another big elephant in the climate change debate, although getting less so. Andrew Revkin, at DotEarth has done a great job of pushing the issue.
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