When faced with problems as big as the climate crisis, it is easy to feel like anything we do is pointless. We can feel like we have very little influence over so much of what is happening, that it seems futile to try. Yet there is a long history of individual and collective human actions changing the course of history in so many ways.
Standing in the way of control?
It may sound obvious, but individual actions are rather, well, individual. How we approach this depends very much on a number of things, including our own personalities, our experiences, and our life circumstance. I like to turn to psychology to help explain these things. We all have a ‘locus of control‘ in our psychological make up, which determines to what degree we feel we can influence outcomes in the world. So, someone with a strong internal locus of control will believe that their actions make a difference to outcomes. Someone with a strong external locus of control will tend to feel that chance, luck, or other external powers play the main role. This is, of course, a spectrum, on which we all sit somewhere. And it will define how we feel about taking action about pretty much anything – including climate change.
Personal situations are different and decisive
Apart from this locus of control stuff, personal circumstances undoubtedly play a role in what you might be able to do to positively influence the outcomes of climate change. Some of us will be in a position to do a lot, some of us not so much. Much depends on what you are doing now. There is of course no point in telling the committed vegan to eat less meat, or the person with no car to drive less, although as general rules, these things are undoubtedly beneficial in reducing our climate impact.
So what can I do?
If the answer to this question lies primarily on where you sit on the locus of control spectrum, and is tied up with your own personal circumstances, then it can seem a little pointless to ask it! in view of all this, I will spare you the usual stuff about reducing flying, insulate your home, ditch the car, don’t eat meat, etc etc. Instead, what I would suggest is to complete the climate challenge calculator. That is because it will help you to see how close you are to the 3 tonne goal, and where in your daily life you are producing the most greenhouse gas. It essentially provides you with the starting point to develop a personalised plan. We all have things that we might struggle to give up, and maybe things that we could definitely do without. If you are struggling, drop me a line, and I will do all I can to help.