What You Can Do Now

This list is part of the book The Future We Choose, by Tom Rivett-Carnac and Christiana Figueres.

What You Can Do Now

Right Now

• Take a deep breath and decide that collectively we can do this, and that you will play your part. You will be a hopeful visionary for humanity through these dark days. From this moment, despair ends and tactics begin.
• Decide that you will be part of the politics of the future. You will vote for, campaign for, and support candidates who champion emissions reductions. Reject the politics of nostalgia. For the next ten years, this will be your number-one political priority.
• Commit to reducing your impact on the climate by more than half of what it is today by 2030. Aim for 60 per cent. Just because right now you don’t know how you will do so does not need to stop you. We are all learning.

Today or Tomorrow

• Determine where your principal elected officials stand on climate change; write to them about your commitments, and let them know. Tell them you are watching.
• Choose at least one day of the week to go meat-free, and decide how soon you will add more days to that commitment.
• Think big. How do you most impact climate change, and what big things can you do to effect a regenerative future?
• Tell others about your commitments, in person or on social media. Don’t be shy! Invite others to follow suit. Your example will motivate them.

This Week

• Share your personal plan to reduce emissions by more than half with your partner, kids and friends, and invite them to do so as well. Preserving the future of all life should be joyful. Have fun with it.
• Take some actions and stick to them over time – it will give you momentum. Reduce daily energy use, bike instead of driving a car, switch your energy supplier to 100 per cent clean. It’s all good and all needs doing. Consider what else you can do, while remembering there is still much to be done.
• Go outside and look around. This world is damaged and hurting, but it is also beautiful and intact and whole. Pay attention to something you have forgotten – emerging leaves in the spring or frost on dead leaves in winter. Feel the gratitude we owe the Earth for her bounty and beauty.

This Month

• Find out who in your vicinity is organising political action involving climate change. Attend meetings and meet the concerned citizens. Go to demonstrations and marches! Allow yourself to be inspired by the miracle of committed groups intent on changing the world.
• Start a conversation with someone who is not active on climate change with a view towards understanding their stance and gently enlarging their awareness of the crisis from their perspective.
• Enact your commitments: What precisely will you do this year? How will it affect you and your family? How will you begin to apply the changes you plan to make?
• Challenge your consumerism. Look at what you have bought, and ask yourself whether it brings you joy. Question your impulses to buy more, and begin to see how liberating it is to buy less.
• Start a mindfulness practice, perhaps a breathing exercise of gratitude. Do it every day, if only for a few minutes. Learn to create a gap of light between yourself, the world and your reactions.
• Plant trees. As many as you can. Look for a local group doing tree planting. Get out there when you can, and when you can’t, support others to do so.
• Understand your privilege in relation to others, and commit to helping level the playing field for all.

This Year

• Be political in your daily life. Seek collective opportunities to advance the cause of emissions reductions. It will inspire you and help you feel you are part of a shared endeavour. Engage regularly in direct action if that is possible where you live. VOTE!
• Be consistent. You may have changed your electricity supply to 100 per cent renewable energy, rethought your commute, changed your air travel habits and altered your diet. If you can sustain your effort for the first year, you stand a good chance of doing so every year. Recognise your accomplishment.

By 2030

• Deliver on your plan to cut your emissions by more than half. Celebrate your achievement.
• Finance others to plant more trees as a symbol of the fact that you still have some way to go. Trees are good, and the world needs more of them.
• Ensure you have voted in line with these priorities in national and regional elections and been vocal about the fact that you have done so.
• Continue to practise the other new habits you have developed.
• Encourage those closest to you – family, friends, loved ones – to be climate conscious.
• Start the plan to reduce your emissions again by more than half over the next decade.

Before 2050

• Be at net-zero emissions, having been part of the generation that chose a better future for all of us.