How to decarbonize your life.

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Queequeg
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by Queequeg »

seeker242 wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:58 pm have one less child
I would have liked to have 4. We had 2. I did twice as good!
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
shoe
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by shoe »

Genjo Conan wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:58 pm
1) the most impactful thing you can do, IMO, is get active in local/statewide politics. Denser housing, better public transportation, food co-ops, more green space, community gardens, local gas bans, greener generation portfolios, right-to-repair laws, etc., are all far bigger deals than anything you can do personally. But, this is often frustrating, and takes time.
This! Being active at the city level is among the fastest things you could do. Last year my city asked for feedback for infrastructure to plan out over the next 25 years. They were taking feedback from residence online and it only took me 15 minutes. I asked for more mixed use neighborhoods so people would walk around and bike more instead of driving. This planning session, a few thousand responded. The loudest feedback was to do something to make the city more biking and walking friendly. Most people actually hate driving to run basic errands. Things are changing, say something when you can.
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by Kim O'Hara »

shoe wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 7:24 pm
Genjo Conan wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:58 pm
1) the most impactful thing you can do, IMO, is get active in local/statewide politics. Denser housing, better public transportation, food co-ops, more green space, community gardens, local gas bans, greener generation portfolios, right-to-repair laws, etc., are all far bigger deals than anything you can do personally. But, this is often frustrating, and takes time.
This! Being active at the city level is among the fastest things you could do. Last year my city asked for feedback for infrastructure to plan out over the next 25 years. They were taking feedback from residence online and it only took me 15 minutes. I asked for more mixed use neighborhoods so people would walk around and bike more instead of driving. This planning session, a few thousand responded. The loudest feedback was to do something to make the city more biking and walking friendly. Most people actually hate driving to run basic errands. Things are changing, say something when you can.
:twothumbsup:
In both the USA and Australia, local communities are taking the initiative in spite of (or because of) federal, and sometimes state, government inertia. We're seeing good action at local council level, and even at levels below that like neighbourhood gardens.
And the smaller the community, the louder your voice is. :smile:

A separate quasi-political arena is the business community. Groups like Market Forces https://www.marketforces.org.au are pushing (very successfully) for companies, banks, universities and superannuation funds to disinvest from fossil fuels.
And I have to say that the business community in general is also way ahead of our federal government, which is great.

:namaste:
Kim
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Queequeg
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by Queequeg »

Thanks all. Please keep it coming. Feeling encouraged.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Still thinking about the issue, I came across this article - https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-foo ... aign-sham/.

It's worth reading in full but here are a couple of key points for time-poor folks.
British Petroleum, the second largest non-state owned oil company in the world, with 18,700 gas and service stations worldwide, hired the public relations professionals Ogilvy & Mather to promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals.
It’s here that British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint" in the early aughts. The company unveiled its “carbon footprint calculator” in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life — going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling — is largely responsible for heating the globe. A decade and a half later, “carbon footprint” is everywhere. ...
“This is one of the most successful, deceptive PR campaigns maybe ever,” said Benjamin Franta, who researches law and history of science as a J.D.-Ph.D. student at Stanford Law School.
Of course, no one should be shamed for declaring an intention to “reduce their carbon footprint.” That’s because BP’s advertising campaign proved brilliant. The oil giant infused the term into our normal, everyday lexicon. (And the sentiment is not totally wrong — some personal efforts to strive for a cleaner world do matter.) ...

BP sought to explain what a carbon footprint is “in a way which assigns responsibility for climate impact to the individual, while BP registers its own concerns by appearing already to be doing something about it.”
Yet in a society largely powered by fossil fuels, even someone without a car, home, or job will still carry a sizable carbon footprint. A few years after BP began promoting the “carbon footprint,” MIT researchers calculated the carbon emissions for “a homeless person who ate in soup kitchens and slept in homeless shelters" in the U.S. That destitute individual will still indirectly emit some 8.5 tons of carbon dioxide each year.
“Even a homeless person living in a fossil fuel powered society has an unsustainably high carbon footprint,” said Stanford’s Franta. “As long as fossil fuels are the basis for the energy system, you could never have a sustainable carbon footprint. You simply can’t do it.”
Rewriting the narrative
The term “carbon footprint” isn’t going anywhere. “I think it would be hard to undo that phrase or to change it,” said Jennifer Marlon, a researcher at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Some people certainly might want to jettison the term. “I apply the general rule of thumb that climate advocates shouldn't amplify fossil fuel industry propaganda,” said Harvard University’s Supran. Rather than perpetuating “carbon footprint,” Supran suggested instead “fossil fuel emissions,” “fossil fuel pollution,” or “fossil fuel footprint.”
But because the phrase is here to stay, climate communication researchers emphasize that the meaning behind “carbon footprint” can be expanded, far beyond what BP wants it to mean. Lowering your carbon footprint should include being an engaged citizen who recognizes how to actually curb the planet’s warming, explained Hassol.
:reading:
Kim
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kirtu
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by kirtu »

“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

"Only you can make your mind beautiful."
HH Chetsang Rinpoche
narhwal90
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by narhwal90 »

By user request moved a series of posts to the "Reversing Global Warming" thread

https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.p ... 53#p577053

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Kim O'Hara
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Thanks for the suggestions, Kirt.
The second of these is still dated 2008, actually. None of them did much for me, I'm afraid. They are all getting old, and Siegel's "carbs" are needless and potentially confusing.
The 35 Easiest Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint, Earth Institute, Columbia University

How do we decarbonize?, Medium.com
Much better! :twothumbsup:
The first of them is almost what Qq asked for in his OP - short, simple, reliable and user-friendly.

:namaste:
Kim
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: How to decarbonize your life.

Post by Kim O'Hara »

This was posted in a new thread - https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=36400 - but it's also an answer to the OP of this thread:
Please join us in committing to environmental action by filling out the brief form below, selecting the actions you will take this year. Each of our commitments, however small, merges into a roaring river of change as the International Sangha joins HH Drikung Chetsang’s call to action.
:reading: https://vajradakininunnery.org/a-year-o ... the-earth/

:namaste:
Kim
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