Committment and follow through

I've been thinking a lot about the word 'committment'. I am living without a car at the moment, and thus, I'm committed to riding the bus, walking or biking on warmer days. This is sort of a forced committment to be auto-free for a while. Overall, it's great. Too often I meet people who really care about the earth, are worried about climate change, and yet don't seem to connect their everyday actions (driving everywhere) to their values (care for earth/support reducing greenhouse gas emissions.)

A friend on facebook a few months back posted a saying (by whom I can't recall), which basically said 'within committment there is great freedom.' I know this to be true. Homeownership requires a major committment, but in that is a wonderful freedom to have my own garden, and create my own space in the way that I want.

Committment helps set boundaries. I think we are so overloaded with technology, access and choices that too many people either avoid committment or they over-committ and then don't succeed at anything.

Right now, one of my committments is living car-free for a while. Within that, my life has slowed down. I am spending more time at home focusing on projects I've wanted to get to for months. And, I'm designing other goals, like exercise regularly, into my regular 'commute' regime.

One of my other committments is also following through. Even here on my blog - by following through with updates on events or things I post.

So - How was the Sustainable Saratoga meeting you ask? Great! One of the best potluck's I've been to in a long time. Something about breaking bread with other people creates an openness and willingness for people to connect and share. And that's what seemed to happen. We followed the potluck by watching a film I use in my Global Climate Change course called 'Recipes for Disaster'.

The film 'Recipes for Disaster' is hardly as ominous as it's title. It's a funny, engaging, interesting documentary following the life of a Finnish family that goes on an oil-diet for a year. It's great to watch the parents and two young kids give up driving and things like plastic wrap and toothpaste. And it shows how deeply reliant we are on oil - whether in household products made from oil byproducts (ie. plastics), or to gas up our cars, boats, trains and yes, buses.

At one point the young sons are talking about 'what would Christmas be like without plastic'. It just wouldn't be Christmas. But in the end the father (who produced the film), shows how much greenhouse gas emissions the family saved in one year (52%). ( to calculate your own greenhouse gas emissions click here.)

And so I ask you, what can you commit to? Are you willing to 'walk the talk'?

I was reminded of this saying a few months back at Jeff Olson's talk at Skidmore on 'The Future is Riding Bicycles'. I ran into Jeff, a local resident who works in transportation and community planning, a few weeks ago and told him what a great reminder it was for me - and he said, 'yeah, one day a week - if people got out of their cars one day a week that would be great.'

So - if you want to help minimize climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions - is there something you'd be willing to commit to?

Could you go one day a week without driving your car? Convert your household bulbs to CFL's? Plan and grow a garden? Switch to 'green' energy?

There are so many things we could all do. It just requires... committment and follow through :) Let me know how you do!