Daily living

Being early can make it easier - you'll not only avoid having to catch taxis, driving your car, or wishing you still had a car; as a side-benefit, you' might also be a lot more relaxed. Taking a good book or an e-book might give you more motive to leave early, and have time to read on the train and also when you arrive early.

Planning meals ahead of time can help avoid the temptation to purchase prepared foods and take advantage of fresh, local food that is in season.

Try to show that it is very economical and also saving time to live more green. For example most people will hesitate to purchase expensive low-energy-light-bulbs, because they are more expensive to buy. But prove to them that it is much longer lifetime of the bulb and results in lower electric bill and makes a small profit over a long time. Larger investments like insulating the walls or putting in 3-glaze-windows of your house is also very expensive but can pay off. Doing the financial calculations on the different options can help you find the most economical and effective choices [1].

Influencing others

You should be a good role model to your relatives, friends, coworkers by showing good examples on how they easily can change. But do not try to persuade or force anyone to change, it will sometimes cause a backlash, and they will not respect you and your ideas. Being hardcore and extreme about living green will sometimes make them into sceptic opponents and it will be impossible to discuss about the core principles. Also debates like this takes the focus from the important tasks to talk about.

If your way of living shows how little effort it is to change methods and ways of life, that it is not necessary to "go back and live in a cave without any amenities," this can lower resistance. Inspire others with your examples. If you share ideas, try to talk about one new small thing that is easy for anyone to change per week (or per month), and one major thing to change per month (or per 6 months) - slow change is usually longer-lasting.

Medium term decisions

  • Support a local car-share program that uses highly fuel efficient vehicles.
  • Use your car less, and consider selling it
  • Work with your community officials, attend city council meetings and become involved in your local government in order to influence decision making
  • Help to educate community leaders about the benefits of creating "walkable" and "bicycle-friendly" cities and towns

Major decisions

  • Live close to public transport and good bike routes so you get plenty options on commuting and shopping.
  • Consumers have a lot of power if they go together and make mass campaigning:
  • Contact your energy company and tell them you would like to get only electricity from renewable wind-, solar-, hydro-, wave- power, and that they should stop using coal-power-plants.
  • Contact your local garbage collecting company and the local council and tell them about centralized composting projects (like the one in Gävle, Sweden [2]), they can collect food waste in separate bins and out of that create soil, and sell it back to consumers. The more we can sort out and put in different recycling schemes the less amount of trash is ending up in landfills.
  • And try to influence other people in your city/country to do the same.

Notes

See also

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