Achilles' Heel: Our "Eco-Weak Spot"

This is a line we’ve either heard, told someone else, or grumbled to ourselves;

“I would be more eco-friendly, but it’s so inconvenient, and sometimes it’s annoying. I mean, people are always telling me to ‘Turn of the lights!’ or ‘get out of the shower…’”

Or:

“I really am a good person, but sometimes those little things are hard to give up, and you are asking too much.”

Sound familiar? Well, if you’re reading this blog, you’ve probably heard the line from someone else, but then the question is, how do you reply? At an ECO fireside last week, someone asked this question and no one was quite sure how to respond. With some retrospect, I know two ways we could have responded. These suggestions can help anyone trying to spread awareness of behavioral impact on the environment.

When this argument reoccurs in the future:

1- Validate what they are saying, because although it is not in keeping with how you feel, they are being sincere. It’s true: oftentimes there are “little things” that, while not eco-friendly, are very comforting and difficult to give up. For instance, some people will always leave the lights on because they hate walking into a dark room. And if we do try to scale-back on such a habit, they will simply feel resentful and won’t make other important changes.

However, this does not mean that we have to abandon economy completely. There are two positive approaches;

Ø First, that we can make this habit less wasteful in ways that will not even affect us; in fact, they may benefit us! Try changing the lightbulbs to CFL (compact fluorescent lights). With this simple change, we will be expending about 1/5^th of the energy as before, in addition to saving money on electric use and replacement lightbulbs (CFL’s last about 10x longer than an incandescent bulb).

Ø Second, try finding another area of our life that is also wasteful—but easier to change. Perhaps we leave the lights and the air conditioning on when we go out. If this is the case, try just turning off the air (or at least bringing it closer to room temperature so that it is not so wasteful). A different tactic would be to try serving ourselves with less food that won’t get eaten, or cutting back on meat-consumption. Although this activity seems unrelated, it is another way of reducing global CO2 output. No one said being eco-friendly was easy, but if we pick our battles, it is not excruciatingly difficult.

2- Recognize these habits for what they are…Habits! As the adage goes, “It takes 30 days to change a habit.” So what if we just tried to fix these habits for one month? Perhaps by only keeping half the houselights on, or turning off the AC when we leave for work in the morning, we coud create a new, positive habit. Whatever we choose, after a couple days or weeks, this Achilles' heel won’t be such a weak spot. We will feel proud of ourseves for making a contribution (and will enjoy the $ savings!). In fact, it might become second nature.

What are we waiting for? These approachable, incremental changes can set the tone for a more eco-friendly way of living.