35. What We Truly Burn For

Nature :: Spirit — Kinship in a living world

With climate change scientist Kimberly Nicholas, and her book, Under the Sky We Make, as our guide, we talk today about how to cut carbon emissions at home. Ordinary Americans have more power than we think! Most Americans belong to the top 10 percent of income earners in the world—the ones burning most of the carbon so the ones who can stop most of it too. How do we stop burning fossil fuels? By, as Kim suggests, living close to “what we truly burn for.” Can we learn to say yes to our genuine needs and our most deeply held values—and only to those? What might it look like to choose “what we truly burn for” when it comes to climate? From Kim we learn three choices that will reduce emissions the fastest: going plane free, car free, and meat free. So when I applied my deepest values and needs to these three climate actions, what did I discover? For one thing, that contemplating changes can be scary! But as Kim writes, we don’t have to be perfect, we just have to be brave. So here’s to being brave together and cutting our own household emissions as fast as we can. And maybe, just maybe, life gets easier when we do.

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