Make a commitment to good environmental choices

Sign the petitions to cut climate-changing pollutants, attend the rallies, get exercised about the fate of the Earth. Today is Step It Up day, with a couple dozen rallies around Maine and hundreds nationally to demand action in Congress. But while you Step It Up, you might also Try It Out to get a feel for what you’re demanding.

The Step It Up campaign is simple: By 2050, the United States will cut its carbon-based energy use by 80 percent. It’s also immensely complicated: What heats your house? Where are your clothes from? You are an unintentional global trader in a market that runs on fossil fuels.

How are you going to get to work or to school? How will you get to the grocery store to pick up the plastic-encased quart of strawberries from California? You may say, virtuously, that you will get them in your Prius, in which your neighbor will car pool on her way to the carbon-offset store, but you know, if you are anything like 99 percent of us, that your days are filled with endless comforts that have helped raise average global temperatures.

I remember a Cold War truism: The only thing that would bring all of us together, friendly and hostile nations alike, was a threat from outer space. Now it’s here, only it’s inner space and, instead of alien invasion, it is humankind’s sustained gassy belch from a century of pleasurable feasting at the planet’s table.

Congress should act; the president should act. They should establish standards, incentives, investments and tough rules to move this nation away from the fossil-fuel economy that has taken us this far. This week’s Time magazine has a handy section on what works to reduce climate-change emissions, and, as you might guess, the action leans heavily on governmental decisions: carbon cap-and-trade, sequestration, a carbon tax, green building design standards.

Before members of Congress risk acting on these, however, they will test – do you really want these things? Even if the economy must change, sometimes painfully? Even if there are new taxes involved? They will want to know how committed you are to a new course, and more than your petitions to them, they will want to see you act first. That is the nature of political leadership.

Fortunately, there’s plenty you can do that, while having a small environmental impact, matters for the unambiguous message it sends. Start, for example, with knowing your footprint – the amount of land you require to serve the way you currently live. There’s a simple way to estimate it at myfootprint.org. Answer the 15 or so questions (there’s an in-depth questionnaire under the site’s FAQs). If you’re not a good 25 percent below the national average, you’re a serious part of the problem.

The Union of Concerned Scientists’ book “A Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices” says forget worrying about whether you use Styrofoam cups, your kids are in cloth or disposable diapers and your clothes are cotton or polyester. Those aren’t what counts when piling up pollution.

Instead, it hits the biggies – buy a house close to work; think twice about that second car – that set fine long-term strategies but don’t do much for immediate payback.

Try something simpler: Plan your errands for the next week and combine as many trips as you can on an efficient route. (Delivery companies, where profits depend on this, have extensive computer programs to help them; you might use your brain and a map as effectively.) The more you can cut your mileage, the more your vehicle becomes the equivalent of an enviro-car.

Eat less red meat. Meat consumption doesn’t sound like a climate-change problem, but to produce the same nutritional value from meat as from grains takes about 3.4 times the greenhouse gases; for poultry, it’s about 1.4 times. Buy food locally and reduce the need for shipping. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (mofga.org) can help you find sources.

Keep buying those compact fluorescent light bulbs. With the rebates being offered, even if you hate the environment they’re a great deal. And no person can use a clothes dryer year-round and be an environmentalist. Get a clothesline. With global warming here, it will work faster than ever.

You won’t solve the climate-change problem with these or any of a dozen more steps, but by acting now you will demonstrate your seriousness about the issue. The point is to make an environmental commitment, even if that means accepting a little inconvenience. Then contact the politicians – and just think of all the persuasive anecdotes you’ll have to make your point.

Todd Benoit is the editorial page editor of the Bangor Daily News. Readers may contact him at tbenoit@bangordailynews.net.