Hello beautiful people,

Today is January 22, my name is Laura, and I’m starting this — Sustainability Diary — as I attempt to live as sustainably as possible for a person in the United States in 2024. Want to join me?

I’m excited about how this can unfold and imagining different experiments throughout the year.

A lot of the climate actions I / we will try we’ll be able to do while in our pajamas or at least learn about / research and then start to set in motion!

“But I’m Just One Person”

How many times have you hear this line? “But I’m Just One Person".

The entire world is made up of 8 billion Just One Persons and for those of us living in highly industrialized countries, we have more opportunities to pollute the world — (Y)Our air, (y)our water, our soil, our food — with our individual choices than do people in many other parts of the planet.

So, that means we also have an opportunity to do better, whenever possible, even if it’s a bit inconvenient or maybe a little more expensive to make sustainable choices and purchases.

There are a number of things you can do for “the planet” that are also fabulous for your own health and your wallet

By calling for conscious individual action to lead to collective action for the climate, I am in no way excusing the corporations that are responsible for the lion’s share of destruction.

Let’s just take a quick intermission and say:

Attention CEOS: Stop Polluting, Okay? Thanks! (#ceospot)

There is no excuse for them/that.

So if any you reading are shareholders or CEOs of the top 5 polluters: Vistra Energy, Southern Company, Duke Energy, Berkshire Hathaway, and American Electric Power (source: University of Massachusetts, Amherst), I’m politely requesting that you immediately cease pursuit and use of fossil fuels and urgently redirect your tremendous resources to climate change mitigation.

Fabulous. (Dusts off hands)

Now that that’s taken care of, let’s get back to us people.

The Time to Act is Now (ttan)

We have to start changing faster than the climate in order to slow climate change and avoid disaster.

I’m not a scientist but I’ve heard what almost all of them have to say on this issue and I’m good with trusting all of the world’s scientists on this, even if I don’t understand / can’t explain the science to you, or a 7 year old. I don’t know how to fix my bus if it breaks down, but that’s okay — there are people who can do that so I’ll leave that to them, just as I’ll leave the science to the scientists.

And the consensus is that individual actions matter.

So let’s do this!

I don’t know exactly where this will lead and I can’t wait until I’m an expert to start taking action in my own life and hoping that will make someone consider exploring a more sustainable approach to life.

Let’s Start Today!

Well I confess I’m already off to a negative start. I was thinking of doing Meatless Mondays this year and was successful! … For the first two weeks and then today I forgot and had some leftover hot chicken from the night before and failed my Meatless Monday quest on week 3! How ridiculous!

And you know what, I was even in the middle of writing this here blog post when I took a break and had that chicken. Damn.

That’s stupid but not a reason to give up… I’ll start again next week and even just thinking about Meatless Mondays has had me thinking about meat consumption differently this year.

Perfection is Not the Goal

Also “failing” early is kind of good because then I will get used to the idea that perfection is not the goal but to keep trying to do better.

I’m not going cold turkey on polluting.

So I'll keep starting over.

Most types of climate action are 'optional, in that there are almost no laws enforcing anything except the “get as much as you can while you can” mindset of the pillaging classes.

What are you doing to live more sustainably?

Discuss below!