Wasting Climate Influence Is As Bad As Wasting Food
Seriously. Do your part. Share your joy.
We’ve all read the stats - how food waste contributes hugely to climate change. In fact, we probably avert our eyes, because we do not like feeling convicted. Ugh. No matter how hard I try, I know I am wasting food. But, like a lot else, once you dial it in, you see how figuring out a plan, and just looking at your meal making strategies a wee’ bit more closely gets you engaged. Once you start, you keep nudging yourself to try a few new things. Maybe composting. Maybe more batch cooking. Who knows?
To wit: I came across a way to make banana peel into plant fertilizer on Instagram. It makes me feel so good to get that extra use before I compost it!
In the same way - you knew this was coming, right? - we are all guilty of massive climate influence waste.
No matter how “small” your network or platform, you do hold a key to influencing your friends, neighbors AND, most importantly, your professional networks. If there were a way to calculate the wasted moments, the perfectly-positioned conversations or the ways you could drop a phrase into a speaking gig or other public moment, we’d all be horrified at how our own waste adds up.
The untapped opportunities exist in how you converted a few of your short trips to eBike and just, flat out, love it - but you have not expressed joy about that in any business meeting.
The opportunities also exist in your own awareness and nudging to veer your household plant-based for a meal or two, or more. What you’ve already realized is that such a shift can TOTALLY be done, but you remain shy about dropping this into your conversations.
It’s the same with going EV. The same with trying to maybe take one less flight a year, etc.
Here’s the thing: my guess is you find joy in these little tweaks that you’ve made. (How can you not, if you now ride an eBike a bit, for one?) You are authentically enthusiastic. This is not some fake thing.
People call me an influencer and I own it. If you listen to my Living Change podcast, part of the beauty is that I ooh, aaah, cheer, elevate my voice with glee, and so on. I’ve heard from guests and listeners that they all go out and start researching ebikes and plant-based diets after they chat with me or listen.
All of that is to say - I am nothing special. I am a vocal, energized, enthusiastic human who has loved how these climate-acting tweaks to my life have only made it better.
IMAGINE if you all did that for both your personal practices and any business or policy decisions? Oh, to be authentically jazzed about the transportation emissions your company has reduced by moving to EV fleets or,… in a dream of mine…, an eCargoBike fleet for last mile delivery.
BE JAZZED! Express it. Enthuse about your own changing behavior when you feel it bubble up in you. I mean - why the heck not?
This is where we all can tap our own climate influence. It’s part of being a human. When it comes to climate action, we do not have time for you to stifle any real emotions about these shifts because you fear it is not “professional”. Ugh!
So, I call on you to love and appreciate when your own enthusiasm bubbles up. That is truly how you impact friends, family and peers.
And, the way you share on social media or what you choose to mention in blog posts or on podcast interviews, and so on, also makes a HUGE difference.
I’m out here finding, building and amplifying it in my advising work and through my podcast. Why not take charge and do YOU!
Let this next year be the year of owning and loving your own Climate Influence.
News To Use
RE: Transportation/travel emissions via Damian Carrington in The Guardian
The researchers also examined the impact of ski tourism on the climate and found artificial snowmaking contributed just 2% of overall emissions. Tourist flights to resorts and accommodation were the main causes of emissions.
For skiing, for business or political events, for music, for sports… When a few folks with a high level of corporate or political influence get intentional about traveling less (already a super privileged thing to imagine, I realize) - skiing near home rather than flying to Utah, seeing local music more instead of planning big trips to, let’s say Bristol ,UK, to see your favorite band (that may just be me), it can make a huge difference.
RE: Meat-eating and emissions via Pallab Ghosh for BBC News
Having big UK meat-eaters cut some of it out of their diet would be like taking 8 million cars off the road.
That's just one of the findings of new research that scientists say gives the most reliable calculation yet of how what we eat impacts our planet.
What will it take for the climate impact of transitioning to a “less meat” food system (especially for global north) to become the hot topic it should be at global climate events and stages? The science is there, and has been for a very long time. (See Sentient Media to really dig in and learn, by the way.) It continues to be a third rail for influential voices because we’ve let it get political. Meanwhile, see my “we are wasting climate influence” article above. So many of you reading this could get louder in your own spaces and demand that food get it’s due in global climate settings.
RE: Turning errands into exercise (and climate action!) via Andrew Leonard in The New York Times
Three years later, I now know that giving up my car was the first step toward solving a lifelong struggle: maintaining consistent physical activity. What started as a necessity — I had no car, so I must bike — became a strategy: Errands are an opportunity for exercise.
This reframing turned out to be a motivational bonanza.
To be clear, I have not given up my car and I get why that is a lot to ask. BUT, the benefits of veering bike or eBike to do errands are outrageously positive. I’ve been biking for local transportation a huge percentage of the time for about 30 years (I talked about this for the Active Towns podcast earlier this summer.) and have never looked back. It’s hard to communicate the health and joy benefits, and that’s before you get to the emissions reduction facts.
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Reminder: I’ll be at Climate Week NYC in late September. If your event could use an experienced interviewer/moderator, please reach out. The skills I’ve built as the host of the Living Change climate leadership podcast translate well. Bonus, with my existing sustainability and climate-focused leadership audiences, I bring my well-established corporate sustainability and climate leader audiences along (especially via online and digital eyeballs). Set up a quick advisory call in the next week or so and I can also give you high-level advice on how to promote your events via social platforms.
Don’t miss: the Climify podcast interview with me. We had a great discussion, with some emphasis on my manifesto and theory of change (“name and fame” versus “name and shame” is a key point.)
Thanks *so much* for reading/sharing/subscribing. Please comment or message me with questions on building climate influence. I may cover your suggested topics in a future issue. In the meantime, feel free to follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram and T2 in the meantime (I also linger on “X”.)