In 2014 I want to live differently. Instead of a traditional New Year's Resolution to lose weight or whatever, I want to start taking the environment seriously and make effective, long term changes to my habits and behaviour to reduce my contribution to environmental damage. That is, I want to lose some carbon and keep it off!
I am sure that this year, as every year, the newspapers will be full of stories about New Year's Resolutions that apparently most people only manage to keep theirs for about a fortnight. But last year we tried something different in my workplace: the 'Change One Thing' campaign encouraged people to make just ONE change that they can sustain.
Importantly, we started with measuring a baseline (we even had a pharmacist come to visit to measure blood pressure etc and offer advice to people), then pledged one thing we would change over the first 6 weeks of the year and shared that with other people to be accountable. And it worked! Although the official campaign lasted 6 weeks, I know several people who have changed their habits permanently.
So, this year I will try to learn from that experience. Each month I pledge to take ONE action to change my habits and reduce my personal carbon impact. For January, this means measuring my current carbon footprint so I can target the rest of the year! This blog is one way to share my journey and be accountable, so suggestions and ideas are very welcome!
However, we are not just individuals (whatever Maggie Thatcher may have claimed) and I depend on thousands of other people every day to provide the food I eat, the water and power that I use and the transport infrastructure to get around. So I will also take one action each month to influence the society I live in to reduce the carbon which (eg by writing a letter or other forms of campaigning) and through my work as an engineer on the railways.
Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be that much awareness of environmental issues on the railway network, other than the obvious one of encouraging people to take the train instead of driving. My projects at the moment are all about making significant improvements such as electrification and reducing journey times, but I wonder what else I can do? So my first few months will be taken up with learning more and then (hopefully) finding ways to apply them. Should be an interesting year!
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