Create Your Own Offsets
Now that Live Earth is behind us, hopefully we will stop reading about how counter-productive the concert series was in terms of energy waste. Yes, a lot of carbon was burned in order to produce the massive shows and yes, that includes a lot of air travel. I personally think it's justified given that the concert focused some high-profile attention on a global problem in an effort to wake people up and (hopefully) start to get people interested and invested in doing something about climate change.
Still, Live Earth left me with the same feeling I had after watching An Inconvenient Truth: the feeling of not being sure what to do next. Several times I heard advice like: replace your lightbulbs or recycle more. The focus seemed to be on the easy, really small stuff. Come on, Cameron Diaz - that's not going to get it done.
The concerts may have been better served by unifying the experience in a slogan that people could digest and go home with. Something like "create your own offsets". Carbon offsets are pretty controversial because they are basically like the old Catholic indulgences, where the faithful could literally pay to have sins cleansed from their record. Today, the person who flies from New York to LA can purchase carbon offsets, leading to a global warming-free conscience.
Of course, we don't really know whether carbon offsets actually offset all or any of our activities.
So how about "create your own offsets"? For instance, if you have a trip coming up and you're flying somewhere, why not make a point to walk to the store half the time - instead of driving all the time? Every time you walk instead of drive, you have just banked some credits to offset your upcoming trip. If you are going on a big road trip, stop watching the TV until the trip. Bank some credits to offset your gas guzzling.
Chances are, creating your own offsets would end up being a lot easier and fun than it maybe sounds. Make a game out of reducing your energy use. See how many credits you can bank. Think before you jump into the car or book that next flight. In the long run, those are the types of changes that will make a difference, because it mandates some thinking about your relationship to the world around you in the context of energy use and climate change. It's too simple and cheap to point to CFLs and be satisfied. Real progress will require real change ahead.
