4 Ways to Turn Your Eco-Anxiety Into Action
A friendly guide to turn that paralyzing dread into progress
If there was ever a time to have a colony of butterflies growing in your belly, it’s now.
As wildfires rage in the west, tropical storms batter the south, and leaders refuse to take any action, let alone pass a comprehensive green plan that target the biggest polluters (the 100 companies producing 70% of carbon emissions), the threat of global warming is no longer looming on the horizon. It’s here. And every day, that threatening front moves further inland.
Many of us are feeling higher levels of that clenched jaw, vibrational anxiety known as eco-anxiety. While it’s normal, it isn’t always helpful. Rather than laying a foundation in this dread, let’s plow the weeds and plant a garden with solutions. I know, that was corny. But, seriously, let’s look at four small actions we can make today that add up to long-term positives.
1. Take it easy, change your go-to font
Printer cartridges may seem like small beans, but they add up. Every year an estimated 300 million cartridges end up in landfills. As if that wasn’t enough, a single cartridge takes roughly one gallon of oil to produce and a thousand years to decompose.
According to Evolve Recycling,
In one year, if the world’s discarded cartridges were stacked end-to-end, they would circle the earth twice.
Considering the sheer amount of cartridges used in all walks of life, and that only 30% of cartridges are recycled this is a huge problem. However, with an easy change of font, we can cut back the number of ink cartridges used annually by 100–150 million. Century Gothic compared to Arial uses up to 30% less ink and can significantly lengthen the lifespan of your cartridge. If Century Gothic isn’t your vibe, then try the classic Times New Roman which uses 27% less ink than Arial. Other ink reducing fonts include Garamond, Calibri, Courier, and Baskerville Old Face.
However, if you’re looking for something truly unique and innovative consider downloading Ryman Eco or Ecofont. Both fonts were designed with sustainability in mind. What they do differently is that instead of filling in the letters with ink, they intentionally carve out tiny circles in the letters. This measure maintains readability while reducing ink usage by 20 - 50%.
2. Netflix and delete your junk email
Did you know that each email has a carbon footprint?
According to The Carbon Literacy Project,
An average spam email: 0.3 g CO2e
A standard email: 4 g CO2e
An email with “long and tiresome attachments”: 50 g CO2e
Scaled up, the average person’s inbox, outbox, and spam folders account for the usage of 1,652 grams of CO2e daily and 0.6 tonnes of CO2e annually.
Going paperless is the greenest option, but it may be not as green as we’d thought (unless powered by renewable energy). Have no fear, here are some tips to reduce the carbon footprint of your email:
- Avoid sending attachments: instead, link to files that are stored online such as Google Drive or OneNote.
- Clean your subscription and mailing lists: by unsubscribing from a few unnecessary and left unread senders, you could cut 15g of CO2e per week.
- Opt for lower resolution images: this could save 50g of CO2e per email.
- Triple check that email before sending: this small act can reduce the need to send follow up emails.
Take a moment when you’re not doing anything but basking in eco-anxiety to scour your overflowing inbox and do away with the emails and senders that don’t serve you. This simple action will save your sanity while saving some carbon emissions.
3. Take to the web
Activism in 2020 is a bit different than in 1920 — we are fortunate enough to have a world of knowledge, literature, and petitions at our fingertips. Unfortunately, sometimes the important stuff gets buried in our feed.
Petitions don’t guarantee change, but they do bring awareness. And, if there are thousands of people flooding social media with posts and Tweets on an issue which in turn brings about bad publicity for a brand or organization, they’re more likely to work to find a resolution to save face.
Some underrated topics and petitions include:
- Bank of America funding Arctic drilling
- The funding of fossil fuels by big banks
- Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act Of 2020 that, amongst other things, sets up moratoriums on new plastic production plants and makes plastic producers responsible for recycling and waste management services
- Trump’s rollbacks of EPA regulations
- Protect Our Refuges Act to keep National Wildlife Refuges safe havens for all life
There are many other environmental topics to bring awareness to that go beyond typical green issues; topics such as the Environmental Justice COVID-19 Act that aims to tackle environmental racism and the Honest Ads Act that targets covert political ads.
What’s key to making these petitions count is sharing them. Signing petitions is a great start, but putting and maintaining pressure on offenders or voicing support for legislation goes a long way in raising their priority in the public sphere.
4. Send some (low-res) emails
As previously stated, action is crucial. Signing petitions is a great start, but creating your own movement is next level activism.
Shoot an email to a local business or company that could improve its sustainability. Offer a simple fix they could implement that isn’t too costly or time-intensive. Depending on where they stand on acknowledging global warming, there could be push back so keeping it light and simple is the best route. With time, you can build up to bigger initiatives. This method of action can also work in your own office or workplace — although I highly caution keeping a neutral tone. I’ve found that overly passionate or (slightly) passive-aggressive works against the cause and only builds resistance.
Another idea is to create your own micro-campaign. Identify a cause or petition that energizes you and find ways to share it. Through websites like Canva you can easily create free graphics that highlight why you care about the cause and why others should, too. This might seem daunting and time-consuming, but in the long-run, they can spare direct involvement. Creative campaigns can make the outreach to smaller, local businesses quicker and even indirectly encourage others to change.
Pro tip: spread the word on alternative energy. In the US, there are tax incentives for implementing features that increase energy efficiency or create renewable energy. Bigger corporations looking to either off-set their carbon footprint, go neutral or negative or get that sweet tax cut will actually cover the cost for others to incorporate these elements in their building’s, structures, or communities. Simply pointing this out or sending some light information to brands or businesses you have rapport with could be enough to get them to seriously reconsider their sustainability model.
During a time when there’s so much uncertainty, it’s important not to squash unpleasant emotions such as anxiety. Allowing yourself to recognize these emotions is crucial to healing and emotional health, but letting it overrun your day isn’t healthy for anyone or conducive to progress. By identifying causes you’re passionate about and turning eco-anxiety into action, you set yourself on the path to pulling yourself out of an eco-spiral.
