Remain Happy with Your own CO2 emission!
We all like to contribute to sustainability because the individual behavior and the action of each has a significant effect on the planet, whether economically, ecologically or socially. These three dimensions of sustainability shall not be considered separately since they are dependent, and a change of one size will have a positive or negative impact on the other two dimensions. A measurable index of the deterioration of the global climate is the CO2 emissions. For the measurement of personal CO2 emissions, various approaches are available on the Internet. Regularly the program asks the person specific questions, and their answers will allow the program to calculate the own CO2 emissions. There are queries about shopping at the supermarket, the journey by car or train or even by bike or on foot; questions about the use of the washing machine and dryer, on car-sharing, food-sharing, exchange of clothing, use of renewable energy and so on. Contra productive to sustainability is, for example, the TV spot of a well-known supplier of smartphones showing a boy smashing its handy with a hammer and with a “Juhu” to buy a new one cheaply, or to buy a new smartphone, because the repair is too expensive. Those are examples which promote an unsustainable behavior and the same holds for “planned obsolescence “. The pressing question is in which way a person may achieve a climate-friendly lifestyle: the reduction of (energy) consumption and to use public transportation reducing his stress and to attain more enjoyment. The Internet and APPS (Smartphone) provide many opportunities to share digitized knowledge and (social) resources and to calculate alternatives indicating the CO2 emission. How to change the behavior of individuals emphatically: The first solutions is to introduce an eco-tax, but it causes personal pain because it reduces net income and consumption. The second solution is to count on the idealism of the people, but this is certainly a minority. The third solution is to change the human behavior to sustainability by triggering pleasure, satisfaction, and happiness. Which active impulses are recommended to reduce the people’s individual CO2 emissions? Please use the comment box below to submit your activities to reduce CO2 emission or make your recommendation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Roland Leithenmayr VFV
NGO Committee on Sustainable Development Vienna 