New Years Resolutions: 2007

Happy New Year! The beginning of 2007 finds me, like a lot of people, making New Years resolutions of ways that I can change in the coming year. There are the old stand-bys of eat less, exercise more, and read more books. But, this year, I find myself also resolving to make more of a difference in the fight against global warming and climate change.

I resolve to:

• increase the influence of the Sustainable Energy Alliance on the lives of people in and around Kennebunk
• develop this blog as an informative, entertaining, thought-provoking source for people who care about meeting the challenges of global warming
• find ways to continue to reduce our household's carbon footprint
• investigate buying carbon off-sets to make our household "carbon neutral"
• look for ways to increase the amount of local food that we buy
• write to my elected officials at the federal and state levels to lobby for legislation to address climate change (raising CAFE standards, significant subsidies for renewable energy, reductions in the corporate welfare given to oil companies, a taxation of oil company profit to fund additional renewable energy research and development)
• plant a garden that grows a respectable amount of produce (the one planted last season a little disappointing...)
• determine whether it is feasible to install solar panels on our house
  

Researchers tell us that something like 95% of New Years resolutions are broken by the end of January. Hopefully, my resolutions will last long past the end of the month. The changes that we all need to make - changes in behavior, in thinking, in creativity, in energy use - must become habit. They must become a permanent part of our lives.

I hope that you'll join me in resolving to reduce your environmental impact in 2007! I hope that you will post a comment to let me know your resolutions and if there is any way that I can help you achieve them.