Climate Action Lists from the book Regeneration by Paul Hawken
The following text is extracted from the book by Paul Hawken titled Regeneration- Ending the Climate Crisis in one Generation- p 249
1. CLIMATE CHECK LIST
Where to Start
A climate checklist is informed by straightforward principles. They help you guide your endeavors, from farms to finance, cities to clothing, groceries to grasslands, and are applicable to every level of activity: people, homes, groups, companies, communities, cities -and countries too. The guidelines are yes or no questions. Every action either moves toward a desired outcome or heads away from it. The number one guideline is the fundamental principle of regeneration. The remaining are outcomes of that principle.
Does the action create more life or reduce it?
Does it heal the future or steal the future?
Does it enhance human well-being or diminish it?
Does it prevent disease or profit from it?
Does it create livelihoods or eliminate them?
Does it restore land or degrade it?
Does it increase global warming or decrease it?
Does it serve human needs or manufacture human wants?
Does it reduce poverty or expand it?
Does it promote fundamental human rights or deny them?
Does it provide workers with dignity or demean them?
In short, is the activity regenerative or extractive?
How you apply, score, or evaluate these principles is up to you. Most of what we do does not tick all the boxes. However, like a compass, it shows us the direction and where to go. By employing these guidelines, you pivot and begin, action by action, bit by bit, step by step to create regeneration in one’s life. What am I eating? Why? How am I feeling? What is happening in my community? What am I wearing? What am I buying? What am I making? Etc.
2. CLIMATE PUNCH LIST
A punch list is a personal, group, or institutional checklist. Because of the differences among people, cultures, incomes, and knowledge, there is no one common or correct checklist. The top “ten” solutions to reverse global warming are an abstraction. The true top solutions are what you can, want, and will do. The value of a punch list is that when you commit to something, things can happen. A punch list can be for an individual, family, community, company, or city. It is the list of actions you or your group will undertake and accomplish over a predetermined span of time -one month, one year, five years, or more. You can make different lists for different time periods -this week and this year, for example. If you go to www.regeneration.org/punchlist you will find a kit, a worksheet, and more sample punch lists.
A sample punch list from an individual:
Phase out single use plastics by use case, starting with food and beverage purchases outside the home and moving on to kitchen, bathroom, and lifestyle goods
Purchase renewable energy credits for the energy use in my apartment.
Set a clothing budget for the year of no more than ten new garments, at least 8 of which from vintage stores or smaller sustainable brands.
Engage with a citizen’s climate action group, such as the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, to pressure my state and federal representatives to support climate policy and set ambitious emissions reduction targets.
Support First Nations landback movements with recurring donations or by paying a land tax to the nations whose traditional lands I inhabit.
Engage with my city council and other community groups to advocate for urban green space as well as the protection of open space preserves and local wildlife sanctuaries and/or corridors.
Start or join a monthly climate and environmental justice reading group with friends and family to keep us all learning and in discussion about ways to joyfully hold one another accountable to Just Transition efforts.
If you need help creating your punch list, contact me. I’ll be glad to help.
Blessings- The Inestimable Power of Intention
For the Senses by John O'Donohue
May the touch of your skin
Register the beauty
Of the otherness
That surrounds you.
May your listening be attuned
To the deeper silence
Where sound is honed
To bring distance home.
May the fragrance
Of a breathing meadow
Refresh your heart
And remind you you are
A child of the earth.
And when you partake
Of food and drink,
May your taste quicken
To the gift and sweetness
That flows from the earth.
May your inner eye
See through the surfaces
And glean the real presence
Of everything that meets you.
May your soul beautify
The desire of your eyes
That you might glimpse
The infinity that hides
In the simple sights
That seem worn
To your usual eyes.
For the One Who is Exhausted by John O'Donohue
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.
The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
Sometimes .... All You Need is a Wandering Walk in Nature
Do You Know Somebody Who Attends COP26?
The Gifts of Uncertainty
Poem: Let this Darkness Be a Bell Tower by Rainer Maria Rilke
Practice: Embracing the Unknown
Today as you start your solo meandering walk, preferably in Nature, bring this theme of Embracing the Unknown with you on the path. As you meander, forget about reaching a specific destination, or walking a number of miles, or being on a schedule or navigating a given trail. Let go of the need to know where you are going. Notice when your mind is busy trying to figure things out and pause to reconnect with your intention to practice Embracing the Unknown. Experiment with walking as if in a liminal space where you do not know what is next: whom you may encounter, what the next turn may show, or what else you may discover on the path. Pay special notice to what you may be attracted to in this special state of awareness and of any insights that the natural world may give you about Embracing the Unknown. When you get back home, journal about these images or insights to further understand the wisdom that you may received about releasing the need for certainty in life.