What it takes to change

Fall's beauty has finally come to Baltimore. You can see it from the gently rolling fields of Reisterstown to the more earnestly pushing swells of Hereford.

These past two days I have passed such breath-taking splendor it has been hard to focus on the road before me. I have pulled off more than once to photograph the view (such as this one near the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center).

It is a guilt-ridden compensation for putting 100 additional miles a week on my car since I started working more formally for the environment. Clearly, there are some things that personal commitment alone cannot solve. Which is why we must work for systemic change. Individual behavioral alone cannot create mass transit systems or a fleet of clean cars.

Still and all, personal behavior does play a role. And it is around personal behavior and its accompanying attitude that my husband and I had a telling exchange this week. I announced that I was going out one morning with my planned bundle of errands all grouped to minimize my "vehicle-miles traveled". When I got to my last stop - the gym where I swim - I realized that I had left my gym bag at home, and unless I wanted to wander around the rest of the day inappropriately and uncomfortably dressed, I had to go home, get the bag and return to the pool.

Upon reaching home, I explained to my surprised husband that I had forgotten my bag and how unfortunate it was that I had to come back home and waste so much ...

Here is where it got interesting. He finished the sentence with the word "time." I finished the sentence with the words "CO2 emissions." (Okay, technically, it is probably correct to say "many emissions" rather than "much emissions" but that is arguable and, besides, it is not the point!!)

And I realized at that moment how deeply we must feel the ache of what we are doing before we will be motivated to change the ways we live. And how deeply the lessons and values of my work have burrowed themselves into me.

Until and unless we regard the unnecessary expenditure of greenhouse gas emissions the same way we regard the unnecessary expenditure of time, or money, why will we be motivated to change our behavior?

But the question is, how do we change how we think, and even more, how we feel?