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The journey to a low carbon future begins with us

By David Gershon - posted Monday, 4 January 2010


Three years later there are now more than 350 Cool Communities in 36 states across America. Participants are achieving on average a 25 per cent carbon footprint reduction and reaching out to fellow citizens to accomplish the same. A growing number of these campaigns have committed themselves to a three-year effort to mobilise up to 85 per cent of their communities’ residents to reduce their footprint by at least 25 per cent. And in Massachusetts - one of the nation’s leaders in enacting bold climate change legislation - the Cool Mass campaign has been launched to help the state achieve its carbon reduction goals through developing Cool Communities statewide.

A Cool Community also enables a city or town to enjoy the immediate practical benefits of more liveable neighbourhoods, greater environmental sustainability, and economic development. Furthermore, it creates a robust long-term carbon reduction capability by building the community leadership, carbon-literate citizenry, and political will necessary to sustain this type of change over time.

And, at the most fundamental level, when individuals become personally part of the solution, it creates a new dynamic in the way we tackle large societal challenges. It allows us to move beyond the traditional social change formula of business as the problem and government as the solution - the familiar paradigm in which non-profits lobby government for better regulations against business while disenfranchised citizens sit on the sidelines complaining about the coziness between politicians and business. When citizens are empowered to adopt socially beneficial behaviours, such as a low-carbon lifestyle, an opening can occur for traditionally adversarial relationships to establish new arrangements of co-operation and collaboration. When the whole system begins working together and there is no “other” to combat or protect against, more innovative and generative solutions start to emerge. Everyone is now a participant in shaping the future.

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The Cool Community movement is building Mount Everest base camps in communities across the nation for the long climb we must make to address climate change. It is also providing fire for the soul to inspire community leaders to reach for new visions of what is possible, with some committing to reduce their carbon footprint 80 per cent by 2020. Nelson Mandela, an exemplar of taking on large, epic challenges, describes the journey this way, “It always seems impossible until it is done”. But the journey must begin somewhere with someone. That somewhere is our homes, neighbourhoods, towns and cities. And that someone is us.

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About the Author

David Gershon is the author of Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5,000 Pounds, and recently published, Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World. He is CEO of Empowerment Institute and founder of the Cool Community movement.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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