Ten Percent Babysteps

Dear Reader,

American motorists burn 380 million gallons of gasoline in their cars every day. That is almost the total daily production of Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer in the world.

If we cut back on our driving by just 10 percent, we would not only save more than 325 million barrels of oil every year, but also over $35 billion a year, not to mention produce less air pollution, less greenhouse gases and less accidents.

Reducing our driving by 10 percent shouldn’t be very hard for most of us, considering that the majority of trips made by car are under four miles, and many less than a mile even.

If we’re honest with ourselves we won’t have too many difficulties coming up with a substantial list of trips we normally do by car, but that we could easily do by bike or on foot:

How far do we have to drive to the gym?
How far do we have to drive to the video store?
How far do we have to drive to church?
How far do we have to drive to the restaurant?
How far do we have to drive the kids to the park?

Driving less and walking or biking more would not only help the environment, the country’s balance of payments and our bank accounts, it would also benefit our health. After all, most of us could do with (a lot) more exercise.

Walking a few miles every day instead of driving them takes only a modest adjustment and effort from each of us, but the cumulative effect would be impressive, as I have indicated above.

But this is just one example of how we can make significant progress towards a more sustainable society by taking baby steps.

Now, granted, the effects of these babysteps are more spectacular in the U.S. than in other countries, simply because we are behind in the evolution towards sustainability and they have already picked most of their low-hanging fruits.

Still, that’s no reason why we shouldn’t try to catch up.

Babysteps work in other areas as well.

I am an uncompromising defender of buying from local businesses, but I understand that I am in a minority.

It would, however, already be a tremendous shot in the arm for local businesses and the local economy if we moved just ten percent of our purchases from a big box store to a local store.

That, by the way, also goes for business to business transactions.

Instead of always buying the cheapest food available at the supermarket, why not dedicate ten percent of our food budget to buying high-quality local, organic foods? Our body will thank us, too.

Or, when we eat out, let’s give the plastic food in the chain restaurant a miss and try the local place.

We could get far with babysteps. Babys get all the way to adulthood.