As I began to dig deeper into the issue of climate change and what we can do to solve it, I learned a lot of depressing facts about how intertwined emissions are with our modern lives. To keep my anxiety at a normal level, I had to adopt some detachment, like changing the way I work, my personal habits, and meditating every day. Without doing these things, my anxiety levels would reach a point where I felt powerless and not very pleasant to be around.
Here are some things I learned that have helped me stay sane…
Individuals do not have problem
This mindset was the first thing I had to overcome. I hate it when people in general are criticized for their actions and decisions. I fully understand that consumption and diet can have a big impact, but blame is not the solution.
During the first few years of Healthier Earth, my anxiety increased, I couldn’t sleep, my personal family relationships with my young children and wife were affected, and my work was suffering. I worked with a therapist who, mostly for convenience (he lived in the village next to me), also happened to be an expert on trauma. He told me that both victims and perpetrators of trauma suffer from shame. Shame is a very strong negative emotion, but it rarely translates into positive action.
We need to change the system, not individuals. Otherwise it’s like fighting the waves while trying to keep the coast dry – it’s futile. We need to fundamentally change our production systems to be low-carbon and circular. Reducing consumption may help a little, but it’s incredibly difficult to achieve. Blaming individuals is unlikely to produce significant positive change.
Air travel…it’s okay
I am keenly aware of the carbon footprint of my flying, and I often compare the scale of A Healthier Earth’s carbon project to the number of round trip flights it takes to fly from Heathrow to Los Angeles, which is roughly a 24-hour flight.
But we are social creatures. If you want to grow your business and build human connections, you still need face-to-face interaction. With A Healthier Earth, I demonstrate my commitment to developing large-scale carbon removal projects in the real world by flying and spending time with potential partners and investors. These relationships are built on human-to-human interactions as the project progresses.
Air travel brings us closer to people, but it also generates carbon emissions, so there has to be a balance. I’m interested to see whether these meetings lead to the kind of world change that can disrupt the carbon efficiency of all modern industry.
Waste is someone else’s opportunity
As a household, we try to produce as little waste as possible, but having children has definitely increased our household waste. We cook most of our meals from scratch with raw ingredients, control our consumption, and recycle and upcycle where we can. But because I work, I know the carbon footprint of disposing of all this waste, and the fact that much of it ends up piling up in landfills or is deemed worthless and incinerated.
But I am optimistic that waste will become our greatest resource. The climate problem exists because, until now, our emissions had no “value”. We could extract “free” energy from the earth, use it as we needed, and release it without any consequences. Those days are over, and the new industrial models that are emerging are very exciting to me. I believe the same will happen with waste, and every time I put out my trash bin, I think of other entrepreneurs trying to make this happen.
Remain optimistic about the future
To be effective as climate tech pioneers and lead our industry in reducing and avoiding thousands of tons of carbon emissions, we need to be happy ourselves – that means having healthy relationships with the people around us, with ourselves, and with the future. We can’t do that if we constantly shame ourselves for our purchases and worry about them every day instead of engaging with them directly.
Purpose is very powerful. It motivates you to get out of bed and be the change you want to see in the world. Not living up to your purpose can lead to shame or living up to standards set by others. It’s important to stay sane while working with purpose.
Alastair Collier is A healthier planet.
