Do you have green fatigue?

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Once upon a time, I composted food scraps, bought second-hand goods and had a vegie meal by soy-based candlelight for Earth Hour.

I even collected corks and batteries for recycling. Yep, I was doing my bit, plus some. Because I used to really care about being as eco-friendly as possible.

Now I do none of those things. I chuck takeaway containers in the bin with nothing more than a “whoops, should’ve reused that” and think nothing of driving to work instead of getting public transport. Over time, minimising my eco footprint fell off my list of priorities...and I’ve noticed it’s slipped off my mates’ radars, too.

Being green just doesn’t have the cachet that it did six years ago. Remember the Kevin ’07 election? Climate change was up there as one of the voters’ biggest concerns. Now? It’s well and truly trumped by maternity leave payments, roads and that old chestnut, “border protection”. Cate Blanchett and Al Gore banging on about solar power and homeless polar bears no longer makes front-page news. Or any page news. Tim Flannery (Tim who?!) is no longer a celebrity.

So, frankly, maintaining my green ways of old, now that Eco Big Brother is no longer watching, just feels kind of hard and worthless. If I’m not scoring social brownie points for using compostable bamboo plates at barbecues, what’s the point? Yes, maybe I am that shallow.

No denying it

It’s not that I’ve become a climate change denier – far from it. As Dr Richard Denniss, executive director of The Australia Institute pointed out*, even John Howard accepts the science behind climate change these days.

“The overwhelming scientific consensus of climate scientists is that climate change is occurring, that the planet is warming and that it’s human-induced...And when I say scientists, I mean NASA, CSIRO, the Australian and American Academies of Science,” he says. So it’s a pretty sure thing, then.

As to whether there’s still time to do something about it, well, that’s less sure. To stop temps rising, our global emissions need to fall steeply. Instead they’re going up: by three per cent in 2011. That’s only set to get worse as China, India and other countries start consuming electricity and consumer goods on the scale we in the West already do.

No wonder it’s tempting to think “bugger it” and stick our heads back in the sand (praying it doesn’t get eroded by rising sea levels). It’s as if we’ve silently agreed that Kermit was right about being green, and have shuffled awkwardly away thinking “someone else’s problem”.

Related: The new ethical dilemmas

Big deal

But whose problem is it, really? I’m uncomfortably aware that, whether I chuck a cork in the bin or an empty hummus pot, it won’t have much impact. Not when the world’s economy is based on oil. Not when there’s a mound of plastic the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean.

“It’s easy to think a small change won’t make any difference,” says Rebecca Blackburn, author of Green is Good. “But consumers can help drive change. Look at free-range eggs. Ten years ago there were mostly just cage eggs on offer. This has been driven by consumer demand.”

Fair point, but surely consumers can’t change the way entire communities are structured and the way we burn through fossil fuel as if our lives depend on it (which, come to think of it, they kind of do). It’s up to governments the world over to set the ball of change in motion. Right? Once again, Blackburn is about to pull the rug from under my feet.

“Globally we have no choice but to do something, but I don’t believe we should leave it up to government. Change needs to be driven from all directions, including business and individuals.”

Yes, ladies and gents, it’s time to reignite your care factor. But in a smarter way. Call it Green Movement 2.0.

Size it up

The good news for the eco-fatigued like me is that Blackburn has a couple of straightforward suggestions on how to do this. The number-one thing: sweat the big stuff. “As a general rule, the bigger the thing, the bigger its environmental impact. So if you’re about to spend on a car, hot water system or major appliances, make sure you choose one with a five-star rating. If you focus on the big things there’s no need to fret over whether your tomato paste is overpackaged,” she says.

“And purchase the right-sized [whatever] for you. A car, house or wardrobe that’s 20 per cent bigger than it needs to be wastes 20 per cent more resources.” When you’re deciding how big stuff needs to be, she suggests looking at your everyday life – not your fantasy one.

“Make purchases based on what you’ll need 80 per cent of the time, not for the occasional event. This approach also saves you money.”

This is all music to my ears. Sure, I should be sticking to my conscientious ways of old, but instead of feeling guilty when I don’t, I’ll focus my energies on stuff that might at least make some difference. For one thing, it’ll help me feel slightly less powerless, which is one of the main problems we face when staring down the barrel of global climate change.

As Dr Denniss says, “The sensible thing to do when the overwhelming body of evidence suggests we should act and the costs of that action are small, is to act.”

Emma Anderson is a freelance writer who’s decided to stick with her old laptop rather than buy a new one. Small steps, and all that.