Green New Year's Resolutions

Here are the Sierra Club's tips to making your resolutions more eco-friendly and community-centric.

Tip #1: Commit to an Act of Activism

If you tend to shy away from causing a scene or making your voice heard, this could be a productive exercise. Pick an issue about which you’re particularly passionate — perhaps stopping factory farms from polluting water? Or protecting wildlife from climate change? — and do something active about it. You could organize or participate in a protest, write a letter to an agenda-setter, raise funds, or use your creativity to do something else to help move the world toward the solution you’re envisioning. How else to turn hope into change?

Tip #2: Volunteer More

It’s been scientifically proven that people who volunteer are happier, healthier, and live longer. It just takes a few weeks for you — and your community — to start reaping those benefits, so start thinking about which cause you’d enjoy donating your time to in 2011. Perhaps you’d be good at taking inner-city kids into the wild, spending time with animals, or cleaning a beach or river. Not sure where to start? Contact your local Sierra Club chapter for green opportunities, or find more general volunteering resources at Serve.gov.

Tip #3: Build Community

If this tip sounds a bit vague or overwhelming, that’s because it’s a huge topic. But you can start by identifying an organizing principle around which you’d like to strengthen a local community — environmental issues work well. Then get active: Organize get-togethers around that theme, share your skills (and stuff), inhabit public places more (which also saves electrical light and heat, since they become communal), engage your neighbors, and encourage a culture of stewardship by serving as an example of the type of citizen you’d like to see more of.

Tip #4: Resolve Not to Resolve
If you’re already overcommitted, or are simply happy with all the eco-positive community measures you’re involved in, resist the urge to pile one more scoop onto an already heaping plate. It’s a paradox, but resolving not to make a resolution — that is, to keep things manageably simple, balanced, and focused — can make you more effective and committed to achieving the planet-furthering goals you’ve already set for yourself.