The Observer: What would you be willing to sacrifice?

Last month at the York Public Library, a series of climate workshops was held exploring how to understand the impact of climate change on our lives and in our communities. The program challenged the two dozen participants to reflect on their experiences while also promoting a palpable sense of community.

The workshop’s leader, York resident Madeline Bugeau-Heartt, a graduate student at the Harvard Divinity School, has a knack for asking questions that encourage people to reflect. She also has skills that foster people’s sharing of their insights with one another.

Her questions have been on my mind since we met. On the first day, Bugeau-Heartt asked us to think back to when we first became aware of the climate crisis and whether that insight changed or converted us in some sense. I had to admit that as committed as I am to addressing climate change, that commitment has not resulted in a very different lifestyle.

We have always lived conservatively. We eat sustainably, compost our food waste, turn off unnecessary lighting, keep the thermostat down, etc. This is how I grew up, too. As a kid, I remember participating in “paper drives” which collected newspapers on behalf of some cause I no longer recall.

The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that I value the present more than the future; care more for my personal comfort than about the well-being of others. I live in a righteous illusion about my own inconsequential actions. We replaced our old leaky water heater with a heat pump water heater; traded in our combustion automobile for a fully electric vehicle; and weatherized our cellar to help reduce our reliance on heating oil. So what?

These things were good for the environment but also promised returns on our investments. It was not primarily being good stewards of the environment that motivated us. We received subsidies from the federal government and the state of Maine for our actions. These changes were good for us and that was our main motivation for making them. I am not a climate hero.

In truth, I did not have a conversion experience because I was unwilling to make the dramatic sacrifices that would be necessary for a true conversion. I have not done so because change is hard. To be a climate hero would force me to reinvent myself. I think of Rainer Maria Rilke’s 1908 poem (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”): “You must change your life” he writes. I flinch. Maybe later.

Being a climate hero would require moving from the single-family house we love into a smaller home in a different town or even to an intentional community or co-housing neighborhood like Ecovillage in Belfast, Maine.

A different kind of sustainable neighborhood is being built in Arizona.

A story appeared recently in The Guardian’s new series about local communities and what governments around the world are doing to promote a low-carbon way of life.

Culdesac is a development that occupies a 17-acre site — 55% of which is open space — in Tempe, Arizona. The development does not have streets and does not allow vehicles. It has a network of “paseos” instead of roads.Residents use e-bikes or scooters and rely on light rail connections to Phoenix — fifteen miles away.

When it is completed in 2025, Culdesac will house 1,000 residents in 100 buildings containing 760 apartments. It invites Americans “to live in a way that is rare outside of fleeting experiences of college, Disneyland or trips to Europe: a walkable, human-scale community devoid of cars.”

Much as this appeals to me, I don’t want to live in Arizona. I want to live in Maine, but the sort of development that is Culdesac could not be built here. Zoning ordinances, building codes and other regulations would prohibit something like Culdesac from taking root. Living without streets dedicated to cars, or living without cars altogether, is hard to imagine. To live intentionally as in Culdesac would require dramatic changes — a real conversion.

If surviving the climate crisis required all-encompassing changes in household economies and family lifestyles, not many would be capable of responding. Heroic change is beyond most of us but we still can do what we are able to embrace lower carbon living.

Question: What would you be willing to sacrifice to live in a sustainable world?

Discuss.

Ron McAllister is a sociologist and writer who lives in York.