petroleum fast

I had a scary revelation last week.

I keep harping about how easy it is to reduce your carbon footprint: change lightbulbs, ride your bike, turn off your A/C, blah, blah, blah. And I do believe that's true, because I'm doing it, and it's not hard. At least not right now.

But I was thinking about the goal of reducing emissions by 2% a year, which will bring us to the gold standard of 80% by 2050. And it suddenly hit me how much easier the first 2% is, or the first 5%, or the first 10%. At some point, you reach the end of the low-hanging fruit and have to start really making, uh, sacrifices.

For example, take transportation. Switching to biodiesel was easy. For a couple as young and spontaneous as Matt and me, moving into the city, within easy biking distance of work and walking distance of a Marta stop, was also easy. This has reduced our carbon emissions by a lot more than 2%, so theoretically it ought to let us off the hook for a while. But, well, is there a place we ought to quit with something like this? What, for instance, do I do about my friend in Chicago who's asking me to come visit her? Do I use an extra two days of vacation to spend 64 hours on the train, just so I can use a little less energy? Or do I spend half the price and a fraction of the time so I can fly?

The questions I have to ask myself in a situation like this bear striking resemblance to the questions that Christians have grappled with throughout history. At the Orthodox church we've been attending, we've been introduced to the traditions of ancient Christian disciplines that have mostly fallen by the wayside in our ultra-convenienced world. Disciplines like fasting or written prayers have been part of Christian heritage for a long time, until our modern individualism rejected them. Rediscovering them, I find myself repeatedly faced with the same dilemma: should I follow the fast to the extent that the church recommends? How often during the work day should I read prayers? To what extent am I personally able to sacrifice, and to what extent must I balance my own weakness with the discipline I seek to follow?

For now, whether it refers to fasting from food or to fasting from petroleum, this question remains, for the most part, unanswered. It probably will take a lifetime of living to enable me to answer it fully.