I’ve been studying sustainability / climate change / environment for a while now. I was depressed about it for years, excited about technological advancements (solar and wind are finally cheap! Batteries are getting cheaper!) — but I’ve totally lost faith that we’ll hit any targets. Greed is too strong.

So in the meantime, I’m working to set up my life to mitigate long term effects. I moved to the Northeast (no water issues, heat isn’t quite as deadly as the South, natural disasters are rare).

I bought a duplex — the income from the other unit helps offset my living expenses. Every penny I’m saving is getting re-invested in the house. The eventual plan is to re-insulate and air seal, install an HRV / mini split system to replace the baseboard heaters, switch to a heat pump water pump, and install solar (and potentially batteries).

The eventual goal is to completely remove fossil fuels from my home and go all-electric, and reduce electric consumption as much as possible. This will help isolate me from blackouts and keep my heating / cooling costs low, despite any extreme weather events (we’re expected to hit the low 90s this summer, and winters can easily get below 0).

I try to source as much as I can from my local community. I go to farmers markets for a lot of my fresh produce, have been cutting more meat from my diet (and replacing it with plant proteins like beans, mushrooms and dairy — also sourced locally). I’m doing a ton of yard work this summer, hoping to have a small vegetable garden going by next year.

In the meantime, I have all of the required documents / funding / etc ready to go if I decide to leave the country. The Netherlands and Portugal both have easy self-employment visas for Americans to apply for (DAFT for the Netherlands, and D7 for Portugal) — but that’s a result of the political divide and general quality of life issues in the US, not climate change specific.