365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge

225 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

Yesterday, I wrote about skills. I learn best with this cycle:
1) I do something
2) I reflect on the result
3) I learn what worked and what not
4) I plan how to improve next time
And the good thing is, I cannot fail: even if it didn't work out, I learned something.

I have found a search engine that claims to use their profit to plant trees. That is great as I am using a search engine often. I’ve made it my standard search engine immediately.

224 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

Already as a child, I was eager to learn. What I didn't expect, is that many different skills and knowledge I acquired over the years come in handy doing this Challenge. So, I'm glad I learned for life and am excited to apply them every day. (And yes, that's me 😊)

Next to my shower is a glass plate. After showering, I clean this plate using a squeegee. If I don’t, a lot of chalk stays on the window, requiring me to having it cleaned more often. I don’t like cleaning, so that’s good, but it also especially saves cleaning liquids.

Yesterday was Earth Hour 2020. Out of respect for our planet, I turned off all the lights from 8.30 till 9.30 pm.

221 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

I just participated in #EarthHour2020. Sitting in the dark, I felt gratefulness for all the things I can do because of the abundance in this world. And I hope future generations can enjoy earth as much as we do. That's why I know my Challenge is worth the effort.

I have two mice: the one with the cable belongs to me, the one without my employer. Being on the road, a mouse without cable is quite practical, but when in the office, a mouse with cable works just as well. So I have decided to use the one with cable as often as possible, as it doesn’t require me to use (rechargeable) batteries (#36) and I can’t forget to switch it off (#2).

221 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

I know this reasoning is incorrect: Swans are white + this swan is black -> swans being white is nonsense. Therefore, I also believe this reasoning is incorrect: the earth is getting warmer + Antarctica just had a cold record -> global warming is nonsense.

Today, I decided to make pizza for two days. On the one hand it saves cooking once, but also a lot of energy as I don’t have to heat the oven twice.

220 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

To get rid of pain in a crisis, something has to change. But although there is pain, there also are costs related to change: uncertainty, judgments, effort, money. I believe that change is unlikely when the experienced costs are higher than the experienced pain.

I also believe that in the climate crisis, we haven't reached the tipping point. So, for change to happen, the pain should increase or the cost decrease. The pain will increase when we continue like this (e.g. floods); with my Challenge, I contribute to reducing the cost.

Instead of buying a new pen, I decided to buy a refill. Even though a refill consists of plastic, it is a lot less than a new pen.

I have a plastic bag to carry my headphones. I have been using it for ages (and I will as long as possible), so it has some holes in it. But luckily, I ate apples with stickers on it. These stickers were the perfect size to cover two of the holes.

218 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

I'm not a geese expert, so it would take me ages to identify this one. I'd prefer to ask experts and base my judgment on their analyses. They might be wrong, but are more likely right than me. In the same way, I judge the criticality of the Corona and climate crises.

For last winter and this summer season, I didn’t buy any new (or second-hand) cloths as I have enough.

217 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

Corona makes people worry about our economy. That makes sense, as business depends on a healthy social system. Also, a healthy social system can't exist without a healthy environment. So, to make business work in the long run, we need to take care of our environment.

With the new situation of staying at home as much as possible, I have been thinking of how to do sports. I have considered buying a trampoline, but as I prefer to not buy any new equipment, I have decided to run up and down the stairs. Yesterday, I ran 84 times up and down. Well, that definitely worked out.

216 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

In an unpleasant situation I can do 3 things to feel better:
1) do something about it (act),
2) leave the situation (abandon),
3) make the most out of it (accept).

For the Corona crisis I stay at home and disinfect, but otherwise accept; for the climate crisis I act.

I had bought a piece of bread that I forgot to finish eating. So I found it in my bag, rock hard. So I decided to cut it into small pieces and feed the crumbs to the birds.

215 days into my 365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge:

As the current Corona situation is for many of us also financially a challenging situation, I added the tag "Saving money" to relevant posts on http://SustainableDecisions.eu. This helps you finding items to reduce expenses. The picture shows you where to go.

I learned from someone else that I can fold my waste bags from old newspapers. As I don’t have a newspaper, I looked for one in the paper bin. I found one and it indeed works well.