My Low-Carbon Lifestyle — North Karelia Edition

There has been some debate over individual lifestyle change as a political means to achieve society-wide decarbonization.

North Karelian lakes are usually in good condition and our municipality borrows canoes for free.

The purpose of this post is not to take a political position on which one is more important, individual or collective action, but rather to show what I have done to limit my climate impacts to around two and a half tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

Many North Karelian municipalities like mine, Liperi, are part of the Carbon-Neutral Municipalities network which aim for an 80 % cut in all GHGs by 2030 from 2010 levels.

While I am not going to enact significant social or political change through my lifestyle alone, it is a valuable lesson on how difficult deep decarbonization is and how societies and economies remain almost completely separated from the Paris Agreement's framing of climate neutrality.

I made the ultimate climate move a few years ago and found a new home in Liperi, North Karelia, far from the city I was born in and lived in for almost 30 years, Helsinki.

Helsinki had a weird winter in 2020, even before the global pandemic. We had no snow for the entire time, and it was stormy and rainy too. The stuck atmospheric pattern caused flooding, and it was tough to go outdoors because of the bad weather.