Battling global warming with viral social change

Record heat on the East Coast. Flooding in the Midwest. Snow on the West Coast. It's June, folks. Methinks that something is in the air. Something noxious that is altering the climate. Are you with me?

My aunt and uncle's home in Franklin, Indiana had five feet of water in it on Saturday. Everything is ruined. The photos of flooding in central Indiana, where I grew up, are devastating. I am pissed. Scientists have long said that global warming will result in extreme, destructive weather. So instead of waiting around for the earthquake to tumble my house down the hill, I pledge to do the following:

• Follow Cheap-o-Dad's example and fill my car's tank up with gas once in the next eight weeks and rely on my bike, feet and public transportation when I need to get somewhere.
• Finally install that clothesline!
• Rely on the farmer's market for 75% of our food this summer.

It doesn't sound like much. It's really not going to affect the climate. But what if we all did it? Michael Pollan wrote a powerful essay titled Why Bother? that spoke to the reasons we all need to do our best even though others may be canceling out our efforts. It's called viral social change, and here's what he says about it:

If you do bother, you will set an example for other people. If enough other people bother, each one influencing yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change, markets for all manner of green products and alternative technologies will prosper and expand. (Just look at the market for hybrid cars.) Consciousness will be raised, perhaps even changed: new moral imperatives and new taboos might take root in the culture. Driving an S.U.V. or eating a 24-ounce steak or illuminating your McMansion like an airport runway at night might come to be regarded as outrages to human conscience. Not having things might become cooler than having them. And those who did change the way they live would acquire the moral standing to demand changes in behavior from others — from other people, other corporations, even other countries.

I want this, and I know you want it, too. Are you ready to make some changes and release the virus?