Climate Habits for February

My habit tracker dings when I mark a completed goal. Straighten my papers in the living room. Ding! Hang a minute from the pull up bar. Ding!

“Bryan,” I tell my husband, “that quarter-zip sweater looks great on you.” Ding! “Still needed to compliment someone?” he says. I laugh sheepishly.

But even dings have their limits. January was long and sharp. There were vexing projects. Emergency vet visits. Shocking videos from Minneapolis, the city where Bryan and I met and where our friends are protesting. And then, my mother-in-law died. Storms, both literal and otherwise, swirled.

When my daughter and I flew to meet Bryan in Arkansas and attend my MIL’s funeral, I filled our water bottles at the airport’s refill station and watched the ‘Bottles Saved’ number tick up. Compared to the finality of death (or even the climate footprint of flying), refillable water bottles felt too small to celebrate. And yet, a week later, I was still thinking about how accumulation matters. I had joined thousands of other passengers to keep over 200,000 plastic bottles from landfills, according to the tally from one refill station. And it was effortless because packing refillable water bottles had become my ingrained habit. No dings needed.

Habits matter, especially collectively. For instance, the production of plant based milk creates one third less carbon than cow’s milk and significantly less water. While only 4 percent of Americans identify as vegan, 44% of American households are now in the habit of purchasing plant based milk, including my family. In our fridge, we have both cows milk for our daughter and oat milk for our coffee. Collectively, we humans have adopted a habit with genuine climate benefits.

The opposite can also be true. Humans can adopt a climate destroying habit and then feel stuck. This Instagram post by Moms Clean Air Force notes: “Half of all plastics production in human history has happened since the launch of Instagram.”

Shocking, yes! Hopeful, also yes! Our glut of plastic isn’t inevitable. We can replace our plastic habit with the Old Ways. And by Old Ways, I mean life in 2010.

Personal Action: Create a plastic-reducing habit for 2026.

Here are three substitutions from 2010 to get you started:

And of course, pack your refillable water bottles when you travel. There’s a modern habit that keeps us hydrated, stylish, and plastic free.

So you’re doing all these things and want to level up? Hooray!

• Bring your own container to restaurants for leftovers and make it a habit

• Take your travel mug to coffee shops and make it a habit

• Avoid cling wrap. (Stainless steel bowls with lids save so much cling wrap)

• Make your own yogurt

• Don’t use the plastic produce bags in stores. Bring your own or just forgo

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Your climate shifts matter. James Clear’s terrific book Atomic Habits is such an empowering ode to how small habits add up over time. He writes:

“Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

- James Clear, author of Atomic Habit

Link Round-up

My husband Bryan’s brilliant flash nonfiction piece in Short Reads: Roundhouse

New York Times piece about 81 year old Bonnie Sumner chasing the dead hang record: To Set a World Record, All She Had to Do Was Hold On

Lentil dish I’ve had on repeat this winter, cream can be reduced and its still delicious: Marry Me Lentils

My interview with Sari Botton’s substack Memoir Land: The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #168: Sari Fordham