Kyoto has been a failure and the talks in Copenhagen have been going nowhere. According to Adria Vasil, an environmental columnist for Toronto’s Now weekly and the author of Ecoholic Home, we cannot rely on governments and politicians to do their jobs and take the lead on environmental matters. Faced with these hard realities, people are likely to be tempted to succumb to despair and simply do nothing to try to combat climate change and the environmental problems facing us today.

Vasil argues that little things really do matter. While she also believes in political change on a grand scale, she has come to believe that consumer engagement may be the place to start. “This opens up conversations and helps people to become interested in the issues and discuss potential solutions,” says Vasil. “Still, we also need to step outside the front door and get involved in the community.”

Fostering political involvement was not Vasil’s only motivation in writing the book. Following the release of her earlier book, Ecoholic, many people wrote asking for more information about how to make their homes greener. They are accidental environmentalists. “They engage in green behaviours because it makes sense to them to do so, and not because they identify with the movement,” she says.

According to figures provided by Statistics Canada, households are responsible for 46 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions. Included in these figures are emissions generated by heating our homes, driving our cars, operating our computers and lighting the places we live and work in. “The home is ground zero for green crimes,” says Vasil.

We need to accept greater responsibility for the environment and the impact our individual buying habits have and Vasil believes there is a glimmer of hope. “If you had asked me in 2005, I would have said that environmental consciousness was dead, a non-issue. I’m not blinded by optimism, but people today seem to care more about the environment,” she says.

“Change at a small or local level is more manageable for people. The impact is more immediate. It also feels good.”

Vasil believes that passion is the key to success in making changes that will benefit the environment. Self-interest and our personal quality of life, if nothing else, should motivate us to take action. “Our own health is the number one motivator for detoxifying our house and our planet. Toxic waste from common cleaning products has been shown to lead to the development of ovaries in male fish,” she says. It should be obvious that these same products are hazardous to our own health.

“We have to start by making choices about what we put in our bodies, on our bodies and in the environment around us,” says Vasil. She suggests that this doesn’t need to be expensive, noting that the book contains a full range of suggestions to suit every budget. “We can take a moderate approach to dealing with the problem. I am an apartment dweller and I write for an alternative weekly, so I understand the needs of people with limited incomes,” she says. “We have to realize that we can’t spend our way out of this mess.”

The answer might be to look to the past and to our grandparents. “We could learn a lot from our grandparents. Their actions arose out of economic necessity, but they also had positive environmental benefits,” says Vasil.

Rather than buy new products, she says people should visit second-hand stores or check out websites that offer goods for sale at low prices. The idea, she says, is that change doesn’t have to be expensive. It is within everyone’s ability to take positive steps to improve the quality of their lives and of the Earth.