I wanted to change my habits because I thought it was the right thing to do. So we put solar on the roof and bought a cheap used electric car (a Leaf). My goal was to do the right thing, but the result has been unforeseen benefits.

The solar power more or less makes us net neutral, even when factoring in the electricity for the car.

In short:

- The solar power will pay for itself in less than five years.

- We don't have an electric bill to speak of. (There is an eight dollar a month charge for just being hooked up to the grid.)

- We pay very little to run the Leaf. (We pay nothing when we charge at home, but sometimes we charge on the road.)

I'm surprised by this outcome. I started out trying to do the right thing but ended up doing something that benefited me financially.

If I read you right, beyond the environmental reasons and beyond the financial results, you sound happier than expected at acting on your values.

I think people don't realize the happiness and emotional reward that comes with acting on your values in the face of resistance.

That's why my podcast http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast focuses on leadership first. The joy, fun, meaning, value, purpose, and community parts of acting on your values are what make it fun. I'm in it because my food is more delicious, though it's cheaper too.

Crossing the finish line of a marathon is similar. It costs me money and causes me pain, but it's one of the best things I've ever done. People can live life for comfort and convenience, but for me the best things come from activity.

Five year payoff for solar is good - below (above?) average.

While I don't dispute that economic incentives are important in changing people's behavior on large scales... on a purely individual level, whatever happened to doing something because it's the right thing to do? You're not some self-serving automaton. You're aware that these practices produce unnecessary waste. Is your tap water unsafe to consume?

> whatever happened to doing something because it's the right thing to do?

Taken to its logical conclusion, one could follow anyone around and claim they aren't doing the most right thing. The "right thing to do" is a scale, not binary, and it often conflicts. E.g. right thing to do for self health, vs environment, vs for my customers, vs for my employees, vs for my family (and time with them), vs happiness (for self and others), etc. GP is right, you have to align "right thing to do" with "prudent thing to do" and it becomes viable. Otherwise, to many it comes off as preaching as though they are bad people when they only optimize for other right things.

Agree, that is why one should advocate taxation and subsidies which promote green lifestyles rather than moralizing and pestering people. Just make it economic to be environmentally friendly.

Now I don't drive but I use public transport. However I'd be okay with biking if we had a much better bike lane system in Oslo, Norway where I live. When I lived in the Netherlands I biked everywhere. It was often faster to do than public transport. It felt safe and it gave me about 1 hours of exercise each day.

You feel better from getting exercise, you save money and time. So once cities and authorities actually plan for green living it isn't very hard to do so.

Yet in my native Norway, the green shift has been much more about making life miserable for those who drive, while making few benefits for those who use public transport or drive.

A particular bad development, is ever more centralization by the government in the same of efficiency and saving money. It means pharmacies, doctors offices, police stations, hospitals are made fewer and placed further and further apart. This means public services you used to be able to walk to or bike to, now requires a car.

All this happens while government keeps harping on people needing to use their car less.

There is a lot of things I think our government is really good at in Norway, but transport is an area we utterly suck at. I am very envious of the Dutch.

> There simply has to be a stronger (perhaps economic) incentive that will change the behavior of people like me.

People like you might want economic incentives, but what they actually need is a better education.

Seems he's quite aware and knowledgeable about his impact, he's just the kind of person who is apathetic to the tragedy of the commons, aka why humanity can't have nice things.

I won't rip you for being honest, and I suspect there are a ton of people out there that behave either consciously or unconsciously like this. It's not sustainable, so society will either have to tax these behaviors at the consumer or ban them at the producer side, or some combination of both.

But I do hope that consumers start to choose better habits, because if we don't, we're going to hit a wall sooner or later.

Artificial scarcity of garbage disposal maybe? Where I live in Australia, you wouldn't be able to put 13 gallons of trash a day in a bin. The trash bin has maybe 20-30 gallons total and gets taken every other week. The recycling and compost are larger and get taken more often. You could produce more garbage of course, but then it's up to you to drive to the tip and you'll have to pay to drop stuff off.

If you value how you affect other people, you may find that acting on that value improves your life.

Simply prioritizing yourself and only caring about economic incentives would motivate stealing when you know you won't get caught.

You sound as if you know your waste is hurting other people. You have your values, but if I lived as you describe, knowing my externalities needlessly hurt people would eat me up inside -- no right, wrong, good, or bad, just my personal values. I would change simply to feel better about myself and my role in my community, local and global. Just because people can't see how I'm affecting them, I still am.

If you don't value how you affect other people, my view is to live and let live and hope that people who care enough to act outnumber people like you enough that your waste doesn't hurt that many people.

I suspect that if you started changing a few things, you'd find the emotional reward to change more. I created my podcast http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast for people to hear leaders doing just that.

You are essentially explaining why people and companies need to be held accountable for externalities. If you were taxed on the order of your waste, you’d rapidly change your behavior because you’d actually be paying for it.