The year before I left small town New York for this job at Tikkun, a few of us in our Network of Spiritual Progressives chapter got together to reduce our carbon footprint. We used a workbook by David Gershon called Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds.

It was interesting to me how different the small group experience was from just reading about the need to do various things. I already knew much of what the book said, but in our regular group meetings we discussed the details of how difficult or easy it was for each of us to implement the necessary changes. We became better friends and we developed a sense of upbeat possibility: “I’m really going to do this” turned into “I’m doing it!” Instead of being a chore it became fun. It was a nice step towards greater community, to feel we were doing our best together. When I got to Tikkun it was second nature to me to make various suggestions that our already carbon conscious team hadn’t thought of. I’m no paragon of virtue on this issue, but I really recommend this approach.

Gershon’s new book, Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World, is being excerpted right now in a series on on Huffington Post and they are well worth a read. He describes his latest excerpt:

Our Low Carbon Diet and Global Warming Cafe empowerment tools were now tested, performing well, and ready to go. But no matter how ready, getting a minimum of 25% and up to 85% of the residents of a community to reduce their carbon footprint 25%, was not for the faint of heart…. This next article lays out the Cool Community strategy we devised to achieve this.

This is serious stuff: it’s not just feel good greenwashing of your life. It could hugely help the cultural shift we must go through to actually happen. Check out his eight steps for your community and see if you could take it on. Next week:

A number of communities have signed on to take this journey. Their first task was to prototype the program with at least a hundred households so they knew what it was all about and would be credible taking it to this next stage. But going from a hundred households to many thousands is a large chasm to cross. In the final installment of this series I will profile a city, region, and state-wide initiative that have embarked on this heroic journey. Join me next Monday, March 1, for the conclusion of empowering a climate change movement.