Time to kick those resolutions up a notch

MAYBE it’s just me, but it seems to be getting harder to make New Year’s resolutions. In years gone by, we could vow to lose weight, see more of our relatives or reread the classics and feel pretty good about ourselves. But in the face of a world gone terribly wrong -- an increasing divide between the haves and the have-nots, rapid species extinction and global warming, to name a few -- the old resolutions don’t seem to cut it any more. Neither, somehow, do the traditional guilt-reduction strategies.

Not that feeding the homeless at Thanksgiving or donating to a local toy drive isn’t important, but after seeing Al Gore’s documentary or even the movie “Happy Feet,” they just don’t feel like enough. And that feeling of inadequacy is particularly acute for those of us who remember the activism of the ‘60s and ‘70s. We know there’s more we should be doing; we just don’t know where to start.

“A good way to address these problems is by thinking small,” advises M. Ryan Hess, editor of “The Ten Minute Activist: Easy Ways to Take Back the Planet.” Hess, of the five-member Mission Collective, which wrote the book, does just that, presenting in a book small enough to fit in a backpack or tote bag more that 150 ideas to “take your life down a notch ... and take ten for the planet.”

The clear and simple suggestions read at times like meditations or sermonettes, gently, often humorously encouraging readers to change their habits, environment and lives. And although some of the Mission Collective’s recommendations are a bit shopworn (composting, planting trees, keeping your tires properly inflated), the reframing of these small gestures as activism makes them seem more urgently connected to saving the planet.

But maybe you don’t own a home and live in a high-rise apartment. “The Ten Minute Activist” gives suggestions for houseplants you can buy to filter out the toxic benzene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde gases found in modern buildings and furniture. Or maybe you’re one of the few in car-obsessed Southern California who doesn’t drive a car, or wish you didn’t. The book not only will make those who don’t glad, it will also give the rest of us adventurous alternatives (like riding the bus, taking a train, riding a bike) that we can try, knowing we’re doing good at the same time.

OK, so maybe you’re too busy chasing your tail in life’s fast lane to take the Dog (Greyhound bus). How about having your double frappe latte from Coffee du Jour poured into a cup you bring yourself or keeping a reusable container at the Chinese restaurant you buy carryout from twice a week? And if you don’t give up meat altogether after being reminded that 24% of the planet’s land is devoted to raising the world’s cattle population (an endeavor that gobbles up enough energy to account for 6% of America’s greenhouse emissions), how about taking the small step of forgoing beef for bison, which requires less grain and is more healthful to boot? And if you commit to eating seasonal fruits and vegetables, you’re not only making Alice Waters happy, but also you’re contributing fewer carbon dioxide emissions that occur when off-season produce is grown and transported to the U.S. by faraway nations. And, really, how good how can you feel eating $8-a-pound, out-of-season cherries when you could use that money, as the book suggests, to sweeten the tip of a low-paid service worker?

But sometimes, activism isn’t about doing something physical or making sure the big three wood purchasers -- IKEA, Lowe’s and Home Depot -- are using SmartWood, lumber certified as coming from sustainable sources. Sometimes, activism is a state of mind. And for the more cerebral among us, the book offers mind-bending ideas such as practicing more active listening when engaging with others to reduce stress, meditating to encourage world peace, as director David Lynch does, or for the more symbolically or artistically inclined, learning to fold origami cranes to send to Hiroshima in support of peace efforts.

“The Ten Minute Activist” constantly surprises with its inventiveness and dogged determinism to show that you can, you must, make a difference. Trying one or two or 10 of the suggestions contained in it will make you feel better, more hopeful about the planet’s and our collective futures. Buying one or two or 10 to pass on to world-weary friends or leave at a gas pump may help you feel better still. And maybe you’ll make New Year’s resolutions about something more than yourself.

Maybe your reinvigorated activism will become a habit, something you want to do every day. If so, then try Michael Norton’s “365 Ways to Change the World: How to Make a Difference -- One Day at a Time.” Norton is an English social activist who’s been at it for more than 30 years and founded such organizations as Changemakers and YouthBank to encourage young people to make a difference. Norton’s book is organized like a book of days -- one action for every day of the year (even leap-year day) -- and covers such global themes as democracy and human rights, environment, globalization and consumerism and also topics closer to home such as community and neighborhood, young people, culture and creativity. Although there is some inevitable overlap with ideas in “The Ten Minute Activist,” “365 Ways” is more global in focus, showing us how to donate our worn-out bicycles to someone in Africa or Latin America, how to campaign for wildlife conservation from our computers or how we can reduce our Islamohobia by visiting websites containing information about young Muslims who are making the world a better place.

And, in a sidebar related to the Internet, it’s fitting to note that although “365 Ways” started as a book, Norton’s social activism has led him to post the ideas on a website, www.365act.com, at the ready to inspire more daily activism -- and save a few hundred trees in the process.

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Paula L. Woods is a critic and the author of the Charlotte Justice mystery series, including the most recent, “Strange Bedfellows.”