When I try to do my own research about how to live more climate efficiently, I feel futile. A lot of the advice out there is about consumption: how to consume the right things, how to shop right, how to eat clean, and how to waste little in your leisure (consumptive) time. I have no interest in shopping right and eating green. I barely shop as it is and, when I do, it’s for something I really need.

Most of us do not live lives where our consumption is causing the biggest problems of climate change. Most of us live in apartments, take public transit, walk, and turn on the AC only during heat waves. Most of us do not live lives of leisure and luxury. For most of us, our biggest contribution to the demise of the planet as we know it is not through our leisure but through our work.

We don’t really fly private planes three minutes from airport to airport. We might not be able to afford plane travel except when we get to travel for work. We don’t have control over the factories and industrial waste that kills the soil but we might work in them. We don’t have control over the polluting effects of the internet but we might work off the internet. For a lot of us, the amount of pollution that we generate in our personal lives shrunken by the ever expanding definition of work will never compare to the amount of pollution that we generate while working.

This is where the futility comes in. I want to use my AC at home if I go to a workplace that’s kept as chill as a fridge. Hell, I want to use my AC at home if I know that we use more water and AC to keep car parts cool than people or animals. What’s the point in eating less meat if I’m getting up everyday to go sell cell phones that are shipped around by plane?

Or maybe I’m just being a baby about this.

A lot of my habits are actually pretty minimal. I grew up in a house where we reused all the paper towels until they became pulp and where we always kept plastic bags. We never bought anything that we didn’t need. I still have those habits. They feel like second nature. And then, there’s work where you don’t really get to bring your personal habits and where you do things as outlined by someone else.

I work for myself now and I’ve tried to look up the carbon footprint of my job as an astrologer. Since my work has shifted to virtual meetings more, I’ve been able to see more people. I’m also concerned about the carbon footprint of a virtual meeting. A virtual meeting complete with sound and video is one of the more energy consuming ways to use the internet.

So, I try to do things when I pay attention. I close tabs when I’m not using them when I remember to. I unplug everything at night. I use a shared server which means that sometimes I can’t ssh into my website to make changes but I share less space with more people. Sometimes, I send more emails than is necessary and sometimes I read an essay on my computer when I should really send it to my phone so that I am using a smaller screen whenever necessary. I read stories about running out of water and facing compounding levels of disease and I get scared, start trying to minimize my energy use more.

I think that work feels futile because it reminds us of just how much we are not in control of the world. I am self employed which means that I am technically supposed to be able to control myself. However, there are things that are not up to me. If I want to communicate with people, I have to use technology.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Something about how I’m sick of us always being charged with managing our shrinking personal lives to reduce our personal carbon footprints because this stuff has never been personal. The way that we have to work is a blight on the world and it sucks that we’re not in control of that part of our lives. And this is from someone, because I am self employed, who believes that I have a bit more control than a lot of people.

I wonder what would happen if we could figure out what the carbon footprint of our jobs were. I think that it would change the perspective that our consumption based ethics tries to throw onto us quite a bit. Futility has a lot to teach us. It shows us where our control ends and where change must be directed towards. Futility has no patience for self management.