ジャッキーの これ、どう思う？ While we're on the topic ...

This picture shows the beautiful sky and mountains in Banff, Canada. JACKIE HOFFART PHOTO

I believe my approach to eco-friendly living is fairly normal for people my age in my culture. I was taught the four R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover) in elementary school and as result, I grew up with an awareness of my personal responsibility to the planet.

Turn off the lights when you leave a room. Don't stand with the fridge door open. Don't let the tap run when you are brushing your teeth. These were the "eco" lessons from childhood, which have now become the baseline for living on this planet.

By my early 20s, I'd become even more aware of how much impact my culture has on the global environment. So I took it to the next level. I stopped eating meat because of how carbon-intensive it is to raise cattle, compared to vegetables and fish. I decided I wouldn't buy a car. I started purchasing local products, especially those with as little packaging as possible. I took fewer flights to reduce my carbon footprint.

But when you take eco-friendly living up a couple of notches, it's easy to become self-righteous. You start to pass judgment on others. People start to separate from each other rather than come together because they just can't agree, or don't have anything in common anymore.

I once dated a woman who was an ex-member of a vegan activist group in Europe. During the time they were active, the group was called terrorists because of their extreme actions. They would break into animal labs and set all the animals free. I think they even threatened and kidnapped people. This is a perfect example of what happens when people become self-righteous about their beliefs. If you take a good idea too far, it becomes a bad idea.

Now I'm always wary of people who don't have a little bit of bad with their good, of people who take themselves (and their beliefs) too seriously. "Everything in moderation, including moderation" is the famous saying, and I think the same applies to eco-friendly living.

I've also found myself giving up a little on my former beliefs about eco-living. I eat meat now, albeit not all the time, so I'm no vegetarian. I fly whenever I need to and I'm even considering buying a car.

It's not because I don't want to be a puritan, it's because I've come to realize that no amount of eco-bags or reusable water bottles will really save our Earth from total cataclysmic devastation at this stage.

Global warming is so far gone that, I believe, the only thing that can really tip the scales now is serious coordinated global agreements that are followed — in which governments all over the world agree to cap and reduce the their greenhouse gas emissions. If this doesn't happen, we're all more or less doomed.

You could say I have given up, but I think I have just become aware that we've reached the end of a certain ideology. I still believe I have a personal responsibility to this beautiful planet, but I also believe that responsibility extends by several orders of magnitude to the governments that represent the people on this planet. Their failure to act on behalf of our collective long-term interests is likely to be devastating.

The truth is, part of me is too afraid of the reality of global warming to even deal with it anymore. Perhaps I've abdicated responsibility because it feels like my government has too. And maybe that's making it worse. I don't know.

But what I do know is that I support political parties that want aggressive targets for action on global climate change. I still buy locally made products as much as I can. But I no longer have the ego to think that my personal actions will have an impact. The best I can do is try to live within my own ethics, be critical of my own ideas, and be open to change. And, in a sad kind of way, enjoy the beautiful world we live in as much as I can, before it's too late.

Next time, my topic is ... the Oscars