If you want to go on a green journey, pack wet weather gear and a fishing rod and drive to the West of Ireland.
My green journey has not meant leaving home but has taken about thirty years. I initially ignored climate change and its main cause – carbon emissions. There wasn’t much I could do and in any case many eminent commentators assured me it was all bunk. I even met one at Pratt’s but avoided the subject. There are still deniers but now they look like members of The Flat Earth Society – perhaps they should amalgamate.
Now I recognise the scale of the problem. It can be stopped but not, I think, reversed. The question is how to stop climate change and I don’t know but hope the world is slowly moving in the right direction; too slowly for many. My question is what contribution some of the initiatives being made in the UK will do to impact a global phenomenon? Particularly at a personal level. Is there any point recycling an empty can of baked beans in the face of massive infrastructure and building projects? And does “setting a good example’ make any difference in the context of the rest of the world? In Beijing in 2013 the air quality was awful causing obvious health problems. I don’t know if it has improved. London has never been cleaner since before the 19th century.
I fear I am a powerless passenger on a runaway train. Or perhaps more aptly, a lobster being slowly boiled.
A very good question that strikes a chord in me — and one that echoes myths, literature, and philosophy (only dimly remembered from a mandatory course at university) on the impact of “humble” individual action vs. something huge and daunting. Others have thought it through far more successfully . . . but when I wonder if I should bother putting plastic in the recycling bin (when it almost certainly will go to the dump, as plastic recycling has become something of a myth in the US), I try to remind myself of stories of small thrift or secrifice made during the world wars. Perhaps each small act did not make a truly helpful difference, but it at least gave a person or a family the sense that they were doing what they could to help. And collectively, it helped galvanize the population behind the war effort.
But I also tell myself that it is a way of keeping our fickle politicians focused on the problem. If there is no “uptake” on recycling, public transportation, and other programs (locally, regionally, nationally), politicians will conclude people don’t care and will put off working for the greater changes that are needed until the lobster is already cooked. (Most likely delusional on my part, but we all have our little stories we tell ourselves.)
As for wondering about setting a good example, I suspect you are perhaps baiting your dear readers a bit there, as one rather notable and consistent element of this blog is upholding standards (and adapting them, too). But supposing for a moment you have slipped into doubt:: it would seem that generally, countries can’t effectively push other nations for higher standards if they themselves fall short. (Though the U.S. has certainly tried that approach, it seems to be tolerated less and less.) This home truth is reinforced locally by the children in my house, who are ever alert to any inconsistencies between what adults say and what they do, and quick to exploit any perceived weakness.
As a corrective to overwhelmingly negative media, you might perhaps enjoy “Future Crunch,” which has both a free and a paid newsletter that collect hopeful news of progress against seemingly intractable problems: https://futurecrunch.com/#/portal/account. The statistics can get a bit dreary, but it nevertheless does brighten up one’s inbox.
Given the depth and erudition of Charles’s submission above, I fear my thought will only be seen as the puerile observation I know that it really is…but I can’t resist it: if what we are told about the effects of ruminant animals on the atmosphere is to be believed, should you really not be considering recycling a full rather than empty can of baked beans? I rest my case M’lud.