Am I Green?
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You might assume that I’m ambivalent to the environment – after all, I was a climate change skeptic until recent years, at least until Donald Trump helped to persuade me that there might be an issue after all.
Most of the skeptic in me is that I don’t believe the doomsday crap about the world is going to end in 20 years or whatever the latest string of nonsense is coming out of environmental terrorist groups. And I certainly don’t believe that a warming planet means that we now need communism – environmental damage is not an excuse for the introduction of left-wing policies to make us all poorer…and more polluting.
However, even if I was still a climate change skeptic (I am pretty much persuaded that the planet is warming – especially in the Arctic), the pollution problem is undeniable.
Well, undeniable to someone who lives in reality…not all of us do, alas. The pollution of rivers, the pollution of the oceans, the plastic microfibers in the sea, the smog in industrial areas of the world, the destruction of wildlife habitats, the destruction of rainforest. I could go on. You know it. I know it. Pollution has been a major problem for decades…centuries even.
And when I was a child, I persuaded our family to start recycling. Initially from a fascination of animal life, I discovered the idea of pollution – and recycling.
Long before councils picked up your recycling, I was walking down to shitty local car parks with a bag of empty beer cans.
I like to think that I’ve actually been ahead of the curve.
And what is my impact now?
Nowadays, I like to think that I’m relatively green. I don’t aim to be perfect, I’m not ever going to be going a year without washing my hair or eating all my banana peels. I’m certainly never going to be one of those holier than thou types in any respect, let alone in environmentalism.
I don’t drop litter. EVER.
I try to recycle everything, following all the pain in the ass rules from the local council like taking Sellotape off cardboard so it can actually be recycled. I’m sure my neighbours look at me like a weirdo, ripping Sellotape off cardboard boxes.
If I’m replacing/upgrading something in my life, then I try to pass on my unwanted goods. For example, I bought a new office chair so instead of taking the old, crappy one to the local tip, I managed to sell it on Ebay for £1 – it took 6 months for anyone to buy it, but someone did! One man’s waste…
Broken electronics can often be sold on Ebay, and if not, then Westminster council have electronic waste bins on streets – so when I’m in central London I can drop them off.
One thing I do need to stop doing is buying cheap things – like I bought a cheap phone charger and it broke after a month. I should have just paid twice the amount and got a proper one. Buy cheap – buy twice…and waste more.
I don’t waste much food. I’m keeping a spreadsheet of the approximate cost of the food I waste, and I’m at around £64 for just over half-way through 2022.
Further to that, I get my fruit and vegetables from Oddbox. Who are a B-corp, specialising in taking unwanted fruit and vegetables from farmers – sometimes mis-sized but often just slightly out of season, that the supermarkets won’t buy. Sprouts in May, peaches in December – all good by me.
What else?
Looking at a chart that suggests what you can do to be more environmentally friendly:
Well, I’ve never driven a car. Mostly that is because I didn’t want to subsidise dictators in countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Russia (feels quite pertinent at the moment), but partly also for environmental reasons.
I certainly don’t have children and seem unlikely to – though I’m not convinced that depopulation is a wise idea, as it will make us poorer – and poorer means we’ll likely be more polluting, and have less to invest in new technology – new technology will be the cure for environmental problems. And no, I don’t mean Tesla cars with their huge appetite for lithium, etc.
Not much I can do about the source of heating and electricity in a shared house, where my landlady makes such decisions.
I do eat less meat, but I used to eat meat 3 meals a day. LOL. So it isn’t hard, and I’m only eating less for health reasons.
Erm…flights?
Well, that is where I fall down, as I fully intend on seeing far more of the world than I have done so far.
Maybe I’m not green.
But all the above said, I did some environmental footprint check and apparently I still consume 148% of the average person in the UK.
Oops.
I recalculated without taking any flights and…
So basically I’m doing everything green that I can think of, but take a few flights and I’m therefore an environmental evil.
Oh well. Guess we need another pandemic.
One of the difficulties with doing “right” by the environment is that you might well sacrifice your holidays abroad, but others won’t – and perhaps more importantly, why should future generations sacrifice being able to visit and experience other cultures when current and previous generations were swanning around all over the world…AND HAVE ALL THE HOUSING.
Plus, when you have a Botox-addicted monster creating vast amounts of pollution, death and famine by invading another country in eastern Europe, waving his nukes around like a drunk pervert waving his willy on a train platform, then like, why shouldn’t I go on holiday to Spain if I fancy?
The future.
I will still be taking flights until the environmental terrorist groups persuade governments to ban them. Thankfully we are likely some time away from that.
Even more thankfully, technological development through capitalist economics will solve the issues around climate change and pollution in due course. There is very good money to be made in solving such problems…the company that first properly cracks carbon storage and sequestration, for example, will likely make a ton of money. Well, maybe not the first, but the copy-cats with better marketing.
I’m not so worried about carbon emissions. I do worry about the pollution of seas. I do worry about the killing of wild animals. I do worry about the destruction of the rainforest. Yet I do believe that technological solutions will be found for all, or most problems – with some government enforcement likely necessary. For example, surely it must soon (if not now) be possible to track movements of elephants – and their ivory hunters, by drone?
Maybe I should carbon offset my flights, but it seems like spending money on something intangible that I have no idea whether it works or not. Maybe an easier solution would be to give to environmental charities when I book a flight?
But I’m not going to chastise myself for a few flights. Other people have multiple cars, multiple children, waste vast amounts of food. Another possible way to offset would be to invest in “green” companies – as I did with Oddbox when they were starting up. Though the green investing space is overflowing with money at the moment…much of it likely being wasted.
I’m not aiming to be perfect, but I do try to make a half-decent fist of reducing my environmental impact and always have done. Let’s just pretend aeroplanes don’t pollute. One day they won’t.