Climate change is something that is and will affect all of us, young or old, poor or rich and unless we tackle it now, our children and grand-children will bear the consequences, as well as the whole ecosystem.
Governments are slow to make any progress, too busy keeping stakeholders and shareholders happy – after all we all know the Government is run by banks, oil companies & supermarkets!
Instead of waiting for the Government to do their part, we need to take responsibility to make changes to our ever consuming lifestyles and contribute in making the world a better place for our descendants.
One big campaign that’s worth participating in is 10:10 – reduce our carbon footprint by 10% in 2010. You can sign up on the website and pledge your support with the many businesses and individuals who have signed up already.
There’s plenty of things we can all do that are hardly going to make our lives difficult – think about the thousands and millions already starting to suffer from climate change – recent storms and floods in Asia have taken many lives and no doubt more to come.
So what can we do, and most importantly, what am I doing?
1. Reduce our use of gas – last year we had a wood burning stove installed in our dining room which makes a huge difference in warmth within our home. We’ve never bought wood for it yet, but forage for branches and logs when we go out dog walking.
2. Reduce the thermostat – it never goes over 19 celcius even in the depths of freezing cold, but is this enough to make a difference?
3. I work from home so don’t use the car every day and my husband takes the bus several times per week to work. We use our local shops for a lot of our food requirements and as they’re only 5 minutes walk away, we rarely use the car to shop locally.
4. We don’t leave any appliances on standby so as to reduce energy consumption, try to turn off lights (I’m better at this than my husband!) and don’t have a tumble dryer, so no problem there.
5. We home compost our vegetable peelings which gets reused on the garden.
6. We haven’t been on a long haul flight in many years and tend to stay in the UK or take the ferry to France for holidays.
5. Appreciate the simple things in life – one of the things that always lifts my spirits is going for a long walk with my husband and dog or sitting by an open fire.
I’m sure there’s plenty more I can do and am also planning on doing the following:
Make more vegetarian meals each week – try and increase to 3 times per week.
Buy an energy monitor – we have an electric shower and I’m sure I’ll be horrified how much energy it uses!
For more on reducing your carbon emissions, log onto the 10:10 website and also the 10:10 section on the Guardian website. We all need to take action now before it’s too late.
