Somebody asked me this the other day when referring to driving. They were talking about cars and the price of them. Being an intelligent friend who I greatly respect, I was taken aback when they asked this. Of course, they meant don’t let stuff like that inform your car choice. They had weighed up the environment as a factor and decided that access to petrol pumps and affordability were much more important when choosing a new car.
Have you heard such comments?
It worries me that people know very well about the problems linked to the environment yet still consider them only minor considerations when they make life choices. Not just when selecting consumables, but when making actual decisions about the way they go about their lives.
What am I trying to say?
First of all I am not laying the blame on anyone at all. I am purely saying that now we are over all the uncertainty – climate change is undeniable – let’s get on with dealing with it. There will be teething problems with new initiatives such as the rollout of electric cars. We will have to sometimes spend a bit more on everyday things until changes become embedded. It will take a little effort. But we need to act now! (By the way I am not trying to be Greta Thunberg, she is doing a great job though and is well worth listening to).
Changes we might see and have to deal with:
– New houses need an extra power supply to be used in conjunction with a charger for an electric car.
– Homes need to be altered to environmentally sound heating using heat pumps, solar panels or simply good old electric heaters.
– Emphasis will be on locally grown foods. This may be more expensive but it has a much smaller carbon footprint as it hasn’t flown around the globe.
– Travel to work needs to be more considered. Work from home is now a real alternative to commuting long distances daily. Work meetings can be carried out on zoom, rather than involving lots of attendees flying hundreds of miles and staying in hotels.
– Fashion needs to be led by the consumers. This is something I fear we may not see happening organically but fast fashion needs to end. Fast fashion involves so much energy usage and often depends on industries in third world countries which are dependent on dirty fossil fuels. The carbon footprint in transporting clothes around is also enormous. Fingers crossed people will start to wear out and even repair their clothing instead of changing their wardrobes every few months.
Of course, I could go on for pages but I just wanted to freshen people’s minds. In a few weeks the UN Climate Summit will begin in Glasgow and it’s the perfect opportunity for politicians to make progress in pushing the issues linked to global warming. I recently wrote another article about being eco-friendly which you can read here.
With any luck you read to the end of this post and agreed with me that we need to make the environment our number one consideration from now on. Let me know what you think below and perhaps consider following my blog for similar content.
I definitely hope more can be done to protect and conserve the environment.
We need to push the governments.
Hi Jamie,
I think that the situation for many people can be summed-up by this part of one of your sentences ” … be more expensive but …”.
When presented with an equal cost choice between an environmentally sound product and one that is not, I believe that most people would ‘do the right thing’. However, when it is not an equal cost option there are many people who simply cannot financially afford to make the right choice.
I think that far more effort needs to be placed on addressing the affordability of greener alternatives. I hesitate to say it, but perhaps there needs to be a ‘green tax’ – an extra 1% on Income Tax and Corporation Tax across the board and used to subsidise green purchases.
Yes you are right! I am all for anything to accelerate things.
I am considering buying an electric car. This is useful.
I agree, Greta is fantastic! I think the biggest problem that people have with making environmental changes is the cost – many people just simply can’t afford to switch to energy-saving alternatives in terms of heating or cars. But I think that with the pandemic seeing so many companies switch to letting employees work from home, we might start to see some change as less people need to commute to work each day.
I hope so. Thanks for reading.
The environment does matter, A LOT, and it is sad that so many people don’t even care. Those of us who are aware of how important taking care of the environment is, can do our small part by adopting a sustainable lifestyle and continuing to create awareness. Thank you so much for sharing this!
Thanks for reading. It is time for businesses to act as well.
Them too! Many are doing things that affect the environment negatively and nothing is being done about it.
I hope we can all work on this together, I just hope that the price increases that will come with some things are worked on, there are people who want to be environmentally conscious but simply can’t afford to be x
I agree. Governments need to stop letting big businesses like football and gambling roll in money, tax them higher and use it for this.
Such a great post! I completely agree, things need to change now and, as consumers, there’s small things we can start doing. Despite being one small voice in an ocean of people all big acts start with something small so you have you be the change too.
Certainly. We need to go for it.
I remember when I was in college and learning about the environment more in-depth and I could believe how much we need to protect the environment.
Great post, Jaime! I truly believe it’s all the smaller choices we make that lead to the bigger ones. Climate change has shown us especially this year that we are abusing our beautiful planet and need to make significant changes. Thanks for sharing !
Lynn | https://www.lynnmumbingmejia.com
I agree but we need big change now too.
Exceptional post. Thank you. I’m not not asked questions like that because I’m so blatantly and outspokenly fervent about environmental protection and fighting climate change. To those who focus on costs, I would talk about “externalities,” figures that don’t show up in traditional, corporate-favoring cost-benefit analyses, but are costs nonetheless: species loss and narrowing biodiversity, human health and, of course, the biggie – survival of our species.
Great points! I totally agree.
It is our environment! Thank you 😊🌍