World Changing, Climate Breaking

So, there’s a new report out on climate change, one even stronger than ever with results even more dire and note worthy. It comes on the heels of news of devastating fires in Greece & ever worse fires breaking out from year to year in parts of the US and Australia.

A quick flick through news stories and comments ( and I admit I find computers leave me totally drained so I tend to do quick flicks rather than spend ages researching ) left me with the strong sense of everyone saying “someone do something” or “I don’t want to do anything” but no loud “what can I do’s” yet.
Now I have to admit that I can’t see my own actions changing anything and I’m sorely disappointed that I can’t afford an electric car or to realign my house and stack it with solar panels ( not just for the environment but also because it would save money in the long term. Yes, helping the world can help yourself too ) but that doesn’t mean I can just put everything on someone else or not do something.

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Of course the question is what.
Buying energy from a solar panel using supplier, tick.
Growing plants and shrubs to help absorb pollution, tick.
Hmm.., at this point it becomes very difficult to work out what next.

I own a car and drive it for work purposes, which I cannot do from home, so that’s off the list. I think I keep the milage low but maybe there’s room to drive more fuel efficient or even cut down on some shopping trips. Worth thinking on and, again, it would save me some money which always helps.
My mower and other power tools are all electric so I guess that’s a tick.
I guess after that it’s down to cutting down on as much non recyclable packaging as possible ( not just to stop rubbish but also I get the impression that making plastics etc would require heavy equipment and high emissions ).
I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something else but that seems a fair bit to start with.

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Of course it’s only a drop in the ocean, it would take everyone doing it to start to make a change and the industries and governments would need to change too but that’s something I can’t do anything about. Much as I’d love every building and car park covered by solar panels or green roofs, I’m not going to be sneaking out at night and clambering over chimneys with a length of cable and some batteries.

The funny thing is that a lot of changes we can make are things we’ve just lived through such as less driving, essential & focused shopping, even getting back to gardening as a hobby. Things we were forced into by Covid lockdown and which, unfortunately, we’ve railed at and fought against the whole way through.
Oh, I’ve heard the “it’s so hard still having restrictions” as most restrictions get lifted and seen people walking around places mask free when the poor staff are still wearing masks and having to face the, new, dangers of doing shop work. I know a lot of shops closed for good and so many people struggled ( and still are ). The world turned upside down and shook us hard.
However it wasn’t done on a whim or for fun, these were rules brought in to save lives, lives of friends and family. How much harder will it be for us to follow them when we can’t see who we’re helping and don’t think of the world around us as something that needs our help?

Now, the roads are getting busy again and holidays abroad are being snapped up once more but what if we cut back on those as much as possible, could we do it? Could we live a more local and pedestrian life? I think so but then my life is set up well for that. For others maybe it’s harder.

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The thing is, if we all just say “what are they going to do” then by the time we think “what am I going to do” we’ll already have trouble knocking on our door.

Would it be easier for us if we thought about it as saving money? Would we feel less pain at changing our lives if we saw the world we live in as a friend rather than a backdrop?

I think it’s worth thinking about because, at the least, it’s then us asking what we want to do about things.