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Global Cool
What do you know about the environment? Well you might not know statistics or hard facts concerning precipitation or ecosystems, but what everyone does know is that the environment surrounds us, feeds us, helps us breathe or not breathe, is the source of all our materials that we use to make anything, can scare us to death with an erupting volcano or something as simple as make us happy as a pig in shit on a sunny day. Obvious. I know, but our world is all connected to itself and to us. We have to realise that connection more and more today.
Just look around you. Have you ever seen a town when the heroic Street Cleaners and Binmen go on strike? Disgusting. To think that we accumulate so much waste with plentiful, little or no interest as to where it goes makes my skin crawl. Have you ever been to a landfill site? What happens when you throw your rubbish in the bin... "that dirt get's taken out of my life so I don't have to worry about it". Well it has to go somewhere. Some people across the globe live off our waste in the western world.That's a sight.
Have you ever been in a garage when a car was engine was running? You wouldn't last long in there, so how does the ozone layer feel when millions of cars unnecessarily drive to and fro to somewhere within walking distance. Have you ever put a penny into a glass of coca cola overnight? It'll be as shiny as new. how does your underdeveloped childs inner body feel when you give them a glass, or feed them absolutely nutritionless fast food/ cheap meals?
Type something as simple as "litter" into google images and be prepared. We are a filthy race, we consume and we disregard. Sometimes because we just want to ignore our waste, and for some just because we have no other option. Me, you, everybody can make tiny, tiny, tiny differences to the world, and imagine if every single person made one tiny little difference in one day....how much of an enormous difference it would make to everyone that day; because whether you believe it or not, whatever you do to and for the environment (be it throwing litter on the ground or picking it up off the ground) somewhere along the line it will have a catalytic effect on even just one other person's life.
Everybody knows about the tiny domestic changes we should make. Things like: turning the lights off, not leaving the tap running (massive pet hate of mine!), filling up the washing machine and using it on a short wash or low temprature, using essential appliances communally, meticulously recycling, quick showers, reusing plastic bags, not driving to the shops down the road, generally using public transport or car sharing. The key is to look upon what you're doing and revise it, thinking "less energy waste" all the time..... these are tiny things, but they make a difference. A massive difference.
I believe heavily in nature, that if you are good to her, she will be good to you. I believe in how every action has a consequence and how I live and my consumerism and energy expenditure is all connected to the grand scheme of our environment, so I have to also admit my failings. My carbon footprint is sick, I completely understand that, and I am ashamed of it. But I'm in the process of trying to change my work transport mode of choice from flying, to anything else. But I have always tried to offset my carbon footprint in other ways, such as reusing everything I possibly can, taking public transport as often as possible, consuming as little as possible and getting involved physically in litter picking, or community cleaning projects as often as I can. I'm naming and shaming myself first, cos I'm not preaching. I'm in the process of trying to change my ways. I will always be.
Anyway's, I have a lot of links that I want to send onto you, but here's where I'd like to start:
www.globalcool.org
Global cool is an environmental organisation that I'm getting involved in that is simply trying to ease the younger generation into a better understanding of environmental issues. Many would agree that one of the hardest trials of mankind is to change an opinion, or change your ways. But to change the world, you can't start by bombarding people with information, because people just switch off... so you may have noticed a sort of 'gently, gently' approach to finally raising the heinous environmental issues facing us today. And knowing that I'm sounding cliched, kids are the future, so we need to teach them most.
Some of Global Cool's incentives is from recycling old mobile phones to trying to make the ordinary Joe reduce their carbon footprint by just one ton. They are aiming from the littliest achievements a human can do, to having a huge impact on the political world as their voice strengthens. Go online and see how you can do that. This may be a little juvenile for some of you hardcore environmentalists out there (and I understand that the name dropping would be enough to put a lot of people off, including myself), but I believe you have to start somewhere and as long as anyone, and I don't care if you are the the most famous person in the world or not, is doing something beneficial for the world. Let's try do something today, too.
For instance, I'm going to write to the Irish board of transport, again, and ask them why the fuck it's cheaper to fly a plane from Cork to Dublin than it is to take the train or the bus. Little things like that are what's confusing us into making more unnessary emmission of carbon. So, it might seem like a little complaint, but it is a voice at least. And EVERY single voice matters.
Start small, it builds and builds.
Take care, wal x
10:58 AM
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