How Big is Your Carbon Footprint?
By Emma
Kajiyama
Every time I
post a new link or blog to The Urban Nurture page, I am acutely reminded of the
saying “practice what you preach”. As an
advocate for caring for the environment, I am always trying to learn and
research on how to be better at living sustainably to help reduce my personal
carbon footprint on our planet. At the
present, there is so much more I could be doing.
Everything
we do, be it driving a car or something as simple as acquiring more shopping
bags, has an adverse effect on the environment.
The only problem is, usually, we don’t immediately see the results of
our actions until we hear bad press about the climate, from the plastic waste
found in the oceans to the ever-receding habitat of polar bears. Even then, we sometimes don’t realise that
the cause of it is us. So how radically
are we prepared to change our lifestyle? Taking action collaboratively is a
progressive move so it is imperative to understand ways in which we can help.
In the UK
the modern culture of consumerism has left us in a difficult position. Does an
endless variety of clothes, food and technology create laziness and apathy
towards caring about our environment? Do we blame a lack of time or money for
our readiness to forget the implications of shopping in supermarkets, buying
whatever is in front of us, no matter where it may come from? Do our modern
lifestyles prevent us from questioning how environmentally sound the items we
buy really are?
The answer
for many is yes. I know myself how easy
it is to give in to the abundance of shopping. For me, it is the convenience of
buying anything I want, as soon as I want.
Furthermore,
eating sustainably also becomes an interesting debate, where we have to
understand that all food products are interconnected, and that the issue is
much more complex than just eating meat or being a vegan. The use of pesticides and some fertilisers to
grow our fruit and vegetables invariably kill insects, worms and pollinators
who are incredibly vital to the production of our foods. And we also find that most of the fruit and
vegetables in our supermarkets is not grown in Britain. The carbon footprint of
shipping them to the UK is huge. This in
turn has a destructive impact on the habitats of animals the world over, not
forgetting the social problems importing from other countries can generate and
the excess waste that is thus created.
Eating meat
is also an intricate issue, depending on whether consumers are comfortable
about eating meat of an unknown source and are content to be unaware of the
quality of the welfare practiced.
Buying
organic, local, Fairtrade and growing our own food can be seen as ideal. There
is an element of trust that we can place in products which claim to be free of
pesticides and GMOs. And by growing our own produce we have power over how we
do so, and this helps to drastically reduce waste. However this way of living
can be more expensive and rarely as convenient.
So, becoming
‘better at living’ as a modern consumer can be a challenge and it is a massive
lifestyle change. To do so, we must reduce
our carbon footprint, carefully consider our product options and essentially research
every single place we eat or shop. It’s great that more and more of us are starting
to make these changes, especially in a world which is fast-paced and where we
still compete for that better car or lust after a certain fashion craze.
I will find
it a difficult task but I hope to change my modern consumer-ways as much as I
can. There are certain brands I will not
shop at, and re-using shopping bags has now become my norm. But of course I can
and will do better.
I think as
human beings we owe it to our planet to look after it as it has looked after
us. We therefore should try to aim to work collaboratively to understand how to
better our ways of living, rather than being complacent about our individual
ways of life. We cannot truly know for certain how best to live, but we can
encourage and inspire each other to live a little less selfishly and a lot more
sustainably.
After note: I have coincidentally written this
on ‘Earth Overshoot Day’. This is the
point at which humanity goes into ecological debt.
It has
emerged that as of today, “humans have already used up 2015’s supply of Earth’s
resources… we have exhausted a year’s supply of natural resources in less than
eight months, according to an analysis of the demands the world’s population
are placing on the planet.” (TheGuardian.com, 2015). We have been using up the Earth’s yearly
quota, earlier and earlier each year.
Let’s do something to change this, take action today and let’s make a move to become more sustainable together!
Let’s do something to change this, take action today and let’s make a move to become more sustainable together!
