Diary of an Eco-Worrier

When I was a child, I remember making 'Heal the World' (blame Michael Jackson) and 'Eat Dolphin-Safe Tuna' posters and sticking them up round my house. I remember forcing my parents to take me to the recycling bank every Sunday morning, and when I was in year 6 I organised a Bring & Buy sale in aid of WWF (the animals not the wrestlers).

So then I'm not really sure what happened after that, why I never became an eco-warrior, or why I stopped caring as much about the planet. 


These days it seems I'm more of an eco-worrier. I worry a lot about the planet, but am frozen in inaction.

Ruby came home from school the other day. Her topic for the term is Brazil. They had been learning about the rainforest... "Mum, did you know that the men keep chopping down all the trees, and now the orangutans have nowhere to live and are dying, and I am furious about it!" We told her she could write to the Foreign Secretary and maybe he could persuade Brazil to stop... Then we realised it was Jeremy Hunt.

But every story I read at the moment is about the planet being covered in plastic, about our inability to cope with waste, about cyclones and ice caps and the poor penguins and the endangered giraffes.

We've had kids skipping school to protest, Extinction Rebellion hitting the news and even Madame Secretary had to evacuate a pacific island due to climate change (if you don't watch M Sec, you totally should. Pure fiction, but so incredibly topical!). Then it all became a bit real, with major Cyclones hitting Mozambique twice in six weeks and the Islands calling on the UN to make Australia do something, anything, about climate change. The UK and Ireland have both declared a climate emergency and I'm reading everywhere that we only have twelve years to pull it back before... I don't know... The world ends?

It's as if the world is slowly waking up after a century of partying, and we're staring in the mirror with morning-after horror and thinking "What have we done?"

So I resolve that I must do something about it, I must save the planet, and I google all the ways that I can make a change... But it seems so futile. What difference could I possibly make? I'm trying, really I am. I recycle, I turn off the lights, I tut at excess packaging, I'm dairy free and I'm trying to cut back on meat... But it seems a bit pointless really, doesn't it? I'm sure there's more I could do - moving away from disposable wipes, actually remembering to take my reusable coffee cups and carrier bags with me is a good place to start, and then there is going packaging / plastic free (seems expensive, though, right?).

But the problem is so big, and my bamboo toothbrush seems so small (I'm not even sure if I can convince the rest of my household...) and I know that if we all do our bit then it all adds up, but is it enough? Do these small wins make a difference, or is it just enough to make us feel good about ourselves? What about governments and big business? What are they doing about it?

Am I the only one? Any fellow Eco-Worriers out there? Any good, balanced perspective I could take here?
Diary of an Eco-Worrier Diary of an Eco-Worrier Reviewed by Love Emily on June 07, 2019 Rating: 5

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