Back in 2008 I asked myself if I really thought the evidence pointed to the need to take action around climate change and the breakdown of our ecological systems. The answer was yes.
I then asked Is what I am doing the best thing that I could be doing? and the answer was yes in some ways and very definitely no in others.
Yes because my work was about working with communities to make changes in their practices to be more sustainable and kinder to the planet.
And no because I didn't feel like doing that inside a science institution, where funding was so precarious and where our work wasn't well understood, was actually making a difference. On top of that I was talking with groups about the need to change business as usual and yet I felt I was living my life as if everything was fine. So I left my job for the great unknown at the end of that year.
After a few months of looking around and trying a few things, I had confirmed that we don't make change without community and without taking people with us. So I've built community for the last 10 years in different ways and in doing that feel that I've been more effective in bringing about the change I want to see (at least in part) even if what I've done doesn't look terribly environmentally focused. Of course, I've also had to accept that there is only so much one woman with finite energy levels can do!
There is so much more that we need to do to change and a lot of change is going to be forced on us by the look of the scale and speed of the ecological, climatic and social disruption being suffered around the world. We will meet that more successfully (whatever that means) if we meet it as a community.
I agree with what you are saying, it does take one person at a time to change our dirty habits concerning the environment and social issues. Then the community and nation and nations around the globe need to do their part. What we can do is to conquer pollution first, clean up our water ways, our cities, towns, country and nations. All this is daunting to those who have no hope and cannot see a way out as all we are exposed to by the media is doom and gloom which may contribute to mental health and or suicide. The populace sees a grim picture of what their future holds if there is a bombardment of media stating global warming, pollution, wars, effects on the environment and so forth. Let us be proactive in helping instead of talking. This would make a huge different to those who have no hope of ever seeing this world a better place to live in.
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