A Small Change for a Greener Tomorrow

[ramkry]

What’s one habit you’ve embraced to live more sustainably? Whether it’s using reusable bags, reducing food waste, or walking instead of driving, every small step counts. For example: I have started growing trees in the piece of land I own in India.  My land is small but then thought it would be an humble start towards reforestation.  It is painful to see only about small percentage of the trees I planted grew up to 6ft tall. Cheers. 

[DominikTylczyn · Accepted solution]

I reuse bags, don't waste food, walk a lot. I do that because it feels good, not because it counts. It does not count at all and there will not be a greener tomorrow. Don't fool ourselves - those small steps are by far outweighed by global players.

You can plant as many trees as you want, which is notable by itself, but at the same time many, many, many more trees are mowed down in tropical forests. We can reduce consumer plastic consumption, but that is just a drop in the ocean of oil drilled globally - drill, baby, drill.

[Vogelaetitia]

Even if your statement about deforestation and oil industry is not wrong, saying ' It does not count at all' is wrong and quite agressive. 

An Amerindian legend tells that one day, in the Amazon rainforest, there was a huge fire. All the animals, terrified and helpless, watched the disaster. Only a small hummingbird was active. He would fetch drops of water one by one from the river and throw them on the fire with his beak. The armadillo, annoyed by this derisory action, ends up calling out to the hummingbird: "Aren't you crazy? Do you think you'll be able to put out the fire with that? » And the hummingbird replied, "No, but I'm doing my part."

[ramkry]

It was good story. I read again this morning. Thank you. 

[ramkry]

That's true. Every single drop adds to the ocean. It is the 'collective individual actions' that makes a huge difference. Single remote catalyst can be attain critical mass to tilt the scale. I think the scale has already tilted as you can see in the recent UN climate talks. Cheers. 

[Elodie1]

Thank you for your inspiring and positive message!

On my side, I do a lot of little things and I believe they are somehow useful :

• I have insulated my home in order to save energy
• I have installed solar panels 5 years ago (in France we have a return on investment after 10 years by reducing our electricity charges)
• I have planted only local plants which do not require watering in my garden and I have created a vegetable garden to grow my own food at least partially (this is where you realize how much effort and time it requires to grow food, and then you don't want to waste anymore...)
• I have significantly reduced the amount of meat in my diet (now meat is truely an exception in my meals, and I am on the way to become a vegetarian). This is something very powerful to reduce GHG emissions of food and change of land-usage (deforestation) : Global livestock production contributes an estimated 18% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mainly in terms of methane and nitrous oxide. (18% is without induced deforestation)
• I almost never buy new clothes, essentially second hands
• I keep my smartphone a longer time, as long as it works, no matter new functionalities that I am "missing"
• I stopped going on vacation far away by plane, I go by train, which is actually really nice as I had opportunities to discover places that are nearer to my home but that I would not have the idea to visit otherwise
• I use ecosia (www.ecosia.org) for my web searches (they plant trees and protect forests around the world)
• I have changed my bank in order to join a bank that promotes virtuous investments and does not finance the development of fossil fuels
• I was trained in order to be able to animate "The Climate Fresk" which is a workshop based on collective intelligence in order to learn the main aspects of climate change as described by the IPCC
• I am following a 2-year training cursus (in parallel of my job) to learn how companies can make their ecological transition, in order to be able to help professionally as well.

I believe there are a lot of things that each and every person can do (especially true as I am speaking from Europe where the standard of living is generally quite high, which results in higher impacts on the environment), and talk about it! If we are more and more people to change our way of living in the right direction, as far as we can and making little progress each year, it will really make a difference globally, and it will have huge impacts on economy and governments as well. 

We all have some power in our hands!

[ramkry]

Thank you. That was well written. Most of the points you are made are all true to green living. Very inspiring and it requires courage to live a life a like that.  your point on planting local plants was wonderful -  "planted only local plants which do not require watering in my garden and I have created a vegetable garden to grow my own food at least partially" this is great. 

I have been growing trees myself. I have written a book review too on the book "The man who planted trees" and I have been developing and evolving my own environmental advocacy website covering many aspects of tree growing and other posts on environmental concerns.

[Elodie1]

Wow wonderful!

You might know this african proverb: "He who planted a tree before he died did not live in vain."

With your blog, you also encourage other persons to not live in vain!