Gods @Jessica-and-Henry0 that must really be a struggle to live and watch. Rest assured, there are many people like you who think the same way and are just as frustrated. The power comes when you all join together and make consumer driven choices that influence the market. I also believe in living each day to your own values and your own standards.
@Sarah977 thanks for the feedback, that sounds like good advice. We'll get it all setup in the Airbnb then take a picture of it there and annotate the listing properly for it. I think it should be ok. I completely agree, a real fireplace would be a total fire hazard. There is no way I'd trust guests to build a fire themselves... disaster waiting to happen.
I was thinking about green choices in general this afternoon and wanted to share some.... thoughts? Ramblings? Keyboard splat probably...
Most folks know I'm hugely keen on making environmental choices. That said, I tend to work on my own choices rather than lecturing others. I guess I try to lead by example and it seems to work! When I meander to the check-out at the supermarket without a single plastic packaged product, then proceed to spend less than 1/4 of what everyone else spends each week... believe me, people notice. Even the checkout operators have started to ask questions about how little I buy. Do I shop somewhere else? Is it just a top up shop? I get surprised reactions when I answer "no, this is my entire weekly shop".
All I have in the basket is:
- Glass bottled wine
- Glass jar of coconut yoghurt
- A paper bag of rolled oats (sometimes)
- 5 litre tin of Olive oil (sometimes)
- Cardboard box of frozen fish with no plastic (somtimes)
- Bakery bread in my own bag
- Jar of something (varies)
Elsewhere I buy bulk, using my own containers for everything from flour, to cleaning products, to shampoo and conditioner. Even the toilet paper is plastic free, made of bamboo and costs 1/4 of the price. My wife makes her own makeup in the kitchen, along with my shaving foam (though I'd rather not shave at all 🙂 My entire weekly grocery shop tracks at around $30 per week, for two people ($15 each). I also use things like an Alum Stone instead of deodorant, which lasts around 10 years... these are things everyone should know exists, but we've lost this knowledge because of brightly coloured packaging that deludes us into thinking the old methods "can't possibly be as good".
I could write a book on all this. I bloody should. The way I see it is: life will never be perfect. Your choices will never be perfect. Someone will always come along and tell you there are better decisions than the ones you are making. But the way I see it is, talking to people that way stops folks taking any action at all. We need to stop this type of talk and get people to get on with making some progress, and recognising how far people have come. If all someone has done is buy reusable grocery bags, we should be congratulating them for it. Not looking inside their reusable bags and pointing out all the shopping choices they should improve on.
Too often people preach about environmental change in the wrong way. They describe a colossal mountain peak and tell everyone to "hurry up and get up it!" when people are nervous and feel unprepared for the journey ahead. What we all need to do is recognise and celebrate the small steps each climber has made up that mountain, regardless of how high they have climbed, and whether or not they have the stamina to reach the top... if there even is a top. The incline and debris on the way up, is not the same for every person...
If we want more people to get on board with environmental change, it's time to lift the conversation.
We need to encourage people to try, just a little bit here and there. Just one small change to someone's lifestyle per week is all we need... in a year the impact is enormous. I wish I could set a worldwide challenge, with a list of "easy choices" people could make, each week to work toward a global carbon reduction goal, so we could add up the numbers at the end and see how significant everyone's individual contribution is. I'm thinking something along the lines of what the Global Corporate Challenge did with the global exercise movement. I found that hugely motivating and it was great to see all the millions of miles that everyone in the challenge "walked" together.
A global challenge for the environment could have a points system, where everyone's changes are added up to a whopping "xxx million tonnes of carbon emmisions saved" over (say) 3 months.
I can imagine the choices people could make:
- Orange Juice : this week buy oranges and squeeze them yourself [25 points]
- Fruit and vegetables : this week buy all your fruit and vege without plastic packaging [25 points]
- Breakfast cereal : this week, buy rolled oats in a paper bag and make porridge [20 points]
- Bread : this week make bread yourself with [insert my recipe] with 15 mins work [20 points]
- Meat : this week visit a local butcher and buy unpackaged meat in your own container [30 points]
- Meat : this week, try going without meat [80 points]
.... you get the idea...
Well there you have it folks, the Sunday ramblings of an English madman... I'm off to build furniture out of some interesting wood I found on the side of the road earlier today.. waste not want not... 100 points.