Whatever you do, personally, to reduce your environmental impact there will be someone who comes along and says, “ah but, what about….” It could be your last flight, your vehicle, your house, your shoes, your diet or even the rest of the world.
We live in a place which uses more resources, faster, than the majority of other places on the planet. We live in a place in which our political and economic system relies on economic growth. You can only do what you can do, you must not develop eco-anxiety. But don’t justify doing nothing because you think that the Government, business, industry, agriculture or your neighbours aren’t doing enough either.
How do we navigate these dilemmas? There are easy wins; you can recycle well - Wales is brilliant at this. You can reduce your purchasing of single use plastic (I know this isn’t easy when you visit a supermarket! Could you work out ways of going less often, shop local more?). Stop using plastic film wraps, use local bakers and butchers rather than chain sandwich and burger stores, walk or cycle more especially when travelling local. You could turn your heating down, put on another jumper, you could have your heating on for less time and/or you could drive more gently (top tip set off ten minutes earlier than you’d planned – you can have a much more relaxing drive). These are things that are fairly simple to do and do not require great sacrifice.
To really make a difference we need to do something that challenges us a bit. Can we stretch to an electric car or should we keep our old van running for as long as we can? Can we manage without another new kayak? How often do we actually need to fly? Should we take direct action? Should we confront our neighbours, work colleagues and politicians about their behaviours?
You see it soon gets messy, it’s easy to avoid doing anything, but with no action from us, there will be none from those with real power and influence. This is not a problem you or I can actually solve, only Government and big business can make a real difference,. But without us leading, trying, working together and shouting up our planet will slowly die, or at least the human race will. What future do we want for our young ones?
What about the Government?
The Welsh Government is already:
- Accelerating the deployment of renewable energy
- Making homes more energy efficient and reducing fuel poverty
- Transforming Wales into one of the top three recycling nations in the world.
- Planting over 800,000 trees
- Creating more than 840 free water refill stations
Each one of these is happening now in Wales. Of course each one has a ‘whataboutery’ component. Water refill stations might also be known as taps, 800,000 or more trees would grow naturally with different management of grazing and I’m really not sure how much progress is being made in making the old property stock across Wales more energy efficient. You see, it’s easy to pick holes.
There is, however, commitment in Welsh Government as there is in other countries across Europe. Iceland, Denmark and Sweden all have well advanced sustainability polices backed up with action (though it doesn’t stop the Swedes exporting obscenely sized SUV’s!). But trying to please all the people all the time ain’t easy.
The Welsh Government is aiming for net zero by 2050, investing £30 million into active travel, banning some single plastic items (straws, cotton buds, stirrers, cutlery plus polystyrene food packaging and drinks containers), investing £500,000 to create a national forest and putting £500,000 into EV charging infrastructure. There is a significant budget for climate change projects and there is a permanent Cabinet Sub-Committee dedicated to climate change. There are also opportunities for sustainability to be more prominent in the new school curriculum.
Again, you can pick holes in all of this, but rather than seek to find the ways out, the ways of avoiding the issue, why not see what you can do?
You can hold the Welsh Government to account through your local Member of the Senedd. But you can do your bit too. Let’s move beyond the ‘whataboutery’ and take our own actions. Can you write down eight actions that you are going to take?
Mike Raine
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