you know what I hate?
Well, a whole lot of things get my goat. Still, I waste far more time than necessary reading about how reducing meat and dairy consumption are portrayed in the national media. I meant to go to bed at 11, and have stayed up an extra twenty minutes flicking through comments on this here Guardian article, comments clearly written by...
We have this culture where people are all 'OMGOSH, he is not doing anything WHY SHOULD I?' or 'Oh, I'll let the government sort it out' and then 'GOOD GOD, the government are trying to get us to reduce our meat and dairy consumption, are they trying to TAKE OVER OUR LIVES??!!' You mean, those lives whose control you PUT IN THE HANDS OF THE GOVERNMENT? MAYBE! YES!
And also people who are all 'Climate Change doesn't exist.' You know what? I don't give a shit if the earth is cooling or warming. It's done it a million times before. There used to be lions in England, there used to be a glacier covering Europe. DID YOU KNOW?
What IS TRUE is the part where we have a finite amount of resources, such as oil, coal, all those doohickeys they call fossil fuels. The way forward is to reduce consumption of all these resources which will not exist forever. NOT bury our head in the sand and say 'Ha, you'll all be laughing when nothing's changed!' Duh, everything changes. Whether the earth warms or cools according to anthropomorphic forcing is irrelevant. We need to learn to deal with whatever the earth throws at us, in that respect. And we need to do it sustainably.
Let's reduce our consumption of meat and dairy and see how the economy copes with that, and ALSO, let's assume that the lives of people and the having of a rainforest in a few years time is more important that money changing hands amongst the already wealthy, huh?
Remember, it's okay for me to talk about this stuff because I do not eat meat or dairy. HaHA! Got you there, didn't I? I do, of course, use coal, oil and other unsustainable means of lighting and heating my house. However, I probably use less than you do. I don't know that for sure, but after going home last weekend and seeing my family leaves the lights on in rooms they weren't in, use a dishwasher, do a load of clothes every couple of nights, have the heating on for more than an hour...you know, regular stuff. So, put on another jumper, walk to work, cut down on meat, use newspaper to wrap your christmas presents (or really cool magazine spreads), get sustainable christmas presents and don't be an idiot. That's my advice for December 2009.
At the moment, a complete reduction to caveman status is not really do-able. It is possible, but it would be a miserable existence for most. However, I'm not arguing for the complete removal of all unsustainability from people's lives, pronto. Reduce consumption. Bit by little bit. If you do it (and talk about it, and big it up, and clearly have a life which is not affected in a negative way by these changes) then that will inspire others to do so as well. FUCK THIS let's let the government sort it out (And then moan and whine when they try to make you turn your lights off or only have one tv) take the power back and do these things for yourself. OH, and it's cheaper, so you'll have more money for...uh...well, you'll have more money. Isn't that what everybody wants?
Thanks for listening.
xx