I’m resisting the temptation to start this blog with a cliche. If I could let myself, I’d write that there are two types of people in the world… but I won’t. And I know it’s not true. There’s a full spectrum rainbow of people in the world, thankfully.
The temptation arises out of two conversations that happened yesterday.
The first, with a friend who lives in a part of the world that is not the city, and where much of the population lives in a ‘green’ way, or at least with some awareness of nature, was about who’s responsible for educating the masses and doing more about the environment, about the inherent dangers of relying on carbon trading to save us, and about boyfriends and how they don’t know how to recycle sometimes.
The main gyst of the conversation was lamenting how much opportunity is wasted in terms of public green-awareness out of an apparent lack of government funded education. This can be sticky and political, and anyone who knows me will tell you how little interest I have in politics.
So even though it’s true, I’ll just talk about my own approach – not to discount my friend’s opinion, which I believe to be absolutely pertinent.
My approach is to lead by example and convert the ignorant one conversation at a time. By composting, worm farming, growing vegetables and friendliness I manage to help about one person a week (at this point in time) to be more aware.
I also spend less time re-educating older people than I do exposing kids to the realities of environmental care. It takes less to impress a six year old about worms than it does to argue with someone older and more set in their ways – plus a six year old has a greater chance of educating their parents than I do.
Sure, I still get frustrated. Another conversation I had yesterday with someone quite close to me was about how he loves to eat dead animals but he doesn’t want to see them being killed. Now, he’s a city kid, and has never had to kill anything to eat it, so his awareness is understandable… however I think its also a little dangerous. It speaks of what’s happened to us as a society in being so far away from the sources of our food that we don’t even want to know where it comes from or how it feels to get it ourselves.
I’m not judging him in any way for his opinion but it galvanises me to expose my young son to the experience of hunting before he gets too old so he will always know just how much goes into getting a steak from a beast to a table.
Without consciousness, the world could undoubtedly spin out of control but with just a little bit of awareness we can swiftly change our course. It doesn’t take much to have one less steak a week, grow one more vegetable or talk one more truth.
So keep those eyes at least squinting at the truth, even if you can’t stomach it all. You’d be amazed how much of a difference a wink at sustainability can make.
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