Cultivating our own garden
Now here's the thing.
Most of us who profess to being birders, botanists, coleopterists, dipterists, naturlahistoryists - call it what you like-er-ists - are more than aware of climate change. As observers and lovers of 'all that is wild' you would think that it would be an easy thing to cast aside anything and everything that would add fuel to the collapse of the environment as we now know it. We look, we observe, we record. It is blindingly obvious that our weather is all over the place; that the world's species are responding to this (and mostly in negative ways); that the human being is responsible for such an acceleration in this change; that only sudden changes in the way that we behave can slow this behemoth down. And even then such changes might not amount to anything other than being able to manoeuvre a dire outlook into a bad one. It needs 180 degree turns, lifestyle changes, a reassessment of what we do and how we do it.
Yet...
How many of us can honestly say that we are doing all we can do to turn the tide? To not get in a car and if we do to drive an all-electric vehicle. To not fly. To take public transport. To buy sustainably sourced goods. To install solar panels. To ensure our dwellings are insulated. To nurse our water usage. To recycle. I could go on.
Me? A bloody failure to be honest. I've stopped flying. I try to walk instead of drive and if not then catch a bus (my over-65's bus pass has been hit big time!) But this is scratching the surface. And if I'm scratching the surface then how about the billions of people that don't care about the plight of migratory birds, coral reefs or the desertification of vast swathes of currently farmed land. Or wildfires. Or floods. Or storm surges. Or, or, or...
As an individual, what can you do to affect a positive change?
Voltaire summed it up many, many years ago.
"We must cultivate our own garden"
It is considered by people far more educated as myself that he was suggesting that if we focus on our own life, work and personal growth we can create a meaningful existence that is based around our own moral compass, rather than worrying about or attempting to fix the uncontrollable problems of the world. And if we all do that then the world's ills will lessen.
Of course we know that this, in reality, is but a philosophical ideal, but is there any other way to deal with what is set before us? Answers on a postcard...
Comments
As the honest Turk (who inspired the line in Candide) did. "‘This honest Turk,’ (Candide) said to Pangloss and Martin, ‘seems to be in a far better place than kings…. I also know,” said Candide, “that we must cultivate our garden.’"
The irony being the Honest Turk had just told Candide to forget the woes and politics of the wide world. "..my general view is that people who meddle with politics usually meet a miserable end, and indeed they deserve to. I never bother with what is going on in Constantinople; I only worry about sending the fruits of the garden which I cultivate off to be sold there.’ Having said these words, he invited the strangers into his house.."
Exactly what a lot of people are actually doing, of course. Not worrying about the climate in Constantinople.
But we need to talk about the cultivation needed to perhaps get a crop off this year (if we're lucky), and explain why it's going to get harder, season by season, year by year.
(I usually quote Candide because to explain why I retired from the politics of purposeful birding. Now I'm a happier dude, I continue to talk w/ chums about climate whenever I can.)
Kevin
'As an individual, what can you do to affect a positive change?'
Maybe not much (but I think it's well worth me making as many positive changes as possible, so that staring at my bleedin' face in the mirror becomes less painful)
... and surely there's no need be as an individual these days.
I've often thought that - as an example - it would be relatively easy to get, maybe, 15% more of the UK population to stop eating meat, through internet and social media campaigns etc. A simple task, not much skin off the noses of those that take part, yet the positive consequences would be immediate and substantial - and soon others would join the bandwagon and 15% would become 20% etc etc and real change would occur...
It just needs a few dedicated, influencial, positive people to kick-start such things. Thick-skinned people, who wouldn't mind being accused of 'virtue-signaling'.
But, it's taken the time for me to write this to remember how battered into submission we've all become, how pointless it all feels in the face of negative news, how our ability to stand up and be counted seems to have been disabled and pulverised.
It's too late for some things, but attitudes can change fast and there is still a bit of hope. We have to think so, don't we?
It's darkest just before the dawn... and all that business?
And I still think that Blackpool FC can finish in the top half of the League One.