But what can little old me do....

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the headlines and soundbites around the climate emergency and the attempt to paint small actions as inadequate, ineffective, "not enough". It makes people feel helpless, hopeless and dangerously, gives us permission to bury our heads in the sand and say what's the point? I might as well carry on as I am, after all "they" say it won't be enough and doing or not doing that thing will involve a change, a bit of effort, not doing something I like doing as often as I want to, learning or trying something new and could be a bit scary or different and I'm already busy/tired/poorly/struggling to make ends meet enough as it is....

After all one person not using peat in their gardens isn't going to save all the planet's peat bogs, one person not using herbicides and pesticides isn't going to protect all the soils and lives of all the creatures that depend on the micro-organisms that live within it, one person switching to a re-usable cup and water bottle isn't going to stop the production and dumping of plastics in our ocean, one person switching to the bus rather than driving to work isn't going to suddenly result in improved air quality in all our towns, one person taking the train from London to Scotland instead of flying isn't going to stop that plane taking off and... you get the picture.

But what, for me, is getting lost in all this is the multiplier effect - whether deliberately or just plain ignorantly our media and vested interests are feeding us a line that we just might not be able to make enough of a difference by our own behaviour, that dangerous implication that maybe just maybe we therefore shouldn't bother even trying. And yes, I know there is a danger here of my sounding like a completely paranoid conspiracy theorist but that doesn't change the facts that folk with money and livelihoods at stake will always try to influence the outcome of an argument in their immediate favour - apart from anything else that's human nature - what's in it for me? how will I benefit? immediate self-preservation - it's just what humans do.

However, all these "it's not enoughs" ignore a vital fact, no matter our creed, colour, gender, age, location, beliefs, education, income or any other characteristic we like to label and pigeon-hole each other with, we are a society, a collective of people who share this planet and hold the key to our own survival - the planet will exist whatever we do, it won't be the same but it will be here, it's our species and the other creatures that suffer from our choices and actions, it's our children who struggle to breathe on their way to school, our watercourses that are getting clogged up with poisons, soil run-off and rubbish of all kinds, our food-chain that has been contaminated with plastics and poisons... we have been and still are doing this to ourselves by our own small, cumulative actions and in-actions over centuries and now that we actually understand what is happening and can even see it with our own eyes, feel it with our own breath and know that things can be different if we want them to be, surely it just makes sense that we make whatever small choices or changes we can just on the off-chance that it starts to improve things for everyone...