What I dislike is when someone tries to ram a viewpoint down my neck, without me having so much as invited them to do so. I think I’m quite into “the environment and all that”, but if someone starts approaching my outer limit of what I think is decent behaviour and what is slightly cranky extremism, then I get quite twitchy, feel awkward, guilty, on edge, defencive, and grasping for examples of the things I do do.
Typically your non-environmentally concerned person is going to feel exactly the same, but just at a different point. Who are we, then, environmentalists or otherwise to try and ram that point home? An enlightened super-race, busily trying to evangelise, and wait for the world to come around to our lofty point of view? Mm.. doesn’t sound right to.
OK, I think then do you do it by living an exemplary lifestyle in the hope that others want to be more like you, and therefore pick up on our desirable ways? Also, not too sure.
I only recently became what I’d call properly environmentally aware. It was when, in 2006, I attended my very first unit of the MSc course at CAT, the Centre for Alternative Technology. I’d been interested for some time in timber-frame (old fashioned sort – big chunky bits of wood) house building, and the MSc course in Architecture – Advanced Environmental & Energy Studies, really seemed to fit the bill. After some scrimping, ruminating and a chance encounter with Kevin McCloud, I signed up. And never looked back.
The first unit of the course basically pulled the rug from under me. It brought the whole environmental thing into very sharp focus. With the intensity of lectures, the information was driven home, and most of it has stuck. That’s probably only because I was that way inclined. Anyone more cynical would still be more cynical, and yet, it was just refreshing to be able to soak up some scientific facts, listen to a host of viewpoints, sometimes conflicting, to make up my own opinions. This, in marked contrast to what we usually do,… absorb journalists’ viewpoints in the papers and on TV, without the option of building your own opinion from some basic raw data. It was so nice not to just be learning the conditioned responses in the world according to the Metro or Mail.
So the first thing I would probably advocate, is a bit of training – and I’m wondering whether what is missing is actual a good, basic eco-training course, which just covers some of the basic issues, presents people with all the facts, from all camps – from denial of a problem, to doom mongering, and everything in between, and lets them make up their own mind like I did.
But after that, you know, I don’t think it matters. My lecturer at Nottingham, Chris Wood, used to rattle on about the law of equifinality – the numbers of routes you can take to get to the same outcome. The other great way to saving the planet, is just trying to save a bit of money. The notion of the eco-miser is a good one. Back to my grandma who used to leave teabags out to dry before reusing them. Saving money is in vogue, especially as times get hard. Does it matter if you’re trying to save money or save the planet. If we can find ways of achieving both, and promote these as the way forward, the whole bigger picture which spans combatting global warming, but which also extends across to addressing world poverty, conserving natural resources, water, fossil fuels, iron ore, etc. can be addressed all togther.
