Timetable for Sustainability
"Look at that." said a man holding up a pack of two Sea Bass fillets, "Six Pounds. It's disgusting, charging those sorts of prices for fish." To emphasise his point he threw the fish back on to the shelf. That'll show them, he probably thought. I was in Marks & Spencers picking up some (wild, pole and line caught, sustainably harvested, Marine Stewardship Council approved) Haddock fillets to make fish cakes for my tea."No..." I said to him, only internally so as not to create a scene, "No, it is you that is disgusting. You and your selfish sense of entitlement, expecting all manner of fish to be provided to you at prices that you can personally afford, without any regard to the fact that to do so would literally destroy the planet."
I had earlier in the day been wondering to myself why nobody cares about the harm we're doing to the planet and why most people are stubbornly refusing to do anything about it. This haggard old cockmonger neatly encapsulated the answer. A sense of bloody entitlement to cheap goods and to balls with the social, economic and environmental consequences.
Let's not kid ourselves, there's no such thing as a bargain. We all pay in the end. If you find a really cheap pair of jogging bottoms, know that they were produced by a child in a sweatshop in China. If you pick up a chicken for £1.99, know that it was kept in appalling conditions and pumped full of chemicals, and is about nutritious as a sack of pus. Know that if you buy cheap carrots in Tesco, the only reason they are cheap is that Tesco made the farmer sell them for next to nothing, and laughed when he said he would take them to a different customer, because Tesco know full well that they've driven out the competition.
We are all responsible for purchasing acts that if you think about it for one second are immoral.
So what am I saying? Switch tomorrow to a carbon neutral vegan lifestyle? No, that would be impractical. Most people would last a day at the most before falling of the wagon and into a McDonalds. But how about this, how about we all set ourselves a schedule for becoming more responsible sustainable consumers? How about, say once a month, we each pick a purchasing or lifestyle choice that we know to be harmful either socially or environmentally, and resolve to remove that habit. One month, maybe resolve to never buy clothes that were clearly produced in a sweat shop. Another month resolve to ensure that all the light bulbs in your house are energy efficient. Another month, you could resolve to fix that small problem with the insulation around the back door that is letting so much heat escape. Another month, start buying only free range meat. The list of possibilities is endless, and each month you would be taking a small step towards reducing the harm you are doing to the planet.
Wouldn't that be nice?
5 Comments:
I bet Noel Edmunds complains about fish being too expensive.
We only buy free range meat in our house. Happy meat tastes better!!! We also prefer to pay a little more for better quality veg.
Most of our light bulbs are energy efficient, only the one in Alice's room which is on a dimmer and therefore incompatible is a normal bulb.
I don'think the clothes we wear are made by children in sweatshops.
Does all the above make up for the fact that my father actually runs a sweatshop?
Does the sweat shop have energy efficient bulbs?
The most annoying thing (and frankly stupid thing) I hear people say about becoming more sustainable is this:
'I don't see the point in me turning down my heating and insualting the loft when they are building a new coal fired power station every week in China. What difference can I make?'
I always wonder if they really belive that, or if they know in their heart of hearts it's just an excuse to be selfish.
Chris - I am in complete agreement with you.
I find it really annoying that, because ethical foods tend to be bought by middle class (and therefore less price sensitive) shoppers, the supermarkets put much higher margins on them in order to subsidise the already ludicrous low prices of non-ethical produce. Thereby reinforcing the problem of value perception.
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