Wednesday 4 March 2009

connections....too stupid to save ourselves

...isn't about time we stopped whinging and actually took responsibility?

reading today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7921936.stm

it is serious for birds and if you follow:
http://www.ageofstupid.net/not_stupid

It shows that maybe the age of stupid is really upon us.

I have been struggling with how to lessen the use of our landrover and use a carbon offset scheme (even those have oddities about them). We already use biodiesel when it is available. One needs to sit down and spend a bit of time thinking about it. I have come up with a wee solution, making sure the routes I chose are more economic, and of course, less is more. Do I need to run the landy on a particular day. Can I walk or bike? We have had a serious eco policy for the time that we have been operating and stick by it!

As of today I am introducing Birding and Biking - and last year we came up with Walking Safaris - also, suprisingly more popular than we thought. Ask me more....

The main problem, as I see it, is over use of vehicles and office buildings. Why oh why, with the age of video conferencing, twitter, emails, ichat and skype do large organisations that purport to care about nature still insist their staff fly???!!! This is even more galling when I know that they really care about the environment yet cannot see that they are part of the problem. In fact we all are. Last week we had some highly eminent avi-scientsts on Islay to discuss the plight of the Greenland Whitefronted Goose. They came from Greenland, Iceland, Eire and the UK. They showed us how they had used aircraft to monitor and study the birds, in fact they arrived by plane. Hmmmm! An they said they all believed in global warming. It was seriously adding to the fall in numbers of these wonderful birds.We know global warming/climate change is caused by man's activities - and largely by flying. Can they not see the irony here? There are alternatives, yes some do take longer, some are not so convenient BUT how long have we got to stop this downward spiral? We, surely cannot be THAT stupid to realise this?

I think it is about time we started to help these organisations by getting them to look at their own actions and talking responsibility. Let's ask them, how green they really are, how many flights, how many car journeys, how much heating, how much lighting...? I think the answers maybe shocking. Afterall, whether we are an individual, large corporate or charity we have responsibility to make a difference. We have a reached a point now of, it is not what you do but rather what you don't do that makes the difference.

Start now. go on - press your go button! Don't be stupid!