Can't even be bothered ranting in any specific way about NZ politics at the moment - in some ways I'm still feeling kinda like the politicians themselves must feel on election day - ahhh, I've run my campaign well, nothing else I can do. Got atleast 2 people voting that wouldn't have this year! Huge win. But in general the whole election process was exhausting.
But what has been on my mind while I've been ranting to anyone who will listen is... if I'm actually allowed. Am I good enough to run my spiels about - say - the environment. Do I talk the talk?
Here is my status:
I think of myself as pretty concerned with the environment, especially since I've spent seven years getting the issues drummed into me - studying design and architecture. We're taught about how the built environment contributes the huge 50% of greenhouse gas emissions (traffic is only 28%...) which is enough to slow down the most enthusiastic young architect... but at the same time we are the people that can DESIGN the CHANGE!
Here is some stuff I do do:
I relentlessly opshop, to the point where it seems very unique and special (and downright unnecessary) to buy a new garment of clothing or pair of shoes. I paticularly enjoy buying second hand leather (so yeah SHOES) that is not, theoretically, contributing to that ole murder industry.
I recycle and will get shitty at people in my house that don't bother to or miss an opportunity to.
In generally, carrying on in the opshopping vein, I'm pretty sensitive to issues of consumption of new "things"... objects... whatever. I've happily given up excessive christmas gift giving, especially to people you don't know well enough to buy useful things for, which actually is one of my biggest pet peeves.
Out of...21?.. meals per week I probably eat meat for about 5 or 6 of those. This is also due to student poverty, insane meat prices and personal preference (I most certainly love and crave meat but not as often as some). I do always buy free range eggs and meat when available.
I walk EVERYWHERE. And choose to live close in the city, expensively, so I can do so. I'd definitly put off buying a car for a long time.
I use my sustaina-bags liberally.
I vote green in order to send a message to those that inevitably WILL get into power that a large portion of the country are concerned with these issues.
But here is some stuff I don't do:
I once bought a keep cup for my coffee but then accidentally left it in my locker so that it was destroyed at the end of the uni year (gahh straight into a landfill). So now I drink takeaway coffees in the dam paper cups way too often. This I know I can easily remedy. Lazy!!
Similarly I don't make enough of an effort to use a sustainable option for drink bottles. New plastic bottles are very nice and don't smell, sigh.
As mentioned I'm not vegetarian, and not even close to vegan. I love meat... it seems to fulfill a craving in such a necessary and healthy way that I can't imagine bidding it farewell.
I don't refrain from taking the odd trip (to the beach!) in my boyfriend's car and sometimes even overseas on a plane. I love travelling and I hope to do way more, so... this one's a hard one!!
In my second year of Design we went to this website, (think it was this one actually: http://myfootprint.org/), where they work out how many planets you're using up - that is, if everyone was living like you, how many earths would there need to be... needless to say it's a sobering exercise. But I did like this way of assessing your own lifestyle - there's obviously so many people who are at each end of the scale... to use obvious cliches, lets say a peasant farmer who can live off a small amount of land his whole life and a wealthy corpy who flies everywhere and is used to a lifestyle where new and amazing things are imported and bought to improve his/her comfort.
But say if everyone using more than one planet (those many, many people) moderated their habits - only travelled long distance in cars full of people, ate meat two days a week, halved their new purchases... etc... according to their preferences - ie I don't buy new clothes, but I fly to Brisbane for Christmas. I walk everywhere but then enjoy a steak once a week - it would even out somewhat? Would it?? Nothing really seems enough does it.
Its so hard to get round that argument anyone can shove on you if you make any kind of moral call.... you know, why are you so concerned with recyling... you're wearing a tshirt from a Chinese sweatshop. Why are you vegetarian but you're wearing a leather jacket?
It never feels like you're actually stopping anything bad by completely giving up something - like using a private car, or meat, or battery hen eggs, so it is appealing to let myself indulge the WANTS every now and then, (i want a romantic drive out to Lyall Bay, I want a stonegrill steak at the Cross, I want to save two whole bucks on eggs...) in a way that if everyone did it, it was still sustainable.
Its so HARD!
Everytime I read a new article/book about any aspect of sustainability (Cradle to Cradle, Plenitude, urban design literature that suggests ways to cut down car use etc etc) I get all excited. YES! Oh my god this WORKS! Everyone will read it and they will love it! But then I remember that not enough people actually want to change. Its like seeing the newsfeed on facebook around christmas with everyone bitching about consumerism and the stupidity of gift giving and you think "wow, things are really changing, you know. People are changing their ways. Theyr'e sick of the state of the world. We are gunna DO THIS TOGETHER!!"
But then you remember - my 300 friends are all goddam liberals and we're the goddam minority! We've lost. We lost this year. By such a huge amount that I actually woke up the morning after the election with a feeling of what I eventually identified as LONELINESS.
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