Eco Friendly House And Garden

With the recent bad weather across most of the northern hemisphere – should we stay home?

I haven’t left my place apart from to go for a great walk through the woods and a walk to the local store – so what did you do – and could it have caused problems for others?

There is an argument for both sides really, but which is more eco friendly?

The Case For Staying Home:
For a start, you will be one less car on the road in the way of other important people or vehicles that need to use the roads.  Many people like doctors, vets, firemen, police, grit lorry drivers, petrol tankers, grocery vans and ambulances that need to use the roads all day and at any time. 

So what would you do if you had got stuck on ice on a slip road and were now holding up one or more of the above people?  Stopping valuable staff from doing their job when you were only off out to do a bit of shopping or to visit a friend?

You would also be one more person that local services would have to worry about.  For example on 1 road in the UK earlier this week, there was a reported 25 mile tailback in the snow.  All those people were stranded in the freezing cold and the emergency services, local hotels and recovery drivers were now having to work overtime and through the night to help them all – and I bet all 25 miles wasn’t filled with doctors and food supplies?

And talking of medical care – if you went out and injured yourself on ice or through a car accident – you are adding to the pressures that emergency services are already facing.  If you can’t get to town in the bad conditions – what makes you think that nurses can either?  So more injuries and less nurses is really only going to mean longer waits and over-worked staff. 

The same goes for any other business as well.  Just because you managed to get yourself to a store, it doesn’t mean they will be able to offer you their best service, as they may also be short-staffed or have deliveries that cannot make it to the store due to accidents etc.

The Case For Going Out:
If you are one of the services that keep everyone else going then yes, you should try to get to work.  Hopefully all the non-essential journeys have ceased and so the roads should be clearer and safer for people like yourself to get through.

Also, many small businesses couldn’t function without their staff, and so struggling in to work could be the only option for some people. 

Imagine if everyone stopped going to work on the same day – countries would come to a standstill as no energy would be available, no need food would arrive in stores - and if it did, there would be noone there to sell it.  No gas, no gritters, no ambulances……….

People need to go to work in these terrible conditions – but think about who you are before deciding, as it’s not about how important you think your journey is, it’s about how important you know your job is.

Many eco friendly people will live near to where they work anyway – so a walk to work in the cold is going to be a million times better than a drive anywhere – and less of a drain on society during these hard times!

The Answer:
Stretched resources or reduced services? Neither is better than the other if you have to get to work – but there is a clear winner if you are not needed anywhere.

People not working, on a day off or who can work from home are the ones that can make a real difference in this whole thing.  By limiting their impact on the outside world during this stressful and very cold time, they can make all the difference to those who don’t have a choice.

So wrap up warm and go visit your elderly neighbours today – or snuggle up in front of the TV and watch a good movie instead.

Watch this short video – and it will jolt you into reality!

Where do you think all your stuff comes from?  What happens when you get that new phone?  How can we get our stuff so cheap?  What is the real cost of our spending?

All these are answered in this lively, well animated and well written short video by a well traveled, very experienced environmental investigator specialising in health and justice issues across the globe.

It is filled with some scary facts about what we are doing to our planet – or in reality what we are not doing to help our planet.

It highlights – with a fact-packed dialogue – what we are allowing to happen or are being coerced into thinking is ‘OK’.

Annie quotes that the US represents just “5% of the world’s population but uses 30% of the resources and makes 30% of the waste”  Is that right?  Or is that just how it ended up because no-one has really ever thought it was wrong?

Think about it!
She certainly makes you think about everything you are going to buy – or anything you have recently brought.  And it should certainly make you think about anything you are planning to throw away!

The cost of something shouldn’t be the value that the store attributes to it.  For example the $4.99 radio she talks about in her video could not possibly have only cost $4.99 to make. 

Firstly, the store has to make a profit and it needs to be packaged up and shipped across the world from where ever it was made.  So none of that is what it actually cost to make either – so we are down to about maybe $3.00 or less to make?

And how long would you think 1 single radio takes to make from it’s basic parts? About 30 minutes?  No, that would be stupid, right?  But would you work for less than $6.00 an hour? I don’t think so.

So, how much money do the people that build these get paid?  And we haven’t even started on the people it took to mine the raw materials and the time it took to shape them into the component parts.  And what about driving and shipping costs?

And we haven’t even started on the cost to the environment…… 

Yet to some people, throwing out an un-needed $5 radio is not a worry to them – it’s only $5. They don’t even think about what was destroyed or who was exploited to make it in the first place.

And you can be sure that many people do not think about what happens to it after they throw it out!

Well, Annie explains all in her hard-hitting fact-filled docu-video - but keeps it fun and a bit funny even.

And you can help out by showing people, schools, social clubs or anyone else this video to help change that!  Check out the resources on the site for more information.