Ecology, running my business more ecologically, recycling etc.

Ecological commitment - what can we do to make the world a better place?

This year I am starting an ecological initiative. Firstly, I am committed to recycling everything I possibly can. I'm also making ecology a priority when choosing suppliers, products and my sources of consumables. I also think it is important to spread the word; setting an example to others, only together can we make the necessary difference.

Another thing we can do locally is support the Hollicombe Action Group. All these precious open areas are under constant threat from the pressure to build more homes and thus more roads to cope with more people, and more amenities to support those people and their homes etc etc. Torbay is a nice place because of it's natural beauty, the tall cliffs and sandy beaches, the woodlands and fields, all the diversity of wildlife here. These assetts are not supposed to be little islands of history within a man-made concrete world, and they don't survive for long in that situation anyway. We humans are collectively destroying the environment that supports us in many ways, but with a local issue like this we might have some chance to safeguard a peice of it...

"If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem."

Recycled and/or bio-degradable consumables

Most businesses use a lot of paper, a piece of A4 is cheep and disposable so people tend to use far more than is needed. I was shopping at my local Staples office store and noticed 2 brands of A4 recycled paper on sale. Xerox make one but I opted for the cheaper Evolve paper this time.

To a certain extent the power is now in the hands of the consumer. You have the choice of many products in front of you; its your decision who's product to support.

Think of shopping as a form of voting. If the consumer makes a decision the industry must follow. The things you spend your money on are products and companies you are funding. If everybody refused to buy products in non-recyclable packaging the industry would have to conform.

We create the markets, if everyone chooses the recycled A4 paper then that product becomes a success and the costs of production become lower; having a knock-on effect on the retail price in the store. Or the opposite reaction; where people choose the cheaper product regardless of other factors thus perpetuating the problem. If nobody cares then the companies wrecking the planet don't care either and the people share the blame.

Climate Change

There is an on-going debate about whether the recent trend of global warming is being caused or accelerated by us humans. The fact is that nature does not stand still, we can see this from record keeping in ancient cultures and much further back using ice cores and other geological methods of measuring climate and dating the results. Apart from the obvious seasons in a year there are much larger cycles to take into account.

This planet has taken around 4 billion years to reach this reletively steady state after a violent birth forming from the reminants of the creation of our Sun. There have always been long and short term fluctuations in conditions including the obvious ice ages and warm periods, global catastrophies such as massive volcanic erruptions, meteor impacts that are visible on every continent on Earth sometimes causing mass-extintions. Our planet is at the mercy of the cycles and orbits of our Sun and Moon and the whole solar system, in fact we owe most of planet Earth's stability to the presence rest of the solar system. Firstly our Moon which was crutial is creating the consistant cycles necisary for complex lifeforms to evolve; also the planet Jupiter acts as the inner solar systems firewall as its enormous gravitational pull attracts many comets and takes a lot of hits on our behalf.

Humanity cannot be blamed for exploiting the natural resources it found along the way, we had no previous experience or example to use as a guide, and we didn't have the science or technology to predict the coming oil age. Things are now different and we have all the scientific method and technology to fully appreciate how the delicate balance of life on this planet can be effected by seamingly small changes. We are responsible for acting on our knowledge and nobody can deny that the by-products of our technology are harmful to the environment.

To be continued...