Is this blog needed anymore? That’s what I’ve been asking myself, and why I haven’t updated it for over a year. I’ve been writing for Spark Sustainability every now and then instead. Spark is a sustainable lifestyle consultancy and web platform focused on inspiring individuals to become involved in climate action, that I cofounded in early 2018.
About a year ago, the entire media world literally exploded with sustainability and climate news. Even my grandparents are now constantly updating me on sustainability news. I see my grandparents as typical members of an older generation, who have worked all their lives to increase our living standards and just have quite average European consumption preferences. So I see them changing as an indication that the whole sustainability awareness thing is spreading further than to woke university educated millennials!
My grandmother initiated a discussion on the differences in benefits between electric vehicles and biodiesel, last time I saw her for lunch. This would literally never have happened in 2013 when I started this blog. I started this blog after starting to study environmental sciences at university and just being chocked how it was possible that I hadn’t known all this stuff earlier.
There are of course a whole bunch of people who couldn’t care less about sustainability. The thing is though, I very much doubt that my blog will reach these people. I need to keep thinking about how I could reach out to a wider group of people than my socially conscious millennial friends and their friend’s friends.
In the end I think it’s an utopia that everyone would put the environment highest on their priority list in life. We just need enough “active starters”. Take LED bulbs as an example, if stores would just put them on the most convenient shelf, many people would not even realise that they’re buying the most environmentally friendly light bulb. It would just be the light bulb that you could access without having to bend down to the lower shelves.
Of course, governments can just forbid everything that’s bad, but that takes time. So until then we need to keep getting a large enough group of people to care. That would increase the likelihood of any shop owner realising that they should reorganise their shelf of lightbulbs and make it really uncomfortable to reach down for those high energy consuming bulbs.
In the end, I think my conclusion is that when growing up and moving on in life, I hope I can find better channels to educate and nudge society around me to become more sustainable. Much of the main-stream media has taken up the job that I originally intended this blog for. For example, CNN wrote about how you can have an impact on stopping climate change. This summer, there’s been so many stories on people skipping flying. Most prominently of course, Greta Thunberg. I don’t feel the need to document every train journey I’m doing anymore.
The fact that the original idea of my blog has become a bit useless couldn’t make me happier. We’re moving in the right direction, keep writing more mainstream media! I promise to keep sharing it all on social media 😉
Perhaps I’ll update here if I get some new brilliant idea on how to save the world. We’ll see!
PS. About that discussion on electric cars vs biodiesel, my opinion is that we should definitely let’s go electric. We need all available biofuel for aviation and perhaps shipping, as those are much harder to decarbonise. So we shouldn’t waste it on passenger cars.
Mind Tomorrow 