Armageddon?

“Armageddon,” I heard somebody say, “is round the corner”

I was about to walk away from what I thought was a religious argument, but stopped when the other one spoke. “Plastics, pollution, species extinction, forest destruction and more … oh my head is bursting!”

Yes, the world feels as if it is at breaking point. Most of us are concerned to some extent, but we feel helpless. However, we can do little things which will make a huge difference. Taking note that none of us is perfect will help because we will inevitably lapse as old habits slip us off track.

I’m guilty of that right now. Milk, I’ve always found, helps me when I’ve run out of energy, but these past months I’ve cut right back as I try to reduce my carbon footprint. Today, though, is a tough one and after a 200m walk to the shops and back, I was splattered and couldn’t resist a glass of the moo juice. It had no effect, I’m too far gone, but it was comforting. One thing we’ve managed quite well is to cut back on eating meat. We’ve never been big consumers of the stuff, maybe twice a month, organic, locally sourced, now we hardly touch it. We do buy one local organic chicken every three to four weeks, these are free range birds which fend for themselves outside because they are given no feed.

By cutting out a third or a half of your meat consumption you are doing a huge amount to help the Planet. It’s an even bigger help to buy locally from small producers, thus avoiding big industrial farmers who exist on corporate money. Most farmers, I've found, hate such factory farming and industrial production, they prefer small scale, old fashioned farming but many have invested too much in machinery and costly systems to revert.

So back to me and that diet. Tossing vegetables, root and leaf, in a non-stick frying pan, season and add to rice and you’ll not miss meat. The Kenyan warrior tribe I spent much of my childhood with, hardly ate meat, yet they have produced one Olympic long-distant runner after another.

Each little adds up - multiply meat less me by a thousand, get their tongues waggling about how easy it is and soon a balloon will rise up and convince more. We humans are amazing, we can do it but we only have this decade to get it done. Or disaster. Go on! we have the ability to cut carbon consumption quickly. Just think and do differently.