Changing
Like many people in the world today, I feel we are heading into a dangerous era. The decades of profit at all costs has depleted the planet in which we live past a point it can replenish itself. Climate change is something we have known for a long time but only started to take seriously recently. The idea that everything mankind is doing, the very definition of progress and modernity, cars, planes, single day delivery, cheap food, disposable everything and so much more will lead to the planet becoming uninhabitable. The fact that there are people and media out there who still doubt this or feel it is made up does not help the cause of those trying to make a difference. But then again anyone reading this is likely to know all of this, and anyone who doesn’t believe in climate change probably stopped reading at line 3. This is just my story so far, where I have come from and where I hope to go.
Deep down I feel I have always cared about our planet. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what event or occurrence moved me to think this way. For as long as I can remember I have always been aware of how much waste there is around us. Getting irritated with people who did not turn lights off when they left a room or print documents on both sides of the paper. I have been forever nagging people about their habits, impacting some level of change but often just irritation. Anything from wasting water to energy I used to notice and that would cause a reaction in me. I assumed this reaction was normal, I failed to understand how people did not realize that it all had to come from somewhere and the more we use the more that had to be made, and more that had to be taken from the planet. I have to give most of the credit to my mother, who being like most Indian mothers was always concerned about waste in the house. She grew up in India in the 60s and 70s and that meant you had to make everything last and nothing was wasted. So I guess it all started at home learning from her.
The next step in the path would be what I got from my school. UWCSEA in Singapore prides itself on helping students understand their place in the world. From very early on we were taught about our environment and the role that we play in it. The idea of leaving the world a better place than when you found it is a strong ethos of the school. Here is where during my formative years a seed of duty to the world may have been planted with little understanding of how that would germinate.
More recently I have thought about my personal role and what I am contributing to the planet at large, both positively and negatively. A decision I made more than 10 years ago was to dramatically cut down my meat intake to only eating a couple of meals every week. Originally I had done this because I believed the way we treated animals that we eat was fundamentally wrong and I thought if I reduce the amount I eat there will be less reason to kill an animal. At the time it seemed strange to say I was cutting down my meat but not committing to going entirely vegetarian. My rational was that I was always doing this for myself and my own beliefs which meant that if sometimes I wanted to eat meat I would without feeling bad about it. The most important thing was that as a whole my consumption of meat comes down significantly. When I did this originally I did get a couple of strange looks and questions. Some vegetarians and vegans can be very enthusiastic about their beliefs, for me it was just a way to feel I was doing something no matter how small.
What has amazed me is that in the 10 years since I started my “flexitarian” lifestyle many people have listened to what I have said and taken it onboard in their own way. One of my good friends who is a true carnivore and could not imagine a meal without meat only a couple years ago, now enforces vegetarian days twice a week at home for her family. Many people I know have cut down their red meat consumption and have set up routines for them to be vegetarian during the week. While I would love to take all the credit and say that I inspired all of these people to live a more sustainable lifestyle, the reality is probably far from the truth. People are being inspired by what they see happening in the world around them. Something has touched them and they have seen their choice in food as a way to try and do something about it. This inspiration has come from many different and intersecting parts of society, friends and family, popular culture, the news and general awareness of the problem. Something has touched these people sufficiently for them to make an active change in their lifestyle.
People make choices based on their beliefs all the time, the country you live in, your socioeconomic background, your education, your life events, all of these and many more play a role in your belief systems. People make purchases based on these beliefs, for example people will believe I am successful if I drive a Ferrari or if I wear Hugo Boss clothes. These beliefs drive the everyday choices we make and they sit at the core of our being.
Changing these beliefs is not an easy task, however not impossible. Beliefs that we hold true today were creatively implanted into our cultural psyche many years ago. De Beers invented the diamond engagement ring with the help of an ad agency. Kellogg told us that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” and Maxwell house coffee invented the coffee break. All of these ideas, engagement ring, breakfast and coffee breaks seem such a normal part of our day to day lives. It is hard to believe that the ideas had to be planted in our minds so many decades ago only for the compounding interest to bear fruit over the next 50 years.
All of these items connected with people in a way that fundamentally changed not only their behavior but the behavior of the world around it. My question and my task is to find out how to make this same connection between climate change and humanity. If we are able to share an idea so globally about something like an engagement ring, surely the impending end of the world is a big motivator. Therein lies the biggest problem as well. Humans have been designed to not think about threats that are so big or out of our control. If we did think about all of these I doubt many of us would leave the house to go to work every morning. The fact that we are all tiny specs of dust floating on a bigger spec of dust in the outer rims of the universe and that at any time an asteroid could come and destroy the planet (ala dinosaur-style) is something that few of us let our mind consider. We are designed to focus on what we can see and experience or what has happened in our recent history.
The problem is climate change is not in the distant future, it is not even in the near future, it is in the now. Everywhere around the world people are experiencing strange weather patterns, flood one year followed by drought the next, two hurricanes hitting at the same time, the whole planet is teetering on the very edge. When I say planet, I mean humanity, because earth can crtl, alt, delete itself and give it a couple millennia to reboot and see what happens. The earth will always survive, humanity may not.
I really believe if everyone understood the scale and size of the problem and accepted it as a belief that they would naturally make changes in their life that would better the planet. But that belief has to be there, they have to feel they are doing the right thing and that they are not the only one who is sacrificing. We have seen with the current Covid-19 pandemic, the world is capable of coming up with solutions to a threat that may kill us. Although climate change as a threat is not as visible as a disease it is likely to have a much bigger and more damaging impact.
So how do we create a compelling connection with 7 billion people? Good question. That is what I am trying to figure out. A few months ago a good friend told me that the world is in such a precarious place that it needs absolutely everyone who cares to do something about it. That doesn't just mean after work and on weekends. It means finding a way to spend most of your time doing something that you think has a positive benefit to the world around you. This really changed my thinking and the direction I wanted to take my life in. I needed to find a way to put my skills and all that I have learned running businesses and communicating with customers to help in any way I can. This blog is a way for me to record my journey for anyone who wants to go on a similar path.