Stick to your principles, and maybe even naysayers will see the light
By Emma Brewin
As a relatively green-minded person, I used to think that raising the profile of environmental awareness was simply a matter of thinking positive and spreading the word. A stint spent working at the Regional Environmental Centre in Hungary on this very website had left me buoyed with enthusiasm for the cause. Recycling, reduced goods traffic, Critical Mass, bicycle powered lamps and solar powered cooking - I knew every buzz word and what's more, I was a fan. Yet my enthusiasm recently came up against something of a stumbling block, one that would leave me speechless and all of my best eco-intentions foundering: "I just don't care".
The immortal words came from a new colleague in my latest home town of Bangkok, Thailand. Early forties, married with a young baby, a long-term ex-pat in Asia, when it came to the environment he announced, without concern, that he just didn't care. He liked his air-con on permanently at a knitwear-inducing 17 degrees centigrade he explained, and didn't spare a thought for resource depletion, deforestation or global warming; as long as his filter water was delivered, his regular steak meal cooked just right, and the short hop airplane flights to his favourite holiday beaches were cheap, he was happy.
Was it naive of me to assume that nowadays everyone realises at least to some degree the value and importance of the environment? And furthermore, was it my duty to conduct a Green Crusade and try to change his mind? Genuinely surprised by his comment, I left, mentioning only that I had heard that around 25 degrees centigrade was recommended as a sustainable air conditioning temperature compromise to relieve the sticky tropical heat, but I came away wondering whether people legitimately have the right to be so dismissive about the Earth and its inhabitants' future. After all, in a lot of countries we no longer have the right to inflict second hand smoke on others, or drink-drive and risk hurting an innocent fellow driver with our own actions, so why is it still acceptable to live an environmentally damaging lifestyle that has a wider impact? If I did nothing, would people like me be accused of being the 'silent masses' who stood by whilst environmental damage was being wreaked for future generations?
Over the next few days, interest in my own eco credentials came under scrutiny and criticism; my choice to be a vegetarian for environmental reasons for example, or need to take long haul flights to go home to visit my family in England. However, I impressed myself by letting every criticism and counter-argument slide in the hope that leading by example would be a less intrusive, and more effective, influence. When it became clear I was far from an eco warrior, the comments stopped and we forgot all about it. Yesterday, I was stopped by my colleague after a work meeting. Grinning (I think proudly) he told me he had managed a weekend with the air con at 25 degrees, and I gave a silent cheer for environmentalists everywhere. Clearly it's worth not giving up on even the most dedicated of eco-sceptics, and maybe it is precisely the silent masses like me who have the real power to enact mass change, by picking just a few environmental principles to stand by and letting these small actions prompt a chain reaction of awareness and personal commitment to protect our beautiful and irreplaceable planet.
