Day Five of Womankind's Combat Global Warming Challenge: Leanne

I started Day 5 of this challenge by cleaning my oven with highly corrosive chemicals. I don't know what came over me. I haven't cleaned it in the entire five years I've lived in this house. I probably could have done it with nothing but a lemon, some bicarb and the grease from my elbows (an odd term, in my mind. My elbows are like dry old elephant skin. Who has these much-talked-about greasy elbows?), but the chemicals were there, so I used them. The dirty oven felt like a metaphor for my life, and cleaning it felt like I was fixing everything that it represented. How is this relevant? It's not. But if I clean my oven I'm going to make a bloody big deal about it.

I followed the oven cleaning with making my own cheese. Again, if I'm going to make cheese, you will hear about it. I don't do these things quietly. I do them loudly so that you will think I'm the kind of person who makes cheese, and the kind of person who cleans my oven. 

The cheese making is highly relevant to the global warming challenge though.

    
I often equate making things from scratch with doing right by the planet. The cheese today made me rethink this lazy mathematics. Get this: to avoid buying a block of cheese (processed in a factory, packaged in plastic, transported who knows how far), I heroically set out to make my own. To do so, I had to buy milk (processed in a factory, packaged in plastic, transported who knows how far), cream (processed in a factory, packaged in plastic, transported who knows how far), milk powder (yep, you get the idea) and rennet. What favours am I doing the planet here? Seriously?

Anyway, the process was enjoyable and I learnt a lot and that's all very well and good, but it's probably not a sustainable solution to reduce my impact on climate change unless I can source the ingredients in a more sustainable way. My point is that, while our intentions might be noble, it's important that we don't make lazy assumptions about the good things we are trying to do. We need to make sure our energy (which in most of us is limited) is going where it will have some real positive impact, no matter how small.

Into the future

I will stop sulking about the fact that I feel powerless to make any change. I will start lobbying my MPs for immediate climate change action. I will continue to avoid meat (will I be a long-term vegetarian? I don't know) and continue to do all the other small, day-to-day things that are in my power to control. 

I haven't found this an easy challenge. It has put me face to face with some uncomfortable and terrifying truths about the world. It has put me face to face with my own hopelessness, helplessness and apathy, but it has also pushed me (with the invaluable input of Jess) to move beyond them, if only just in baby steps.

Thanks Womankind. I can't wait to see the contributions of others that you publish. I'll prepare to be inspired. xx