How much can one person do?

'She would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated.' (George Orwell in 1984)

Is this true? Will the power of mass inertia always overcome the individual pushing for change?

'Relinquish the delusion of your individual importance but rejoice that once our inputs sum to a certain threshold our society will change.' (Andrew Wilson on Care2 June 09)

So, like water trickling slowly through sand, each grain absorbs the liquid and then passes it on to the next and so on ...... My task is to absorb the ideas and behaviours which will preserve our life on earth, and pass those on to any grain of sand I come into contact with.

Success so far? I have made a number of changes, and daily set new challenges for myself to kick off old habits and adopt new 'green' ways of living. Such as cycle to work, no plastic bags, recycle food, eat only organic meat.... so far, so good. As for influencing others, hard to say but it would appear that most people move quickly away at the slightest feeling of dampness. So what is the force that pushes the water through the sand, that pushes the ideas through reluctant minds? Is money the only force strong enough to bring about effective change? When it literally costs us the earth will we finally start protecting it?

I joined Care2 which is a great campaigning site for all sorts of issues. I've signed some petitions, saved some whales, seals and dogs..... well maybe but you never really know. Then I started to accumulate some 'friends'. GREAT thought I, some like minded people to share ideas with. Your friends then send you e-mails. Sometimes those cutsie e-cards which are a bit too slushy for me, but mostly they send you petitions to sign. They chose 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 causes that they wish to follow and send the petition link onto all their friends. Then as one of their friends I open the links and read the info, sign the petition and send it on to all of my friends, and so the chain of compassion links around the world.

First one friend, then two, then four or five 'friends' all doing the same thing. Soon my inbox was loaded daily with petitions, many of which made heartbreaking reading. Each one I opened hit me with another example of man's uncaring, cruel nature and I felt absolutely helpless in this daily torrent of despair. I would sign some but I had no friends to pass them onto as none of my 'real world' friends are interested in these issues. So the chain broke with me and that made me feel sad too. I just couldn't cope with it all and had to end the friendships and stop the e-mails. I was drowning not absorbing. I must be careful not to drown others.

Don't shoot the messenger !

Went to the gym today. Wondered how they would be with me after my third letter on the use of plastic bags. No significant sign of recognition when I handed my card in. All happy and smily, again when I picked it up. I know that I am going to annoy them though. You can't help it. You have a message and it needs to be heard, then heard again, and again before anyone will even begin to start thinking about it, let alone change their behaviour. If the message is one you don't want to hear....... then just shoot the messenger, or ignore them which is the more civilised option.

My letter was probably a little too aggressive and not conciliatory enough. I need to remember that you 'catch more flies with honey than vinegar'. I know that they are 'good' people who want to do the best and should of said that in my letter. I nearly, very nearly, asked a few people in the changing room what their views were on the plastic bag situation. But do I ask them when I am semi-naked, or they are semi-naked? It is a bit taboo, like talking on a tube. I shall set it as a challenge.

Everyday stuff ......

Have just sorted the rubbish out for bin day tomorrow. Recycle paper in the blue bin, cooked food waste in the food bin, uncooked food in the composter, green garden rubbish in the big green bag and the rest in the 'normal' bin. It just goes to show how organised we humans can be when we need to. The cost of dumping in land fill was the deciding factor which galvanized local authorities to take action. COST always seems to be the deal breaker. The world is run on economic principals. We measure success in GDP, what we produce at what cost but never factor in the most significant costs, those of the environment, wildlife, families and personal wellbeing ........ without these it is all a false economy at the end of the day.

When it comes to bringing about change we have our greatest power as consumers, not as democratic voters. If we stop buying then they stop producing, a simple and powerful partnership. Against battery farm hens? Then stop buying mayonnaise and Kentucky fried chicken. If enough of us did, then it would stop overnight! But we have been seduced by CONVENIENCE and COST. I was sitting at my brother's dining table a few weeks ago. We had just finished lunch. My brother, his wife, one of his grown up sons and I were discussing their cat. Evidently it had been left pregnant at the vets. Two of the kittens were still born and two survived. The cat (barely more than a kitten herself) was neutered and found a good home. Without exception, every adult round the table expressed sympathy and concern for the trauma suffered by the cat. But just minutes earlier there had been no concern shown for the poor chicken eaten on the plates. Economy is B I G at my brother's house so I doubt very much that the poor thing had ever seen the light of day, or found room to stretch it's wings as it stumbled about on it's unnaturally meaty legs. So chickens don't suffer? How do we change the views of others when it is CONVENIENT and COST effective for them to maintain them? We all work on the principal of 'payoff' don't we, the 'what's in it for me?' theory. We are also too far removed from the issue. We don't go and select our chicken from the factory farm, pick it out from a tangle of wings and claws looking for the one with the least deformities. We get it ready wrapped in Tesco, buy one get one free.

So am I a vegetarian you are asking? Well no. We are meant to be meat eaters and my vegetarian phase left me feeling tired and lethargic. So after much deliberation I have decided to eat only organic meat, so that I know that it is not a 'fast growth' breed, stuffed with antibiotics and kept cheek by jowl with other 'produce'. I cycled all the way over to Teddington to find an organic butchers, (most are free range but not organic) ..... then discovered I could order organic meat online from Able and Cole or is it Cole and Able? So now all the meat in the house is organic. The next step is to tell other people that I do not eat meat unless it is organic but have yet to find the nerve......... so next time big brother.

Yesterday I delivered my third letter to the gym about giving out free plastic bags. They have been good and immediately put up a 'green' notice above the dispenser asking people to 'reycle' but that will not save the planet....I am looking for complete understanding that giving away plastic bags is condoning their use when they are in fact totally unnecessary. Complete withdrawal is my ultimate goal. I looked up some facts on plastic bags and put them in with my letter to add support to my argument. Did you know that the average use of a plastic bag is 12 minutes and it takes over 500 years to decompose? Or that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic debris floating on or near the surface of every square mile of ocean? (2006 United Nations Environmental Programs Report). Or that some countries like India are the final resting place of plastic bags carried overseas from all countries. They flap from trees like trapped birds and billow about on the roads. Because we pay to have our rubbish removed and do not have to pick our way between the debris each day we have somehow become absolved of responsibility for producing it. This cannot be right. As the banking crisis has recently shown us the person lending the money needs to take the risk. The link between these two must be immediate to be effective. So too the link between rubbish producers and those with resposibility for it.

So on the rubbish front so far I have stopped using any kind of plastic to dispose of my trash. We buy plastic specifically to throw it into land fill...... this must be madness. I compost all my uncooked food. My composter is an amazing Tardis of a machine. I just keep filling it up (have not emptied it once yet) and all the little creepy crawlies mulch it down (leaving my plants alone) and eventually make some lovely compost for my vegetables. The composter also acts as part of the food chain as it supplies fruit flies for the canny spiders who have made their webs immediately above the lid. I love to watch them shimmy down their silken threads and wrap up the next meal with their deft front legs. The silk coming straight from their tummy like a spool. Beautiful creatures, how could anyone kill them?

Also we now have a 'food' bin for cooked rubbish, so a new container to fit onto the kitchen worktop. I give a lot of food to the birds or foxes if I can. Live and let live. I recycle paper and card, glass and plastic bottles. Now need to start doing something with the tins.

Awareness..... the beginning

Some time last year I became incensed at the decision to cull badgers despite scientific reports that stated that this was unnecessary, costly and inefficient. I shouted at the radio 4 presenter that 'This is not fair', 'Something must be done', 'Someone must speak out', and then realised that the someone was ME.

Since that time I have come to realise many things. Firstly, no-one likes a campaigner. We are in the same category as rambling drunks and Jehovah witnesses..... to be avoided at all costs. I have alienated many 'friends' but also know who my real friends are. I have been frustrated, elated, constipated and berated., (well perhaps not constipated but it sounded good) in the process of trying to bring about change.

I wish I had started my blog then as the metamorphose I experienced as I moved between 'ordinary lavae type' who's only interest was personal survival to 'fully grown winged adulthood' with an overview of the world and my impact on it, would have made interesting reading. But I will attempt to fill in a few of the details.

Many, many, many (to the power of n possibly) letters and e-mails to various members of the Welsh Assembly to try to avert the non-selective cull of badgers in Wales. Most of these were totally ignored which puts your presence here on earth as a fully functioning human being in perspective. The others were mainly responded to with 'Newspeak' generated by some political machine which did little to answer any key points I made. I soon began to realise how fruitless being a campaigner was. But with my new awareness I could not turn back. I could not squeeze myself back into my lavae suit and pretend I did not know. So no option but to continue......

On a more personal level I started to make changes to how I live my life, what I consume, what I discard and how I do it. The question is 'What difference can one person make?' We are all 'justoneperson' at the end of the day, but if each of us shared this awareness that change will only happen if we DO something to bring it about then what may be possible?

So far I have stopped using plastic bags in my rubbish bin. Seemed a bit pointless to stop getting them free in shops and start buying them instead. I line the pedal bin with newspaper, put all the messy stuff in the composter (if possible) or inside tins and packets, then tip the whole lot into the wheelie bin. No plastic bags whatsoever! I must admit that the number 11 bin does have the tang of Bangkok about it, if you know what I mean. There are various 'bits' which have stuck to the bottom of the bin and I know that in time I will have to put my head inside and scrape them out...... but, small price to pay in my opinion.

I don't take plastic bags in shops.... sometimes this is very difficult as they automatically wrap things up while you are searching out your money. I used to take them when they did this so as not to hold up the queue but now realise that I need to be more proactive than this and just empty the stuff out and leave the bag behind. I must say that I have observed that the people who buy the most groceries, on the whole take the most 'free' bags. My blood boils as I watch bag after bag being pulled from the holder to wrap up stuff which could easily be put in a cardboard box. So far I have contained my anger and stayed quiet......

I am campaigning to get free plastic bags removed from the gym I attend. (Three letters so far). Evidently people find it a 'convenience' to keep the wet and dry things separate in their bags....... while the planet chokes on plastic pellets left behind for a millennia.

So, the purpose of the blog. To record my progress in my transformation to fully fledged environmental campaigner. To share my successes and many failures to have any impact at all. And in the best tradition of the BBC, to 'educate', 'inform' and 'entertain'. Welcome aboard.