To do today
Everyone makes a difference. Every difference is a difference, no matter how small it feels. Every difference grows in effect from the moment you start making it. Your difference might be the difference that buys us time, the difference that gets us over the line. Making a difference is easy, there’s so many ways to do it. Start making your difference now.
7 Days to make a difference
We can each make a difference, there are things you can do every day. 7 Days to Save the Planet shows seven simple things you could start doing straightaway to help.
6 Ways to turn it around
The first thing to do is waste less:
Don’t buy things in packaging that just gets thrown away.
Don’t leave taps running, lights shining, things happening that don’t do anyone any useful good.
Don’t clutter your attic with things someone else could be using.
In Stroud, find out how you can reduce your waste with Action on Plastic.
And better than wasting less, just use less:
Don’t buy more than you can use.
Don’t order more than you can eat.
Use exactly as much as you need.
In Stroud, get help if you need it, or help others who need support, with Stroud District Food Bank.
And when you do use things, get more from what you use:
Use both sides of the paper; cook the broccoli stem – be canny.
Fix what’s worn out or broken.
Give what you don’t want to someone who needs it.
Share – car share, trip share, tool share, make and join libraries of things.
In Stroud, you can take broken things to the Repair Cafe and get them working again.
Be choosy about where you get stuff – switch:
From fashion to vintage.
From new to second-hand.
From far-away to local.
To low-impact devices.
To energy providers, banks, shops and suppliers doing the right thing.
In Stroud, shopping at the Stroud Farmers Market helps you support local businesses and reduces your impact on nature.
But some things, there is no choice, we do need to stop:
Flying and driving just for fun – we can do the same things closer to home and better.
Eating so much red meat – there’s a future for cows in our landscape and food chain, but the beef and dairy industries need to shrink.
Voting for politicians who value their financial backers more than our planet.
In Stroud, the Access Bike Project sells affordable reconditioned bikes, and gives you access to their workshop to make your bike safe to ride.
And other things, we’ll make life better if we start:
Making more yourself of what you need – grow your own food, make your own energy.
Helping nature recover – keep a part of your garden wild, grow food-plants for animals.
Planting trees and hedges.
In Stroud, you can join projects that make a difference to nature with Edible Stroud.
Do the things that are easiest for you to do. Don’t think you have to make the same changes everyone else is making – everyone’s life is different. Do the things that make your personal biggest impact. And to do that, you need to know where the problem comes from, and you’ll need to understand your own carbon footprint.
Feel inspired? Be inspiring!
You may think your personal lifestyle changes won’t help much, that you don’t matter in the big picture, but your small changes can make a huge difference if enough people take them up, so make yours and inspire others to do the same.
Everyone’s connected to everyone else.
There’s that pub game, the ‘six handshakes’ rule, six degrees of separation – of Kevin Bacon – the idea that everyone in the world is no more than six steps away from you, that everyone, everywhere is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of you. Facebook and twitter have done numbers suggesting the great majority of their users are even less far apart than that.
How cool would it be for you to influence the world by being the best champion you can be of the changes that you make?
Start conversations
Just talk, talk and do, and talk about what you’re doing, what you’re choosing to do, every chance you get. Invite curiosity and satisfy it. Many of us will talk to dozens, hundreds maybe, of strangers each day. Take every opportunity to get them thinking, be the example of what you want to see.
Around your neighbourhood
No-one knows your neighbourhood like you do. The people who might like allotments, the people with nowhere to park. The people who can’t cross the road for traffic. The places where rubbish is fly-tipped, the corners that could take a tree. Empty buildings waiting for a good community use, like a big freezer or a tool-share. No-one knows like you who to talk to to get something going, and what something would work best where you live.
At work
No matter where you work, you work with people, for people, linking up with other people – suppliers, customers, investors, inspectors… All work involves people you can talk to, people you can choose to work with – or not. Standards to meet, standards to set, fields to be the first in, the leader.
In the world
Remember what you do matters, and the more people you get on your side, the more effect you’re having:
Get your money talking – organisations change when the sales they depend on move elsewhere.
Start petitions – so when you say something to someone they know it’s not just you.
Start community groups – lots of CANs start that way, a few people get chatting and one says, ‘We should start a group…’
Stand for things – a governor, a trustee – volunteer to add your efforts to an organisation doing the right thing.
Get elected.
Stop shrugging and asking ‘What can I do?’ when the answer is ‘Whatever you want to’.