One of the first things Kim and I noticed over in the UK is the huge campaigns on global warming and our carbon footprints. There is a HUGE awareness initiative going on over here. But it seems that they’re also behind Australia (and other countries like Ireland) in many ways – even though on average Australia’s average CO2 footprint is much higher.
The biggest reason Australia’s average is so high is due to the fact that we are just so dependent on our cars. And we are, terribly in fact. While on the way to the supermarket today, Kim said that when we get back to Australia, he’d like to live somewhere that was walking distance to the supermarket. When I pointed out that our house in Australia is indeed only a 10 minute walk from the local supermarket (which is what we walk here), he realised just how mindless we are!
But in terms of small things like the use of plastic. In Australia, we’ve managed to drastically reduce the number of plastic bags at our supermarkets. And we managed WITHOUT having to charge for plastic bags as well like Ireland did. That’s a pretty good achievement! In the UK, however, not only do they use EXCESSIVE amounts of plastic bags for their shopping, everything (and I mean everything) is individually wrapped for no reason at all. The other day we bought a cucumber and not only was it plastic wrapped, but it had another wrapper over the top! It’s ridiculous. And that’s not to mention the number of places we’ve seen still using polystyrene!
We’ve heard stories about people choosing to travel by train and taking 6 times longer to get somewhere and paying about 6 times as much rather than flying. All this to reduce their carbon footprint. This is great, but what’s happening about all this unnecessary plastic people?!
On another slightly related note, my most favourite brother-in-law sent me an interesting website link – poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf – which was really quite amazing!
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Hi Kim & Phillipa
Hope you are settling in to the new place OK. Just a quick thanks for the CDROM you left, as well as the bottle of wine, that so far amazingly Regina hasn’t drunk, although I’m sure that won’t last long.
All the best
Toby
By the way, since you’re talking of “slow travel”, as its known, check out this blog of a friend of mine who is travelling with world without flying… http://www.lowcarbontravel.com/ Worth a look!