My #ScotClimateWeek: Learning that I can make a difference!

Did you know that it is Climate Week this week? A week aimed to “inspire action on climate change at home and at work”.

Quite fittingly, me and Jenny are getting quite a dose of such inspiration from the Climate Change Literacy workshop delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful, as part of support provided Climate Challenge Fund for our project. It’s been absolutely jam-packed full of ideas so far and we thought each of us would share one or two tidbits which made the most impression on us personally. Perhaps it will pass some of this inspiration onto you too:)

Here is what inspired me at day one of the workshop last Thursday.

At the start we were asked to list one thing which we were certain of about climate change and one which we were not so certain about.

For me it is pretty much a given that climate change is happening and that greenhouse gas emissions produced by us, humans, are behind it (I was glad to see that this was in agreement with the rest of the room). But I was not sure whether I as an individual can do much about it. It seems such a large problem, dependent on political and economic forces much larger than my humble self. Can I really make a difference? I am often left feeling quite powerless and overwhelmed…

There were two bits of information which made me feel that what I and we do in our community, and what I and we say, really does matter.

First, the Climate Change Myths Snap game revealed that:

40% of emissions come from decisions we make as individuals.

This made me more hopeful that my personal choices can make a real impact on the global greenhouse gas emissions.

I was also struck by the video interview with George Marshall, highlighting the difference we can make by simply having everyday conversations about climate change within our communities. Here is the bit that hit the message home for me (you can listen to the full interview in the video above):

We have to recognise that there is a collective silence around climate change. It is more than people not talking about it, it is people very actively not talking about it. And I think that the single most powerful thing that people can do is to challenge that silence. Is to say why aren’t we talking about this and talk about it to engage with people around them. […] Try and have a conversation or an interaction every day […] And don’t for one second underestimate how important those conversations are.

I went away with a resolve to keep trying to make better choices and to start more of those tricky climate conversations with people around me:) I wonder what Jenny’s inspirations were from the day?

Now I am looking forward to even more inspiration at day two of the workshop this Thursday – when we will be exploring practical changes each one of us can make right now for a better future…