The Environment
One girl’s passion
There’s a documentary series on Netflix right now, called “Live to Lead”. It focuses on people committed to making a difference in the world. I am finding it awe-inspiring.
The second episode features Greta Thunberg. It’s hard to imagine that people may not have heard of her, but just in case you haven’t, she’s a young Swedish environmental activist. If you haven’t seen her moving speech to world leaders at the UN climate action summit in 2019, then I urge you to please do so now. If you have, then watch it again. And definitely watch the documentary episode I mentioned above.
Her passion, her drive and her dedication remind me of the innate goodness of humanity. In the face of never-ending wars, economic inequity, prejudice, violence and suffering, it can sometimes be difficult to see.
At just 15 years old, she stood outside of her country’s parliament with a handmade placard saying simply that she was skipping school to protest inaction on climate change. In the documentary, she explained how inspired and hopeful she became when the very first person joined her. She said that was by far the most difficult hurdle: going from feeling desperately alone to knowing that someone else cared too. From there it spread. It was such a poignant part of the whole story.
What can I do?
The message that we need to protect and preserve our environment has been present throughout my life. Way back in school, I remember teachers talking about the danger of fossil fuels, the need for renewable energy sources and the damage caused by waste and littering.
The problem is it has almost become like background noise. It’s something I “should” care about but it doesn’t feel that pressing, especially in the face of everyday life worries. Besides, what can I do anyway? Surely it’s big industries and governments that are more to blame?
I think I’ve been very complacent, tending to think, someone else will solve it and I’ll just go along with whatever they decide.
Yet, as an avid traveller and lover of nature, a person who dreams of the beautiful landscapes of Northern Scandinavia. What on earth have I been thinking?
Complacency and indifference are so dangerous. Our climate is already changing. Our world is in danger. And I haven’t been doing enough.
I read an article this morning about how to help. There are many things to think about. One of the suggestions that felt achievable to me is moving away from a meat-based diet. I don’t eat a lot of meat anyway, so it does seem quite an easy thing to change.
Maybe that’s the key to the world making changes. Maybe all we need to do is to make it easier for people to protect the environment than not to.
It can’t just be about money and slapping surcharges on things to make them more expensive though. The super-rich will still be able to jet all over the world, for they can easily offset their carbon footprints financially. Charging more to do things will surely just deepen the divide between the haves and have-nots. That said, if the money generated is used to develop more eco-friendly technologies, then there are no doubt also benefits to this method.
The idea of avoiding air travel is something that I honestly do struggle with. Living in Japan, a long-haul flight is the only practical way for me to visit my home country, England. I am definitely happy to avoid short-haul flights and prefer the train over flying anyway. Although, to be honest, this probably has had a lot more to do with my fear of flying than any kind of moral high ground.
From now on though I promise to be more conscious about the impact of my actions. I also intend to read more and learn more, because I care about our planet and its future.
Censorship
It feels like people are currently scrambling over each other in their race to come out and criticise the recent news that Roald Dahl’s books are getting a makeover with more inclusive language. The all too familiar cries of “censorship” and “woke madness” abound, with some people even suggesting we should boycott all of his books.
I absolutely loved his stories when I was a kid. My first reaction when I saw the title of the news article I first stumbled across was one of shock and disappointment. What? They can’t change his books? Then I read on and discovered what the actual changes are. Yep, there are quite a few of them, but most are minor.
So why is everyone so flustered about it?
Well in my opinion there are two simple reasons. 1. People don’t like change. 2. It gives people something to be angry about.
Fear of change
Most of Roald Dahl’s books were written in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Think about it. That’s between 40 and 60 years ago. Language changes. Culture changes. I’m sure there is something to be said for preserving classical literature exactly as it was, as an honest reflection of historical times. Adult readers can take this into account and discern between old-fashioned attitudes and prejudices and present-day reality.
But Roald Dahl’s books are for children. My kids started reading them by themselves at about the age of seven or eight, but I read some of his books to them at a much earlier age than that. The reason I did so was because I remembered loving them as a kid and I wanted to pass that experience on to them. I didn’t consider the impact the language used back then might have on them now. It just wasn’t on my mind at all.
But in fact, it’s when we’re young that we pick up a lot of cultural attitudes that can directly lead to prejudices. I think it’s important that we consider what our young children are being exposed to. When I read about the specific types of changes that have been made to the books, I didn’t feel they take anything whatsoever away from the stories or the brilliance of Roald Dahl’s writing. The outrage expressed by some critics may leave you thinking whole books are being completely rewritten and fundamentally altered, but they are relatively minor changes. Although that said, they aren’t so minor if you are one of the people no longer being shamed or stereotyped.
Calling it censorship seems like a bit of an exaggeration to me. This isn’t a situation where a government has banned his books or huge chunks of them. Rather, isn’t it a publisher’s choice to make the edits they want to make to new editions? I mean, I used to teach from the 13th edition of a medical textbook. Rewrites and edits are completely normal. The old editions of Roald Dahl’s books aren’t going to just disappear anyway. I have a number of them myself. However, I wish I’d had access to the latest more inclusive ones when my kids were younger.
The one point I do feel some sympathy for, however, is the fact that Roald Dahl already has a massive readership and maybe instead of buying new modernised editions of his books, people might consider trying newer less well-known authors, who also have much to offer.
Embracing anger
It seems to me that sometimes people get angry about the oddest things. The current anti-woke sentiment of the general media in the UK is one such example. Some people want a more equitable, fair society, where minorities can also thrive. Wow. How awful. Quick, let’s rent a guillotine and rid ourselves of such preposterous “progressive” notions.
It’s actually pretty ridiculous. Look up “woke” on YouTube. Will you be led to a dark algorithm of “woke agenda” and groups of “wokies” condemning the non-woke and trying to brainwash young people into joining their cause to destroy humanity? Nope. What you’ll actually find is a vast array of fear-mongering videos, often from the conservative right, ridiculing the concept of woke, telling us there is a culture war and that “wokeism” is a toxic cancel culture and that we’re all in danger of having our right to freedom of speech taken away.
I came across so many videos telling me how dangerous and worrying woke is, but no videos of the actual supposed dangerous wokeness they’re so fearful of. Many people don’t even know what being woke even means.
Anti-woke caller tries to explain what woke means – It doesn’t go well.
On the other hand, it isn’t hard at all to find misogynous, transphobic and racist videos by people who are simultaneously yelling angrily to the world that they are being censored and aren’t “allowed” to say the stuff they literally just said.
That’s what I mean by ridiculous.
I wonder if… and I’m going to go right out on a limb here and both link back to my first topic and suggest something fantastical… What if, instead of fighting an enemy that I would suggest is largely in people’s heads, people were to spend that energy on demanding their governments do more to protect the environment?
That, however, would necessitate people making changes. And, as illustrated by the backlash against a few edits to some children’s books to better reflect our times, we humans aren’t good at that. Much better to spend our energy on something that means we don’t actually have to do anything. Then nothing needs to change.
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