Artificial Trees to Save the Environment

Conserve = To keep for future use and a rather ancient and prudent concept. You should see what I've got 'conserved' in my shed/workshop! :hehe:

 

:DI hate to think Dave, the mind boggles.

I hope we're not talking Jam here.

 

I think there are two sides to modern ideas about conservation. On one hand, we should try to conserve what we have. We don't own it, we're just care takers on short term contracts. On the other hand, clinging too hard to the past can't possibly work. This is for two reasons, firstly the past has already gone, things have changed, and we can't have it back even if we wanted it. Secondly most wouldn't want it. I like having a car, I want to be able to go abroad for my hols etc, I want to put food in the fridge and know that it will keep for a few days.

I also think that one of the biggest problems we have, and I wonder if this is just human nature because it is too pravalent to be anything else, is we all think we know best, and we all think in black and white. For example, how many younger people actually look to older people for nuggets of wisdom? Just because we've moved on doesn't mean all the old ways are invalid. Take 'recyling'. What a new concept that is. Ask some folk when it started and they'll tell you it was when we first realised we were busting the environment, back in the 1980s.

I also think that we are stuck in a rut because anyone who thinks outside of the box just gets ignored. At the Eden Project they have a range of exhibits covering simple, affordable but unorthodox means of capturing water in drought prone areas. These techniques will never become the norm because they deviate too far from the normal way of thinking. They don't involve multi billion pound desalination plants or huge dams, so they can't possibly be right. We seem obsessed with the idea of saving the planet by means of improving and adding complexity to the very technology that is causing the problem, rather than taking a step back and seeing if there is another way to achieve the same thing. Anyone who does take that step back and think of another way will get laughed at, because his/her idea doesn't fit the standard way of thinking.

I said we tend to think in black and white. We either have everything we have now and continue to bust the environment, or we get rid of it all and live miserable lives but save the environment. Surely we can have both if we think outside the box and change our ways a bit. We also tend to look for the one big change. That can't work, there is no silver bullet. If we made lots of little changes, things like reducing 'food miles', wasting less, demanding that our politicians and business folks make better use of the technology that is already in their offices and homes and travel less in the course of their work, lots and lots of little changes, I could go on and on. All those little changes would add up to a big change in how we care for our environment, without upsetting our quality of life.