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Are We Consuming Too Much of Everything—not Just Energy?

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  Are We Consuming Too Much of Everything—not Just Energy? What if becoming greener isn't about adding more green products to our lives—but discovering how much we don't actually need? When we talk about Going Green, the conversation very quickly turns towards energy. We discuss electricity. Gas. Petrol. Solar panels. Heat pumps. Electric cars. Insulation. And all of those things matter. But I increasingly wonder whether energy consumption is only one part of a much bigger question. Are we simply consuming too much of almost everything? Not because most of us are deliberately wasteful. Not because enjoying possessions, holidays, technology or good food is somehow wrong. But because over several decades we seem to have quietly connected two ideas that are not necessarily the same: Living better. and Consuming more. Perhaps it is worth separating them again. When Did "More" Become the Default? Look around an ordinary modern home and compare it with one from perhaps 40 o...
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The Green Commute Challenge: Could You Leave the Car at Home One Day a Week?

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  The Green Commute Challenge: Could You Leave the Car at Home One Day a Week? Don't sell the car. Just see what happens if you don't use it tomorrow. When we talk about greener transport, the discussion can become extreme surprisingly quickly. Apparently, we must choose sides. Keep driving everywhere and we don't care about the environment. Give up the car completely and somehow reorganise our entire lives around bicycles, buses and railway timetables. But for most people, neither position is particularly useful. A car can be enormously convenient. For some people it is essential. If you live in a rural area, work unusual hours, carry equipment, have mobility difficulties, take children to school or simply live somewhere with poor public transport, abandoning the car may be completely unrealistic. So I am not proposing that. Instead, I have a much smaller experiment. Could you leave the car at home for just one working day each week? Not forever. Not even every day. Just o...
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Grow Something You Can Eat—even If You Don't Have a Garden

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  Grow Something You Can Eat—even If You Don't Have a Garden You Don't Need to Become Self-Sufficient. Start by Growing Lunch. There is something slightly strange about modern food. We can walk into a supermarket in January and buy strawberries. We can buy tomatoes almost every day of the year. Basil comes in little plastic packets, salad leaves arrive washed and ready to eat, and potatoes appear in bags without any obvious connection to the soil they once grew in. Food has become extraordinarily convenient. Perhaps it has also become slightly invisible. We see the finished product, but very little of what happened before it reached us. So here is one of the simplest Going Green challenges I can suggest: Grow something you can eat. Not enough to feed your family for the year. Not enough to become self-sufficient. Not even enough to save a significant amount of money. Just grow something. A pot of basil on a windowsill. A container of salad leaves by the back door. A few tomato ...
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