I remember life in Sierra Leone where at New Year people danced and sang 'Happy New Year me no die-o' just celebrating being alive for the start of another year. I love watching fireworks but increasingly the New Year displays around parts of the world seem a bit excessive, a competition among cities to out-blitz each other. To me they seem less celebratory about what really matters than the Sierra Leonean way. Still - some energy savings in the celebrations in New York I note.
Looking for 'environmental good news' to start the year took a bit of doing but I am cheered to think that travelling by Eurostar to Paris amounts to only one tenth of the environmental effects of taking a plane. In addition, according to this article, Eurostar offsets carbon emissions on that amount. I think this sounds great but given the huge recent re-construction at St Pancras do wonder a little where boundaries have been drawn on counting the costs.
Following the consumerism of Christmas in the UK I'm wondering if we all really have to go at the pace we do. If we all slowed down a bit and cut out consuming what we don't really value anyway and do say 80% of the consuming we're currently doing, I suspect for many of us our quality of life would improve a great deal. Schon's 'reflection-in-action' comes to mind as a way of achieving it.
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