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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory.
What can I do? The climate/sustainability challenge is so big and pervasive, with forces that I cannot confront. I cannot forestall the damage from a record storm. I cannot overcome the vested interests that seem to control our politics and work to contradict necessary change. This is a dilemma we all face, and even when we decide to make a stand, the impact seems negligible if discernable at all. If you are confused, I sympathize; I struggle with these same questions every day.
I have a tactical strategy with many parts. First, I have chosen to work in a field that commits me to identifying the many issues we face, to understanding possible solutions, and choosing quiet, consistent actions that, while incrementally small, when scaled add up to a collective force that might well make a difference. Every day I contribute toward change, in the context of the ocean as both source and solution to the climate challenge.
Second, I just don’t buy or consume products that do not meet my standards, selected as statement and action against the old ways. Boycott? Does it make a difference? Well, no, but yes, if my action joins others of like mind and the scaling up impacts the total consumption. I consider product, where it comes from, how far it travels, how it is made, who makes it under what conditions, and how it is packaged. Globalization makes this difficult, given the manufacture and distribution of those products, in whole or in the accumulation of parts to assemble. Third, I buy local as possibe, and welcome the trade with my neighboring farmer, or local merchant, escalating that value as those purveyors increasingly add value to their raw materials by processing on the farm and selling to coops, farm markets, and direct. That is a privilege, I know, but it is not a new way of being given the history of food markets in Europe and urban places. More and more these means and methods are being revived and by participating we become a participant in change.
Other tactics? Packaging has become anathema. Plastic is the nemesis, as styrofoam and container. But public pressure has made a difference: bans on plastic bags, recyclable and biodegradable bottles and boxes, to a point when some manufacturers are aware and see value in making a change. Want to make on fundamental difference? Don’t buy any water, flavored or otherwise, in a plastic bottle, just don’t do it; carry one container and refill from the tap. Compost. I was indifferent, but as soon as I saw the volume of my organic waste material being recycled by a local entrepreneur as fertilizer, I became manic, even righteous. These two strategies taken together have reduced what I take to the local transfer and waste disposal station dramatically – all simple enough and part of a necessary social movement where we, as individuals, as a collective, can make a difference.
Consider procurement, what you buy, not just in the context of family, but for a company or institution. Many companies some years back appointed Chief Sustainability Officers. I’ve always wondered what they did, if anything at all? But if a sustainability ethos is applied to the selecting and ordering of materials for all operations and manufacture, if such choices are made in the marketplace, what a difference that would make as another amplification of scale, contributing again to local labor, local industry, and local return whenever possible. Indeed, that ethos applied individually, and then through our economy from the bottom up, might well be just what we need to confront the counter-veiling corporate, investor, and market reluctance against transformation. It is sustainability in action, each one of us a tactical agent for change.
Finally, stop travelling. This is a very hard one for me. I travel for business and I travel for pleasure. On a recent trip to Portugal for a conference, I attempted to estimate the cost of getting there and going, using my base cost multiplied by the 1500 attendees, and the total exceeded $1.5 million, NOT including salaries paid for time spent and the externality cost of damaging emissions released into the air and water. At COP 28 in Dubai, there were 15,000 attendees – that’s $150 million! And what was accomplished: in Portugal, elucidation and further discussion; in Dubai, a disappointing failure to address the urgent, international, deleterious dependence on fossil fuels and the critical global need to address the emissions problem. The cost/effect ratio seems questionable. This money seems hypocritically spent for performative posturing and inaction. Should I just not attend? And, that answered, do I cancel that forthcoming trip for pleasure?
What is the penultimate tactic? We are what we do. If we want change, we must embody change. It seems as simple as that.
We will discuss these issues, and more, in future issues of World Ocean Radio.
World Ocean Radio is distributed by the public radio exchange and the pacifica network, for use by college and community radio stations worldwide. Find us wherever you listen to podcasts, and at world ocean observatory dot org where the full catalog of more than 700 episodes of World Ocean Radio is searchable by theme.
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