To ask what you're doing to 'save the Earth'

[mrsgrimbots]

My DS6 is a really sweet boy, hugely empathic, emotional, etc... and has had a bee in his bonnet about saving the Earth since his school had a non uniform day to raise money for the Australia fire relief.

He wants me to stop using the car and god forbid if I leave it running a second longer than needs be.

Today his last words to me as he went into school were....

'mum come up with a plan today of how we can save our world. We have to do something'

So of course, I'm putting it to the mumsnet community because I need ideas I can pass off as my own later you're always full of the best ideas ... what small or big actions/sacrifices/changes have you made to 'save the world'?

Was going to also say... don’t have kids.

Or in your case, no siblings. Biggest environmental impact you can make by yourself.

Grow your own
Make do and mend
Lower your heating temperature
Time showers
Don’t wash your car If you have one
Have an electric car if you have one
Swap gas and electricity suppliers on to 100% green energy
Wash clothes only when really needed
Ensure you pick the closest schools to home
Worth as locally as possible or WFH
Don’t use amazon or any other needless delivery services that waste packaging and fossil fuels

It is pretty terrifying the number of clearly educated, rational thinking people that think that going vegan is going to help you save the planet.

Not in the UK. Infact, going vegan and stopping the consumption of British red meat products means we are less able to fight climate change, And will in fact use more pesticides, non natural water sources and imported food products grown in seasonally. We CANNOT export our environmental conscious on this. A healthy, balanced and seasonal diet is good for the planet and for person- Simple!

@tweeady 100% with you on that point

And it’s a point my vegan friends struggle to understand

Help him make the distinction between living in a way that treads lightly on the earth and doing what he wants which is taking action to stop and/or reverse global over heating. There is a timelimit on the second one, it’s about reducing carbon emissions and recycling won’t cut it. That’s not to say don’t do it, but bear in mind that a saving the earth action plan needs to have wider political actions on it. You can tell him that climate researchers say one of the top things you can do is talk to other people about it. After that, I recommend getting a copy of Project Drawdown (100 ways of reducing global emissions) and see as a family what sorts of actions you could support. Bless him. This is a heavy burden he’s carrying. I feel the same about my son. Good luck. It needs all of us.

Perhaps he could sell some old toys, books, clothes etc & donate the money to a charity of his choice, climate change related obvs? Maybe Cool Earth or similar. Also green as the old toys etc will be played with again and might stop someone going out to buy new?

Bless him, he sounds amazing! You could follow Licypriya Kangujam on FB, she is 8 and incredibly involved in climate protests, though has dropped out of school which you may not want to encourage!!

My 4 year old always says no to carrier bags in shops because of the environment and asked a Mum at -a kids party if he could take his fruit shoot bottle home to recycle (Don't think they can be recycled though )

I chose to have only one child.

And I don't own a car and never have. Luckily my work, DS's school and the town centre are all walking distance from my house, and we can easily hop on a bus or train when we need to go further out.

This ‘don’t have kids’ thing - to a mother and child - it’s pretty grim. Yes, the research is there, sort of. If you’re thinking about carbon footprints. But are we really saying no more humans, that’s it, let’s stop? It’s ridiculous. Project Drawdown is good on this. When educated, empowered women can make choices about their bodies, naturally birth rates come down to replacement rate or less. Why do people think it’s ok to bandy round phrases like ‘don’t have kids’ in that easy way as if it’s the same as trying to shame someone out of a flight? Yes, we all should consider carefully our reproductive choices. Yes, I personally have just one child, no I don’t think I would try to plan for three or four, for the reason you state. But it really bothers me that people think it’s ok to throw this sort of statement around. I work in a school and children are picking up on it. Seriously, they have enough to worry about it without someone feeling that people are saying it’s their fault for existing.

Some of the posters on here really frustrate me. This boy is 6. It is not his fault that the world is in the state it is in. Telling him never to have children, or other drastic measures would mean nothing to him. Explaining the little things that he can do to help - and yes, I am fully aware of the limitations of those - will pique his interest, and raise an adult who has a full awareness of his planet and the issues in it, and may be able to do more in time. The op was not asking for facetious answers, but practical solutions to help her son be more conscious.

My 6 year old checks whether the products we buy use sustainable palm oil, responsibly caught fish, Fair trade products or can be recycled. Some may scoff that he is 'woke' but the truth is that he genuinely cares and as a young child it's something he can be responsible for. He's set up a battery recycling, general recycling and compost bin at his beavers troop. They're small steps, granted, but they are steps and they're all on his own back.

Well said @oatmilk4breakfast

Be poor so you can't afford to buy things or travel.

Job done!

This boy is 6. It is not his fault that the world is in the state it is in. Telling him never to have children, or other drastic measures would mean nothing to him. Explaining the little things that he can do to help - and yes, I am fully aware of the limitations of those - will pique his interest

Absolutely this.

This thread is full of posts that are deliberately unhelpful, obtuse or both.

Also don't put your heating on.
And no showers, just one bath once a week, shared by all the family.

Read him a Charles Dickens novel for inspiration?

Bless him he sounds really sweet!
I've recently gone veggie and loving it. Also flying less (but not holidaying less, we just stay in the uk) and trying to buy less fast fashion. Small changes but it all helps

We’ve taken no flights now for 5 years, become vegan, gone almost plastic free, don’t buy fashion items (only stuff that will last), don’t purchase anything we don’t really need, have rewilded our garden and now only use the car for essential work related journeys that cannot be made on foot / public transport. Hoping to get an electric car once we can afford it. We’ve also stopped at 2 children I’m sad but also relieved to say.

Seasonal veg.
Grow as much veg as I can.
Trying to use less plastic. If I can buy something in glass I will.
I walk a lot. 2 miles to work. I arranged to start at 9:30 so I don't need to take the car and can do it after school run. I earn less but I also use less petrol and there's less wear and tear on the car. I don't add to the rush hour traffic.

I forgot to say we have reduced dramatically our use of heating in the house. And we don’t do any single use or disposables (except toilet paper!).

@Growingboys maybe it's because tissues actually degrade quite quickly so don't have too much impact on the environment/landfill etc? But that doesn't take into account the packaging, some smaller packs are wrapped in plastic. I would say tissues packaged in cardboard are probably better for the planet than frequently washing hankies but happy to be corrected!

Also agree with lots of PPs about some of the responses on this thread - why do some people feel the need to be so condescending? Surely a child taking responsibility for his own actions and carbon footprint is something to celebrate! What is it that adults find so threatening about 'woke' kids? You have a lot to learn from people like the OP's son

We've almost cut out meat. Significantly reduced it in any case. We have milk in glass bottles instead of plastic - I rarely drink milk but the rest in my house do, and they don't like milk alternatives. I quite like oat milk, but don't drink enough to justify buying it regularly.
We recycle everything we can.
I breastfed and used terry nappies on my babies.
DH teaches sustainable design so hopefully he passes the message on to future generations.
I also get good use out of my clothes and pretty much only get rid of them when they're holey. And then I use them for rags.

Meat-free Monday was a good start, the kids 11 and 15 didn't even notice when I swapped beef to lentils in the bolognese. And I make a gorgeous curry with potatoes, chick peas and lentils.
The boys walk to school,
I ride my bike to work in the summer months but as we live semi-rural, there's no street lighting and the way to work is very creepy through dark lanes, so I don't cycle on my own at 6am when it's dark. There's only a handful of buses too, none at that time of the morning.

For me it's not having kids. That's my only contribution haha. Maybe you could try using public transport more often. Limit flying.

Had similar. Planted native trees in garden and wild flowers. Compost stuff.
Reduced meat consumption and have almond milk available.
Thing I love most though are wax wraps.
Use instead of cling film so kids sandwiches and over bowls in fridge, reusable and kids have fancy patterns!

www.beeswaxwraps.co.uk/

@Itsallgonewoowoo
Almond milk is horrible for the environment because the pesticide used kills billions of bees. Literally 50 billion bees died in one harvest season trying to pollinate that shite.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/07/honeybees-deaths-almonds-hives-aoe

He sounds lovely OP - I hope he represents the next generation

I think most things have been said already but an image popped up on my Instagram earlier about the average power drill only being used for 13 minutes in its life. It was basically promoting people sharing/borrowing/hiring rather than everyone buying new things all the time. Perhaps something to think about whenever you or DS wants to buy something new?