Can you tell me if you have every caused a snowball effect relating to Saving The Planet?

[househousehousefox]

So have you ever planted a tree and got someone else interested in planting trees. Or biked to work and started off your colleagues biking to work.
Just something you changed and noticed others changing aswell.

I need a bit of a pick me up after the wake up call thread.

As you can probably tell I've stayed awake thinking about climate change.

I became vegan at 20 and put everyone else off it! .

We planted a wildflower meadow. Then my sister planted a strip in her garden, and my friend who has a huge garden is rewilding a section. But I don't think it's me who influenced. I think we're all just hopping aboard the zeitgeist.

Ds1 did his EPQ on the impact of the world continuing to eat meat. The whole family now eats less than a third of the meat we ate previously, have stopped buying red meat completely and I try very hard only to buy British and seasonal good due to the air freight impact on climate change.

Seasonal food

I've done a lot of planting in the garden which started the neighbour off, but think that was the offer to lend tools rather than I changed anyone's outlook.

We have no car and haven't flown for 10+ years but not many people seem keen to follow suit

We try to refuse gifts from Amazon etc and force family to buy more sustainable things but they just moan.

So... no. I know a lot of people who waffle on about climate change but seem to think doing their recycling is enough to offset their 4x4, woodburner and flights

I encouraged my friend, my sister and my mum to start a vegetable garden. My mums is limited to strawberries but my friend and my sister have really got the bug.

We used reusable nappies which a lot of people scoffed at when I was pregnant. Said it wouldn't last etc. We used them up until we potty trained our child at 2.5. Some of the scoffers now use them themselves, having asked our advice. I think about 5 families are using them having seen us do it successfully.

(And before anyone says they're no better for the environment than disposables, they really are. You use them for more than one child, line dry them, don't iron them, wash at 40 - all things the studies don't take into account).

I did a fair bit of tree planting when younger.

Not sure I've managed a ripple effect. I'm clearly a terrible persuader!

For example I walk most places and although I've had comments everyone I know drives when they can.🤷

Any advice welcome.

My friend recently offered me her home grown courgettes but I had to turn them down as we have too many as well. Going back twenty years we would be having the same conversation about kebabs.

Everyone I know who runs has someone who inspired them to run and someone who was inspired by them to run. So environmentally friendly as it can be door to door and no car or equipment needed.

The only thing that I can think of that convinced multiple people is that I got everyone at work onto using Smol washing tablets instead of buying plastic packages of them, and now a few of them have said their parents/friends etc do the same - a tiny thing, but something at least!

I feel you on the fear and worry, OP. I do as much as I can personally - haven't flown since 2016, buy local, grow my own veg, recycle everything, try to be as low waste as possible, am not having children (not entirely climate related but it was a consideration, as much for a potential child's sake as the planet's). It still feels so miniscule and insignificant - but it's not. For every tiny thing we do, we create a little shift in the public perception of the people around us and then the people around them and it'll make it easier, at some point down the line, to adopt the bigger shifts in lifestyle we're going to have to make.

Veganism, people around me have changed their diet. Not because of the environment initially but because I lost weight and looked healthy and they wanted the same. Once people start eating plant based it makes it easier to look comfortably at the issues around livestock and fishing. People at my work now use several vegan products happily, whereas they would have recoiled once. I think its because I use them daily and they're becoming normalised. I have an electric car and am trying to demystify that as a lot of people are confused about the whole EV thing. People I know are actively looking at an EV for their next car. My partner is in some climate change documentaries and is being interviewed by radio in a couple of days about todays climate change report. People are starting to listen. We're far from perfect though - just doing mostly our best and slipping up regularly!

Good point re vegan I am. DD went vegan 4 years ago and has slowly converted us. We're not full vegan but have gotten to the stage we can't remember the last time we ate meat, and where dairy consumption is shrinking to tiny levels. Without really even thinking g about it tbh

Or rather 're veganism'