ELIC, UCLouvain / Ecology
The translation of this testimony was generated automatically by a translation program. Thanks for your understanding.
As ecologist, I’m interested in studying and understanding the relationships among different species and the environment, where we all live. As remarked again by the last IPCC report, climate change is affecting not only tropical species far away from us, but also ours. It’s a fact we have all to deal with.
Our lifestyle is affecting the Earth, however, even if the The Limits to Growth report was published 47 years ago, we haven’t changed our way of living as much as we should have done.
We can all do a step forward for a more sustainable society. Personally, in the last 8 years I’ve decided to gradually change my routine to make it more sustainable: I drastically decreased the meat consumption, I buy consciously, trying to choose only local and seasonal products and avoiding unnecessary things, I reduce water waste and try to use public transportation as much as possible. These are really common sustainable choices, but I’m sure that everyone could find his/her own way. It is difficult to try to take off the consumer coat of everyday life and the temptations of fast, cheap and unsustainable solutions are everywhere.
However, I find several interesting (positive) effects on my daily routine. For example, having mostly vegetarian or vegan meals make me feel better and more productive, using public transportation allows me to find the time of reading a book (or an ebook, to avoid paper waste), and buying less, farm-to-table and recycled products, had a positive effect also on my wallet. In fact, I gradually experienced small changes in my daily life that, at the end, brought me to a change of perspective of what has truly value. Less is more is a nice slogan and it could help to address everybody’s efforts. All of us, independently from their age, can contribute to reduce his/her impact on the limited resources of our planet.
Ecological-related initiatives could appear a matter of upper-classes and governments only, moreover national and international sustainable policies could seem far from the common life. However, we have to be aware that as individuals we have a political and economical weight, which we must use to push our society to sustainable habits, for us and all the other species of this planet, being conscious that every change starts from ourselves.
Originally posted 2018-08-05 01:29:34.