Being Different

In a world of 6.5 billion people, how will you distinguish yourself? How do you justify your life?

Let's start with the numbers: 6.5 billion. How many of us can really conceive such a number? I, for one, certainly can't. Even coming to terms with a million stretches me.

A while back I found an article about single use plastic water bottles, which followed a common "what if" scenario. Somehow you find yourself in a place with a newly finished water bottle, and no sign of recycling around. You have places to go, errands to run. Do you throw it out?

If you are a relatively green-minded person, you might find yourself justifying this one action. You might think "I line dry my clothes. I compost food scraps. I telecommute when I can. I recycle at home. I do not over water my lawn. I eat locally and low on the food chain. I am usually very diligent, so this one water bottle won't make much difference."

This reasoning is something probably even the greenest of us might do (although with recent campaigns, using a single-use water bottle in the first place might not be an issue for you now--if so, you can substitute any similar situation).

Now imagine if just 1% of the world thought this way once a year. 6.5 billion people, times 1%.

Or perhaps you might consider that it's more a western urban sort of behaviour (though I have no basis for making this random assumption). Let's take it a step further and narrow it down to just Canadians for now. If 1% of all Canadians (and I'll use a low estimate of 30 million for our current population) trashed a plastic water bottle once a year, that would be 300 000 water bottles a year.

Plastic is generally not readily biodegradable. It takes a great deal of energy to produce, and the product comes from petroleum. It takes a person only a few minutes to consume the water that it holds, which is usually either just municipally treated water, or spring water that by law requires no safety testing.

People have been around for tens of thousands of years. Only in the last couple of decades have we seen fit to package water in single-use containers. Surely we can do better.

What we need to remember here is that the water bottle scenario is pretty limited; yet the mindset of entitlement, in which we expect "our fair share" (however unfair that might turn out to be in reality) is pervasive. How many times do we think this way: I used/wasted less doing x so I don't have to feel bad about y?

6.5 billion people.

What difference can any one person have in a world with so many?

Never underestimate your importance. In a world where so few negative acts accumulate rapidly, remember that the same can be said for positive acts.

Tree planting, composting, recycling, buying local, buying less--they all count, and have achieved mainstream status in recent years. You have influence over your friends and family; even if they are not impressed at the outset, you may find that not only do they begin to follow your example, but also help that example reach others.
Everything counts.