John Towndrew, President, Transition Cornwall+
In September 2020, I began writing articles for the local press for Transition Cornwall+, a local organization dedicated to shifting away from oil and other fossil fuels by reducing our dependence on them. The main reason for this is to address the climate crisis that we are currently facing. For more than a dozen years, the group has been advocating for more locally grown and sourced food, for more robust transportation infrastructure, for less waste and for more tree canopy in urban areas.
Transition Cornwall + is grateful that, over the past two years, many talented guest writers have come forward to contribute to the column, contributing ideas and energy to this local work.
We are now in a new year and action to tackle the climate crisis is more urgent than ever, at the same time the call for personal action is more widespread. As we emphasized earlier, by working together locally at the community level, we can find fast and effective solutions to the climate crisis, without waiting for larger organizations and agencies to act. If we wait for the government to act – it will be too little, too late.
The question for everyone should be “Am I part of the problem or part of the solution”?
I like to use the following quote to guide my actions: “Every dollar I spend is a statement about the kind of world I want and the quality of life I value.” This can help each of us as we examine our own actions — whether we buy something that will soon end up in a landfill, whether we choose a car that’s bigger than we need to, or whether we’re buying vegetables flown in from California. They all have a negative impact on our carbon footprint. We each have the power to ensure a world that does not collectively heat up to the point where it becomes uninhabitable. Locally and around the world, people are taking serious action to address the climate crisis.
Over the next year, we’ll be looking for stories from ordinary people, to see what they do in their daily lives to be “part of the solution,” and hopefully provide some inspiration for all of us.
For more information, please reach out to us at Transitioncornwall.com or on Facebook
