One of the principals that attracted me to the transition movement is the belief that initiatives should pursue the transition to a low carbon community without throwing blame around. To me this is a priceless tactic.
So often I hear people absolve their inaction with the fact that there’s no point acting while someone else’s actions are going to continue being destructive. Recently I’ve been in the company of the farming community and someone seemed relieved to hear my take on the climate damage exerted by farming. As far as I’m concerned farming has evolved in a way that produces greater green house gases thereby influencing our planets climate.
However that is no different to the non farming family down the road who have evolved to drive to school instead of walk. The amount of emissions may be different but the “progress” is all part of a system we are all shaping. I see no point in waging a finger at the farmer while you drive by on your 5 minute jaunt, in your jeep, to bring your 12 year old to the school around the corner. It’s almost as pointless as discussing the damage by farmers over a steak diner.
The reality is that we are all playing our part in changing our planets climate at a rate greater than we and all life on earth can safely evolve. We could start looking to each other as part of the same team, facing the same challenge. We all need to change our ways. When we acknowledge the problems then we can come up with ideas to address them, collaboratively. No one sector of our community is capable of moving the entire community off carbon – all sectors need to work together cooperatively to try figure out how we can make this evolution, the “progress”, more climate friendly.
No blame required!
Theresa O’Donohoe
August 31st 2014
TheresaOD.com 