”Motivating others will do a lot more than my individual changes alone”. Columnist Julia Trombley reveals three goals for a eco friendly summer.
Author: Julia Trombley
Full disclosure: I agreed to write an article about my summer plans despite the fact that I have no summer plans. I still haven’t bought my return ticket to Canada, and my expiring rental contract is soon to leave me homeless. I never cease to surprise myself with my effortless ability to procrastinate making life plans.
I asked myself why I signed up for this seemingly impossible writing task. Then I racked my brain for anything of slight resemblance to a summer plan. I didn’t come up with a summer itinerary, but I have mustered up three of my personal summer goals:
First, I’m going to reduce my meat and dairy consumption. After taking the Critical Animal Studies course at Lund, I have come to recognize that I don’t need to eat animal products.
For starters, they are an incredibly inefficient use of energy. For every one calorie of meat we produce, we trade in roughly 8 calories that we could have recieved from plants.
Secondly, I always assumed that my summer would involve stocking up on cheap Skyscanner tickets and checking countries off my bucket list. But recently, I’ve began feeling guilty about buying plane tickets.
The average Swede creates 4.6 tons of CO2 per year. And a round-trip from Sweden to India uses 2.1 tons of CO2. Basically, a single flight can undo all the measures I have taken to reduce my carbon footprint.
With this in mind, I have decided to cut back on flights and plan a bike trip this summer. Not only is Sweden a biking mecca, but you can camp almost anywhere for free. It would be crazy not to take advantage of this.
And lastly, during a lecture in the Environmental Crash Course at Lund my classmate announced that her summer goal was to talk more; she admitted to having a lot of knowledge about the environment, but a tendency to keep it to herself.
Realizing that I am also guilty of this, I’ve taken her goal on for myself. This summer I’m going to talk more about my eco-friendly lifestyle changes. Because motivating others to adjust their lifestyles will do a whole lot more than my individual changes alone.
I may not have the clearest idea what I am doing this summer, but I have goals that will guide me. I’ve come to see my lack of summer plans as an opportunity to shape my summer into something meaningful. Writing this article seems to be my first step towards summer goal #3. For a girl with no summer plans it seems like I am starting to make some progress.
