Sharing – Some Ideas

Parenting

“Parenting” by Leonid Mamchenkov is licensed under CC BY 2.0

We are handing our planet to the next generations in less than ideal conditions and that means that we need to talk to our children and grandchildren about it. Everything we can do to help our children see the interconnectedness will help and how we make everyday choices can reinforce this. Some examples, letting our children know why we are choosing to walk to the local shop rather than taking the car, leaving some long grass in the garden to encourage insects rather than cutting it all, being careful about the soaps, detergents, shampoos and conditions we use (due to their effect on marine and river life)…

More resources on parenting here.

We are hoping, post-lockdown, to get some climate cafés going where we can discuss challenges such as parenting. Fingers crossed.

Sharing ideas and skills

The ways that we can share ideas and skills are endless. Everything that we learn about how to deal with climate change and the skills we acquire in personal actions from reducing food waste to insulating our homes better can be shared. Knowledge is power and the more we know, the easier it is for us to distinguish “greenwashing” from positive action and make effective choices.

A possible road map is:

  1. Decide on an action that you want to take that will reduce climate change or make you and your family more resilient to its effects;
  2. Learn how to do that action;
  3. Share your actions and their results locally;
  4. Put it on Facebook/Instagram or make a video for YouTube with what you did.

Sharing a home

“Sharing homes” by janelleorsi is licensed under CC BY 2.0

It sounds radical, but from a climate change perspective (usually from a financial one too!), it makes perfect sense. Less emissions, less environmental damage in building houses, etc.

Some of us may be forced to share in less than ideal conditions as lodgers, carers, house share and living in HMOs (houses in multiple occupation). However, sharing does not have to be like that. Here is some information on housing cooperatives in the UK . And this book, RetroSuburbia by David Holgreen, while written for Australia has some interesting and detailed perspectives.

Sharing Food

“The revolution will be fertilised! Incredible Edible, #Levenshulme @ielevy” by dullhunk is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Incredible Edible is a fantastic success story of local groups who come together to grow food in the most unlikely places. Anyone can take what they need from the veg that they grow. It started in Todmorden and now has more than 100 groups UK-wide. If you want to know how it is done, Incredible Edible have put together resources to guide you through the whole process and learn from others’ success.

Sharing Land

Oxford Community Land Trust is exploring how/whether community held land could feed Oxfordshire. They held a webinar on this in December 2020, which covered research on ideas on how to create sustainable food systems for the county. The papers are available through the website. They see many opportunities for making local and sustainable food sources a possibility.