Thomas Dalton schreef:
Incidentally - does anyone know where I can find statistics to see if the "A cleaner environment starts with yourself" concept is true? What percentage of carbon emissions come from things a typical person can reduce on their own?
"A cleaner environment starts with yourself" was, I think, a slogan of a environmental awareness campaign in the Netherlands some time ago.
I means in this context that you can not wait for other to do something or point to the others to justify your inactions.
And that is very true I find. I am from Belgium. That is a small densely populated country with lost of roads, many trucks passing by Belgium to get to the neighboring country's. a large ports, heavy industry (like petroleum's refinery's), very intensive agriculture.
There is very extensive envirmental legislation's to monitor the impact of all those act ivies and to regulate it. Envirmental issues are taken seriously. Yes, it could be better but things are improving like the water quality of the rivers and ground water.
But whatever the efforts Belgium does that will never make a noticeable effect on the global scale. But that is not taken as an excuse for not doing it.
As a citizen that is exactly the same only on a even smaller level. You can only try to do your best whatever the small impact. And that means doing things like isolate you house, get a new more efficient heating system for you home, bring your old cooking oil, paint and other household chemical waste to the local communal collection point and do not put them in the non-sorted trash.
And that is what "A cleaner environment starts with yourself" means. It is an attitude to take personal responsibility.
Greetings, Walter