AN INVERNESSIAN IN AMERICA: Climate change is on everyone’s radar right now – and so it should be, writes Diane Knox
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Climate change is on everyone’s radar right now – and so it should be.
All eyes are on Scotland as the COP26 summit is held in Glasgow. Governments from all over the world are meeting to talk about climate change and what they can do to prevent it from further destroying the world.
I’m the first to admit that, since I moved to Florida in 2016, my consumption of “world news” has dipped (and that’s probably putting it mildly). A lot of it is my fault – complete change in routine, the news TV schedules are very different, losing the familiarity of the programmes you grew up watching, etc. Plus, and I’ve said this before, but the various news stations in the US don’t do much to hide their political bias, and it just becomes an exhausting watch after a while.
However, with the 26th Conference of the Parties occurring in my former home city, I wanted to tune in and educate myself. My confidence in one of the aforementioned news outlets – namely CNN – took a further blow when I saw their anchor, a man named Wolf Blitzer (great American newsman name) broadcasting on location in Scotland with the beautiful backdrop of… Edinburgh Castle. What?!
A quick check on Wolf’s Twitter confirmed it, they swerved Glasgow and went straight to the capital. Considering the summit is on climate change, if the good ol’ folk at CNN weren’t going to send Wolf to the place it’s actually taking place, they could’ve spared the air pollution and kept him at home! Mind you, Americans do love castles.
Anyway, I digress… it’s been pretty fascinating to follow along over the past week and hear what the big guns have to say. But it got me thinking – what can I do? As the world warms up, extreme weather events are more frequent, sea levels are rising and many animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, I want this to be on MY radar and do my part to reduce my carbon footprint.
I am kind of obsessed with our energy consumption in the house, mainly because I’m a little bit cheap and want to save money when it comes to our monthly bills! In this Florida heat, which is finally subsiding, the air conditioning is a necessity but man, it costs a lot.
We’re currently building a house and are installing energy efficient windows to help a little. I’ve switched over a lot of our bulbs to energy efficient versions, unplugging electrical appliances when not using them and I try to not overuse the drier when washing our clothes. It’s funny though, washing lines aren’t really a thing here – in fact our Home Owner’s Association forbids them!
Food waste is another thing I’m big on (again, a wee bit of a cheapskate!) so not wasting a lot of food, buying from local, organic markets to cut down on packaging and I’m even looking into growing our own fruit and veg at home.
It’s easy to slip and feel insignificant in this enormous, global battle against climate change. But the small steps can add up – and save money at the same time.
Now, if only I could find a secret place for my washing line…
