Silver linings
Natalie Fée, environmentalist and author of How to Save the World for Free, says that 2020 was full of good news...
You would be forgiven for thinking that as an environmentalist and founder of a plastic-pollution-fighting organisation, I might have finished 2020 crying into my pillow. Single-use plastic surged as a result of PPE being used to prevent the spread of COVID-19, reusable cups and bottles were off the menu in most cafés and restaurants, and governments around the world were overturning plastic bans. (Happily, not ours! More on that in a moment.)
But, thankfully, I haven’t been deterred and, instead of crying, I found myself rejoicing over all the good that came from 2020 when it comes to saving our planet. Admittedly, eco-tears were shed twice last year, thanks to Sir David Attenborough’s Extinction: The Facts and A Life
on Our Planet programmes – both absolutely heart-breaking and both absolutely essential viewing. But overall, I’m starting 2021 with a smile on my face, and here’s why…
Saving for the future
There was huge progress in 2020 in greening the finance sector. Once we’d woken up to the fact that most of our pensions and investments were still funding fossil fuels, fracking and deforestation (something I talk about in more detail in How to Save the World for Free) we put two and two together. We realised that there really was no point saving for our (or our children’s future) if our very savings were putting that future at risk. We put pressure on our big institutions to divest from fossil fuels and we switched to ethical pensions and bank accounts.
As a result, campaigners have seen some big wins, with the Church of England and more than half of UK public universities committing to divest from fossil fuels, including
“We showed the world that we can come together to solve a crisis.”
the University of Cambridge. Even NEST, the UK’s biggest pension fund, announced last July it would ban investments in any companies involved in coal mining, oil from tar sands and arctic drilling.
Staying grounded
Back in spring, due to global lockdown measures to stop the spread of the virus, the number of plane flights dropped by two thirds, and travel within major cities ground to a halt. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions dropped by a record 7 per cent in 2020 – the biggest year-onyear fall since records began in 1900.
But despite a needed – albeit very temporary – drop in emissions, loved ones were getting sick. No environmentalists (with the exception of a few eco-fascists) celebrated this unprecedented change in our lifestyles, but it did show us that when faced with an emergency, we act. We showed the world that we can adapt, we can change and we can come together to solve a crisis. We took staycations instead of flying abroad, we mobilised our communities, setting up WhatsApp groups to support each other through what has been, for many, a hugely challenging year.
On my street, our WhatsApp group is also used for food sharing, tool sharing and even clothes sharing. All important stuff when it comes to reducing our environmental footprint while building community resilience. That’s something to be hopeful about.
As our awareness of the damaging environmental impacts of eating intensively farmed meat and dairy grew, so has the plant-based food sector, with 2020 seeing more people buying vegan products than ever before, and one out of three Brits reducing their meat consumption or stopping eating it altogether – you could say we’ve been well vegucated!
If you’ve been wanting to eat less meat but have felt a bit at a loss for what to eat instead, why not give ‘Veganuary’ a go this year and get inspired by half a million others doing the same thing?
Goodbye single-use, hello reusables
Last October, in the UK, we finally said farewell to planet-polluting plastic in the form of plastic straws (although they’ll still be available on request to people with disabilities), stirrers and cotton buds. I was particularly pleased about this one, as back in 2017, City to Sea ran a successful campaign called #SwitchTheStick, whereby we got all major retailers to stop making cotton buds out of plastic and make them out of paper instead.
Since then, the number of plastic cotton buds washing up on UK beaches has dropped dramatically. So we’re delighted to see the Government finally banning them – and proof, if you need it, that individual action really does make a difference.
Another 2020 good-news story is that the free Refill app (refill.org.uk) expanded beyond water, meaning that not only can you find over 30,000 places to refill your water bottle for free, but you can also discover your nearest zero-waste shop and source places to eat, drink and shop with less plastic.
Ten years to go wild
A report published in October 2020 found that rewilding a third of the Earth’s most degraded landscapes could prevent about 70 per cent of predicted biodiversity loss from happening and sequester about half of the additional carbon dioxide emitted by humanity since the Industrial Revolution. This sparked political leaders from 64 different countries to pledge to reverse biodiversity loss in the next decade, by protecting 30 per cent of land and ocean by 2030.
And with white stork chicks hatching – for the first time in more than 600 years – at the Knepp Estate in West Sussex, I think we’ve been given a taste of just how doable this ‘great recovery’ really is.
FIND OUT MORE Natalie Fée can be found sharing more good news and tips on green living on Instagram as: nataliefee_