Are you concerned about the destruction of the natural world and climate change?

@Thelonious Monk I understand that but I think @SlowBlowin has a good point about greenwashing worth addressing. Consumerism is full of fashionable keywords that reel people into buying products that are still environmentally questionable, bad for you and/or from half way round the world. However there are often other questions that should be asked.

Is it local/irish?

Is it organic? (At least that’s certifiable)

Is it heavily processed? What are the other ingredients?

Is it packaged?

Can you make it yourself?

^ The whole "Local" thing can be a minefield at times too though. There is a boardsie living in Germany who was for awhile buying "Local" North Sea Prawns. Caught in Germany. So he thought he was supporting local business - and being environmentally friendly.

Turns out what happens - and no law forces the manufacturer to mention this anywhere on the packaging - is they do indeed catch the prawns in the German Sea. Then they put them all in freezer trucks - drive them all the way to Morocco to be shelled by cheap labour - then drive them all the way back to the packaging plant in Germany.

Since they are caught and packaged locally - they qualified for the law to claim to be local.

I suppose Ireland is significantly less prone to that though of course which is good. But since hearing that story I have felt myself intensely suspicious of any marketing terminology that claims or implies environment friendliness as a whole. I guess disillusioned is the word.

Then I think of things like how in recent years we separate our rubbish into plastics and biological and general and this all sounds really good too. And "bag for life" things to reduce pollution of plastic. But then you learn about what goes into making the bags for life and how much you have to use one for it to actually offset the impact of normal plastic bags - or you hear about the environmental impact of separating waste* and processing it - and it all just seems less positive than you though. Maybe even worse - I dunno. Just disillusioned again.

I don't have the science in this particular area to know what seemingly positive environmental things we do are actually positive and which do little at all - or in fact even make things worse - but I can understand how people become disillusioned and lost in the whole subject and throw their hands up and give up. I mean I would consider myself quite science literate - well above average - and I still feel lost and disillusioned with the whole subject.

And then there is innocent ignorance and well meaning ignorance too. For example when separating our plastic we are meant to put it in the bin "clean". The way I do this is I let the plastic build up and when I have a load of finished with dirty diswater I throw it all in and clean it out. But in other peoples houses I have seen them run the hot tap on full blast and clean all their plastics under it for the bin. I suspect strongly the environmental impact of the quantity of heater water they are wasting down the drain while they do this massively outweighs the benefits of any recycling they are doing. And they simply do not realise it. They are thinking "recycle recycle - lets all be environmental" and they are just making it worse with their heart firmly in the right place the whole time.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYsFK6ZiZRs&ab_channel=It%27sOkayToBeSmart

@Thelonious Monk @[Deleted User] Totally agree. Seafood is really difficult. I’ve totally cut out farmed fish because I can’t see how that can be sustainable. Farmed oysters and mussels are good though and I can get local whole crab. But there is some ridiculous legislation like in Ireland diving for scallops is illegal (legal in Scotland) but dredging is fine 🙄. Restrictions on line fishing (with a rod i mean not dead line fishing) to tiny amounts wheras net fishing is fine ( with quota’s). Line caught fish sold in France gets a premium. It’s not easy work but there is no bye-catch. Anyway sorry rant over.

@Thelonious Monk Second hand clothes and there is loads of them. Natural materials maybe ? Wool is ok / organic cotton (so expensive / prohibitivly ) H&M are swedish. They seem to make an effort. I ordered some stuff from them over lockdown. Any suggestions welcome on this one.

I discovered neighbourfood over lockdown. It’s good where I am, can be expensive but if you stick to the basics you can get a lot of Irish and organic food. Might be worth looking into. I find it handy.

Origin green is Greenwashing for sure.

I go out of my way to catch fish and wild rabbit when and where I can. The only way I can 100% be sure I am eating local - is to catch the damn stuff myself. I am looking forward to a current plan to go bow hunting in the US with someone who has offered to take care of me over there. Meat you shot yourself over an open fire - I can't wait to experience it. I wish I could hunt more in Ireland.

I grow my own veg and herbs too where possible in our climate. I try to be as natural as I can when doing so too. I know which vegetables I can piss on and which ones need me to instead buy something mass produced for a shop. But if I have to buy something from tropical climates because it is not available here I do not lose too much sleep over that either.

When I do buy meat I try to do it as ethically as possible and source it from the best sources - and I have a good relationship with my butcher in that regard.

So I would say I am and am not concerned to the OP. I am concerned enough to go with best practices where I can make sense of it. But I am not at the level where I sit precluding meat from my diet because of the impact meat has overall on the environment - or avoiding pineapples and avocados and a host of other fruit and veg because of air miles to import.

But over all my concern has to battle the dissilusionment I am constantly made to feel by an industry and a science that often seem to not be delivering - or delivering the exact opposite - of what the environmentally minded consumer might have thought they were. From "Local" food to "single stream recylcling" to "bags for life" and much more - I am often left feeling like things I thought were doing good might actually be doing very little - perhaps nothing at all - or even making things actually worse. And I am relatively science literate so how the average person on the street is meant to cope with it all I don't know.