What Can We Do As Individuals For The Environment?

In his article My web vs. The web Seth Godin points out that the world wide web has billions of pages and that the percentage each one of us will actually see of these in our lifetimes is so small as to be nearly unmeasurable. It's like thinking of grains of sand on a beach: there are so many out there that it's hard to really understand what that many means.
These pages represent an incredible amount of human activity, and yet they only represent a small fraction of what is actually taking place on Earth.

Even in the relatively small number of pages that we do encounter on the web, they bring us closer to people all over the world than has ever happened in history before. We can be aware of events affecting the lives of others, far away from us, almost in real time as they are happening. We can read about, hear and see those events, either as news reports, or as first-hand personal accounts and views.

There are so many of us now, that in relatively short time periods, actions taken in one hemisphere can directly affect the lives of those in the other. For example, pollution created in one country can have serious repercussions in others.

In addition, communication and mobilization of goods and people have created a global environment that can affect our lives just as much as our local environment. For example, the job market and the placement of industry are no longer defined simply by local demand, but also by global economics.

In a BBC article about the current plight of Europe's seas it says that they are in a serious state of decline due to coastal development, overfishing and pollution. The article goes on to point out that the study also showed that in some places, such as the North Sea, the ecosystem was improving. The reason given for this is that some of the heavy industries have been moved to China or India, probably having a severely negative effect there.

We are so many people going about our daily lives as best we can, sometimes unwittingly contributing to the unfolding of events. It is very easy to feel daunted by the enormity of the situation and the roller coaster ride we are taking ourselves on, along with all the species on our planet.


It's easy to forget the importance of the individual amongst all the numbers of people. Some individuals do a great deal to influence the world around them; others do things in small ways.




But society can only move forward when many individuals push toward improvement.

Each of us can make a vitally significant contribution by learning what we can do, and implementing it to minimise our personal negative impact on the Earth.