How did you get interested in enviromental issues?

[fabian]

Hello members,

I would like to open the first discussion in this new environment discussion forum by asking you to share your story how you got interested in enviromental issues?

Tell us your story!

Fabian

[90% by 2030]

Fabian

Not much of a story - but I love walking outside, in the hills, or just down by the river. It's the thought of losing these simple pleasures that stirs me most into trying to act to preserve the environment. I love cold crisp days in winter (of which we've had a few in the last couple of weeks). The wet warm windy weeks which have dominated this UK winter (as predicted for us ) have the opposite effect, and I hate the thought of my children growing up in a world where it doesn't snow in the UK anymore.

[Lucy]

I wanted to go to university but didn't know what I wanted to do so I ended up doing business studies (yuck!) I hated it but in my second year I got to do a 'sustainability' module and that was it, I realised what I wanted to do in my life. The kind people in department of environmental sciences let me swap to an environmental management degree and go straight to the 2nd year. I then did a sandwich year at an utility company working in the environment and CR department. That confirmed that this was the right thing for me and now I'm just finishing off my final year at university and working out what to do next.

The thing that scares me most in life is my children not knowing what I've known with the environment. Not getting joy from simple things like playing in snow, crunching leaves in autumn etc. The fact that so many my age don't seem to care (I've just turned 23) is frightening.

However, at my university there is a group of us who are making real differences to the university. We have mangaged to get the vice-chancellor to agree to loads of environmental things and we now have an environmental manager, an environmental policy, fairtrade status, recycling in halls and are busy organising Manchester's first sustainable club night. Managing to get organic local beers in the SU, green electricity and everything! We have achieved all of that since September. Its easy to get disheartned when working with the environment but knowing that our little group has done so much in so little time is such inspiration for those bad days.

Sorry, long reply but I'm avoiding my project write-up...

[Shadomoon]

The movie- An Inconvenient Truth brought it all home in an understandable way. It organized it all so I can understand it when things happen in the future. It also challenged me to live greener and consider how I want my future to look

[matthewtrigg]

I spent most of my childhood on the south coast of Australia in a small town called Warrnambool (war-nam-bool). Situated three hours west of Melbourne and at the end of the Great Ocean Road the entire region abounds with natural beauty, including some of the greatest natural wonders right on my doorstep.

A bushfire command centre in summer, whale nursery in autumn, sleepy hamlet in winter and a flurry of festivals in spring, the whole region changes with the seasons, whilst forever remaining green (and usually very wet).

I spent most of my free time at the beach, just watching the world go by. And despite the size of the beach it was very easy to be completely alone on this great expanse of sand. Over time I spent more and more time outside and in doing so absorbed the world around me, trying where possible to get away from the traffic and noise of the cities.

But I really got into sustainability after my previous dream let me down, architecture. After three years of uni I went to Melbourne to work for the largest firm in Australia and before too long I came to realise that they had little interest in being 'green'. Things that were common sense to me were considered extreme by the industry and there was no indication that things would change by themselves (there still isn't)

So I made a choice, I could stay in architecture and have a couple of times in my life where I could do what I wanted and be green, or I could leave the career path and try to change the world. I chose the later.

Now I’m in Sydney completing a Masters in the Built Environment (Sustainable Development) and planning on moving to London in December.

The move is further strengthened by the fact there still is no work in sustainable development here in Australia and it doesn't look like much will be happening any time soon.

[90% by 2030]

good on you matthew - like your story.

[Johnny Electriglide]

I grew up in the 1950s and 60s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a hilltop. The very edge of town with woods, lakes, fields and swamps nearby, and a view off to 60 miles on a good day of farmland, lakes and meadows, and woods. My dad taught me to fish and hunt, and my uncle was Professor Emeritus at the U of M Agriculture Dept. I understood over-fished lakes right away, and habitat carrying capacity. I watched as the houses got built, and explored them to see how it was done. They ended up going out as far as I could see, ruining my former playground. I knew something was very wrong. Although I was a geology major, I really began with my Advanced Biology project and paper entitled "Mammal Populations in Ecological Niches, Including Humans" in 1967. I had also begun to fly and study aerospace in '66, which, with geology certainly changed my perceptive abilities........

[Ann Vole]

As a kid, I had a few experiences where the convenience of fossil fuels and electricity were not an option during the colder part of winter on the windy Canadian prairies or in the backwoods part of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. This got me looking for the "better way" that would not fail because of a little bit of freezing rain bringing down all power lines for hundreds of miles and taking almost 3 weeks to fix. In the mountains, we had dozens of miles of utility lines to be strung if we wanted connection (almost a million bucks) and the roads would be washed out for weeks at a time trapping us away from a store or fuel supply. The mountain lot we had was surrounded by very tall trees so solar and wind were not possible and bedrock was 2 feet down so wells were not available. This lead me to the only possible energy solution, annual heat storage. With this as a core technology and finding all the possible variations led me to many new untested ideas that will work for heating any building anywhere even without sunshine. it does require significant insulation and heat recovery systems and air tightness combined with humidity control with heat recovery systems.

I always loved animals and had odd pet species as far back as I remember and I am very good at training them. After getting my feet wet with animation film-making, I decided I was going to make films with animal actors and needed to make the ultimate systems for raising large amounts of animals (for sale with the raising of animal actors as a money-losing sideline) which required energy self-sufficient design and automatic green house design (to grow animal food that was not contaminated by wild rodents). This interest showed me that I am one of the only people in the world thinking along these lines and those ideas could save the world. I need to test these and make training materials to teach the world what I will know.

[Cornelian]

I'm old enough to remember what the world was like before supermarkets and freeways and washing machines and televisions. I liked it better, then. The change has been appalling. I grew up in the Australian bush, grew to love nature and the land and now spend much of my time gardening and trying to live as much as I can without making an impact on the environment. I grow much of my own food, don't have a car, walk everywhere, turn my mobile (cell phone) on but twice a year, keep everything switched off in the house, buy food that I can't grow myself locally if possible - I sound like a bit of a prat (saint, sorry, have to keep translating the Australian ) and I most certainly am not that, but I find it more and more important now in my daily life to do what I can.

My interest in the environment has grown even stronger recently with the environmental disasters that are looming (read: almost here) in Australia.

[isenhand]

For me, I’m interested in society and people and how we could live in the future. To live well, to mean, also means livening within our limits. Naturally resulting from that comes an interest in sustainability and the environment. I think we should work with in the limits nature has imposed on us and balance our needs with those of the ecosystem as to do anything else ultimately will lead to disaster for all.