Greenprint 2020 |
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Notes John shares his Global Action Plan internship experienceNo more fun and games
By John Holden, Connecticut intern
At the beginning of my semester here we went to a football game (I mean, British football). When we sat down and looked out at the crowd my friend leaned over and said to me, “look at all these people, do you ever think about the energy it takes to get them all gathered here for a match?”I hadn’t thought about it, of course.
“Well”, he said, “they’ve all had breakfast, coffee, and tea; I assume they’ve all taken showers, and they managed to get from their houses to the stadium, and here they are waiting to be entertained on a Sunday morning”.
Meanwhile, while huge planes bound for Heathrow flew low over our heads every few minutes, I started thinking about the incredible amount of energy being expended all around me; it was a hard thing to wrap my head around.
In the past five years there’s been so much attention given to the environment and the negative impact we’ve had on it, so everyone is at least aware of the climate change going on. When I started working for Global Action Plan I realised they weren’t just spreading knowledge, they actually get you to look at your personal environment and inspire you to look at things differently.
The difference between acting and looking, however, is an individual choice. For me, I look at what I can re-use, especially when it comes to water bottles. I don’t have one of those fancy water filters, the Thames water is good enough for me, and I keep a 2 litre bottle in my flat which I refill with tap water; perhaps it no longer has those tasty volcanic minerals that come with unopened bottles, but at least I save plastic.
This is just a start, but spending time around the employees of Global Action Plan has given me many more ideas and opportunities for me to be a positive voice for the environment. Though everything seems to be running smoothly, we need to act before we reach a truly critical situation where things are too bad to be reversed.
