Does it feel warm to you?

The world is warming. No matter
what you believe, its true.

We needn’t be a world-renowned
scientist, a mathematical genius or an over-enthusiastic sandal wearing,
bearded Gaia-loving, holistically minded, ecological whole-earth muesli eating,
Rachel Carson reading Green to see and believe it (phew!). Take a look around –
people sunbathe in England during what has become more of a ‘tropical July’
where temperatures reach Mediterranean highs of 31 degrees C (91F). There is
blossom on the cherry trees in mid-December. Blossom!! Mid-December!! That
can’t be right, right?

Britain has experienced its 10
warmest years in the past 18 with 2006 having been the warmest ever. The steady
rises in temperature over the past 50 years can only be explained by the
correlative rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Summers have become increasingly
warmer and drier and winters noticeably warmer and wetter.

Our attachment and servitude to
the material: our electrical gadgets; motorised vehicles and gas-guzzling SUV
monster-trucks; floodlit homes; in-your-face Christmas decorations, rapping
paper and socially embedded compulsory consumerism (for things we don’t need or
want) are some of the main causes of this problem.

However, none of this is news. It is more than likely that
you are reading this and thinking ‘oh no, not another rant about global warming
from yet another person sitting behind a desk in an office with nothing better
to do than state the bloomin’ obvious’.

Well hopefully the increasingly common sight of things
like blossoming trees in the middle of winter should be sufficient to convince
those last few remaining deluded sceptics that the world is warming, that this
is actually a bad thing, and we are the only ones who can reverse it. By
altering the way that we consume, dispose of our waste and zoom around we may
be able to create new solutions to the problem.

I don’t have kids yet, but I hope one day I will. There
are two things I really fear when that moment comes. Firstly, I fear is that
when they get to an age that they are able to vocalise their thoughts they will
start correcting my English! Secondly, and more unnerving still, however, is
that they are more than likely going to ask me: “mummy if you knew this was
going to happen then why didn’t you do anything about it”.

We can do something about
it: small changes in lifestyle coupled with advances in technology can play a
huge part. If climate change starts at home then the solution also lies there.
This alone should be enough to jolt us into action. With any luck articles like
this should fade away and be replaced by something less sterile and more
uplifting.

Global Warming is not the new
marketing plot from brands, despite what people may believe. However, brands
can play a vital role by providing goods and services that enable us along the
path of sustainable consumerism. The mutual investment into the realm of value
and ethics on the part of both brands and consumers, that we are starting to
see, is only the start of what will hopefully become a full-blown revolution of
the mind from an anthropocentric consumerism and lifestyle to one that will
enable us to help turn around the ‘container-ship’ of bad habit that we have
created towards fulfilling the goals and aspirations that we, as a species, are
only now starting to strive for in great force.