Things You Already Know – Alastair Humphreys

1. 🔥 The world burns enough fuel to drain an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 15 seconds.
2. 🪓 Habitat destruction is the single biggest cause of species extinction. (In the same time we burn through that giant swimming pool of fuel, we also chop down 7000 trees – not good news for the species that goes extinct every 20 minutes).
3. 🚜 Agriculture is the biggest cause of habitat destruction, responsible for a quarter of global emissions, and takes up half the habitable space on the planet.
4. 💩 Every single UK river fails to meet required chemical standards. Rivers make me happy, but the state of our rivers (and oceans) makes me sad.
5. 📱 Nature disconnection has a big impact on a society’s mental and physical health, and on its motivation to care about the climate and nature crisis. Britain is the most nature-disconnected country in Europe.
6. ✈️ Flying accounts for around 4% of global warming. Not much, but just 1% of us are responsible for half of all that.
7. 🤑 Stuff! Stuffocation! Stuff in landfill. Stuff replacing real life. Ugh!
8. 🦟 Shifting Baseline Syndrome is a nerdy phrase, but I believe it’s at the heart of so many of our problems. You already know what it is: there used to be loads of bugs splatted on the windscreen. Now there’s hardly any, but it still feels ‘normal’ – our baseline assumption has shifted.

• 🐙 Fossil fuel use is nuts, but power from new renewables is now cheaper than new fossil fuels, so I switched to a clean energy supplier. It only took 10 minutes (because boy, oh boy do I hate admin!), it’s cheaper than my old company, and you’ll even get £50 if you sign up here. When enough people change, the energy system will reach a tipping point. I also vote for political parties who care more about fixing this madness.
• 🌱 Industrial agriculture pumps out emissions, pollutes rivers, destroys habitats, and is grim in many ways. So I changed to a diet that requires so much less land. I did this out of guilt, which is never a strategy likely to stick or spread (or make you happy!) Luckily, by working through this recipe book, I learned how to cook in a new way and realised it was very simple, much cheaper, and pleasingly delicious for this greedy-guts. As more people change their diets, the offerings in restaurants and shops increase in scope and quality, which will help more people change their diets.
• 💦 Rather than just grumble to myself about our rivers and oceans, I’ve made donations to groups (eg Rivers Trust, Surfers Against Sewage) who are taking action, written to my MP to show them that people care (so maybe they should actually fix it), and got a lovely endorphin boost of community by attending a big rally about rivers.
• 🏃 Nature disconnection is bad for me as well as society. So I make sure to schedule time in nature and learn to love where I live and make it a little bit better. And I try to amplify the issue above just me by encouraging people to have microadventures.
• 🚂 I blooming love flying around the world for adventures. I really do. So giving it up was painful for me, but I’ve been thrilled to discover that exploring locally has been a really rewarding alternative, and that the best part of my summer holiday to Sicily was going there by train – it made my trip better, not worse.
• 🛍 The accumulation of ‘stuff’ is bad for the planet, for my bank balance, and it fools me away from a life of simplicity and deeper pleasures than buying new toys. I find getting outdoor gear repaired to be really satisfying. I like giving people toilets or trees (and telling schools they can get free trees) rather than disposable gifts. I try to amplify the reduction of ‘stuff’ by encouraging others to take the jump.
• 🐝 I’ve been trying to write about Shifting Baseline Syndrome and am currently contemplating writing an entire book about it, to try to make it more vivid and impactful through telling stories.

You will doubtless have your own list of problems that keep you awake at night. Please do hit ‘reply’ and let me know what you think I ought to be focussing on.

[SUMMARY:

Enough doom & gloom—it’s time for action!

We all love nature & adventure. We all know the planet’s in trouble. But the solutions exist, they make life better, and they start with us.

No more miserable martyrdom. The Great Reconnection is about living adventurously while driving real change. ]