Changing individual and community behaviour alone can make a significant dent in the environmental and climate crisis
Environmental degradation and climate change are global phenomena where actions in one part of the world impact ecosystems and populations across the globe. Estimates suggest that if requisite action is not taken against the changing environment, approximately 3 billion people globally could experience chronic water scarcity. The global economy could lose up to 18% of GDP by 2050. Over the last two decades, several macro measures have been implemented globally to address environmental degradation and climate change, including policy reforms, economic incentives and regulations. Despite their enormous potential, actions required at the level of individuals, communities and institutions have received limited attention.
As far as transport is concerned, in most high-income countries, personal transport is the lifestyle domain with the largest contribution to the overall lifestyle footprint. The world’s roadways are clogged with vehicles, most of them burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels power the ships that carry trade and the aeroplanes that allow us to travel. Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector have more than doubled since 1970, with around 80% of this increase coming from road vehicles. Around 10% of the global population accounts for 80% of total motorized passenger kilometres, with much of the world’s population hardly travelling at all. But we do have alternatives to driving that can make a difference.
Walking, biking, urban public transit and trains help reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
A diet that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods, has a lower environmental impact (greenhouse gas emissions and energy, land, and water use). Regarding fashion, being stylish does not mean being wasteful. Buying fewer clothes, shopping second-hand, or upcycling, i.e., creating new clothes out of old ones, helps save water and reduce waste. In the last 15 years, clothing production has doubled while the number of times a garment is worn before being discarded has decreased by 36%. The fashion industry (clothing and footwear) produces more than 8% of greenhouse gases and 20% of global wastewater annually. It takes about 7,500 litres of water to make a single pair of jeans -- from the production of the cotton to the delivery of the final product to the store. 85% of textiles end up in landfills or are incinerated although most of these materials could be reused. Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck full of textiles is landfilled or burned.
Some 93 billion cubic meters of water -- enough to meet the consumption needs of five million people -- is used by the fashion industry annually. Waste is a big problem. Every year, an estimated 11.2 billion tonnes of solid waste is collected worldwide, and the decay of the organic proportion of solid waste is contributing to about 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Where waste cannot be avoided, recycling leads to substantial resource savings. For every tonne of paper recycled, 17 trees and 50% of water can be saved. Recycling also creates jobs: the recycling sector employs 12 million people in Brazil, China and the United States alone. Only 9% of all plastic waste ever produced has been recycled. About 12% has been incinerAround the world, one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute, while up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every year. In total, half of all plastic produced is designed to be used only once — and then thrown away. From 2010 to 2019, e-waste generated globally grew from 5.3 to 7.3 kilograms per capita annually. Meanwhile, the environmentally sound recycling of e-waste increased at a much slower pace – from 0.8 to 1.3 kilograms per capita annually. Everyone should come forward to save water. Water is a precious resource: Less than 3% of the world’s water is fresh (drinkable), of which 2.5% is frozen in the Antarctica, Arctic and glaciers. And humans are misusing and polluting water faster than nature can recycle and purify water in rivers and lakes. Using water smartly can help us ensure a steady flow of clean, safe water. You can save water by taking shorter showers, turning off the tap when brushing your teeth, installing a low-flow toilet, and many other ways.
With one shower of about 10 minutes a day, an average person consumes the equivalent of over 100,000 glasses of drinking water every year. Changing individual and community behaviour alone can make a significant dent in the environmental and climate crises. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), if one billion people out of the global population of eight billion adopt environment-friendly behaviours in their daily lives, global carbon emissions could drop by approximately 20 per cent.
(Prof Sunil Goel is an eminent social scientist, Dean and Chairman at Dr BR Ambedkar University of Social Sciences, Dr Ambedkar Nagar, and Dimple Khokhar is a researcher)