Today Filling Good doesn’t feel good.
Today Filling Good is tired.
Today Filling Good is sad.
That’s who we are: a local community who came together to achieve something bigger. A local community who is trying hard, every day, to make a difference. To consume organic food, to refill, to worry about ingredients, provenance, and ethics. We volunteer, we give our time and money, we give efforts.
Now we know this alone won’t change the world. We do what we can, what we know, and try to do it the best we can.
Speaking for myself, I can tell that I questioned a lot my own actions and engagement towards the environment. What is it I could do to have the biggest impact?
Sustainable living is often criticized as “not big enough” to significantly help the planet. I agree, this alone will not be enough to save billions of lives threatened by climate change. So, what is the alternative? Taking political action, to have a collective and significant impact.
Both, sustainable living and political action won’t work until they reach a certain scale. If done by millions, zero waste would have an impact. If voted by masses as a priority, climate action would make its way through. Sustainable living and political action feed into each other: the success of sustainable living would show politicians that people care, and would lead them in the way of taking the right decisions, even if tough – and the other way around, regulations and laws put in place by environmentally conscious authorities would help make our lives more sustainable, without us having even to worry about it. In fact, I see both political action and sustainable living as complementary, not opposed to each other.
Naturally, having set up Filling Good, with many other fantastic residents, I came to be involved in politics. More aware of local politics that I never was in my life. I was happy that I could help on that side, not always knowing how, but really wanting to make a difference. Have a positive impact. I am, above all, scared to death for my little boy, and extensively for all the children of the future generations.
I gave a lot to Filling Good. I invested my savings; I gave a lot of my time and energy. I have not been perfect, I put a lot of pressure on myself to make things work. I had a lot of sleepless nights thinking of my “small shop things”, because for things to work, someone must, and I felt responsible.
After the vote of the council yesterday, the current BLP going through with outdated housing needs, many flaws, and the build on the golf course agreed, I feel tired.
Tired of doing my little bits, tired of refilling my washing up bottle, tired of breaking my back to move 25kg oats sacks. Not that I want to switch back to unsustainable habits – but tired that politicians constantly ignore the climate emergency and biodiversity collapse, even those who say there are concerned by it. Tired of thinking of all the members, the volunteers, the customers, all of these people who really try hard to make a difference, but whose efforts are utterly disrespected by those in power. By those who could make such a big difference but don’t want to see it, don’t want to act, don’t have the courage to act, follow business as usual.
I feel like trying to empty a bathtub with a spoon, while politicians open wide the tap. And while being patted on the back by these for doing all these efforts.
Today, I am mourning our green space.
Tomorrow, hopefully, we will rise and be heard. Let’s hope it will not be too late.