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In this extract Leonie is asking Prospero about the past.
“Are the stories true?” I asked Prospero. “The ones about the Devastation?”
The Traders had said that once our world had been home to ten billion people. The demands of its inhabitants had been too much for the world and it had responded with earthquakes and volcanoes, hurricanes and tsunamis, floods, drought and famine.
The first time I’d heard this story I’d expected the survivors to work together to help each other. But instead they’d fought each other. Traders told of weapons that could kill millions and leave the land around unusable for generations. I had my doubts. If resources had been scarce why would anyone use weapons that destroyed them further?
The natural disasters and the War had been followed by disease and plagues, which had killed more billions.
“True enough, I guess,” Prospero said. “Every legend has a grain of truth at the centre. The important thing isn’t always the facts but what we learn from them.”
How can we learn from what happened to them? First of all there are the five "R"s - Refuse, Reduce, Repair, Reuse, Recycle. Some examples of what we can do are:
Refuse - turn down single use plastics, avoid items with excessive packaging, ask for items to be packaged sustainably.
Reduce - only buy what we need, don't buy single use items, use a lower temperature for your washing machine, use engery efficient light bulbs to save electricity.
Repair - repair damaged items instead of replacing them, when you do buy a new item look for products which are designed to be repaired rather than replaced. You'd be surprised what can be repaired - even older kitchen appliances can often be repaired.
Reuse - pass on items you no longer need (but are in good condition) to others, buy second hand where possible, use an old item for a new purpose, such as patching a pair of jeans with material from a worn out pair.
Recycle - this may depend on the facilities near you but could also involve making compost if you have a garden. It's amazing what items can be home compostable these days. And did you know many UK supermarkets take plastic film for recycling?
There are other things we can do too. I've mentioned Ecologi before (tree planting). There are also Climeworks (carbon capture), PlanetCare (capturing the microplastics in our laundry), and Ecosia (tree planting when you search online), all of which I use.
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