Tackling pests, climate change and the hottest summer ever

Maybe my house is just unusually stinky, but there seem to be millions of the little buggers this summer.  And the same goes for mosquitoes. With the hot weather there’s no option but to sleep with the window open, which the mozzies take as an invitation to dinner.

You know what my solution is these days? Tuck the sheets up around my neck so there’s only face exposed, wait till that awful whining sound comes closer before cutting out (that means it’s landed on you for a feed), then – wham! – smack yourself in the face with both palms. It kind of hurts, but not as much as getting up for a lights-on mosquito hunt six times each night…

Anyway, I digress. I mention the flies and mozzies because I reckon their numbers are due to the unusually hot weather we’re having.  After all, 2014 was the hottest year this planet has seen since records began – and we can expect it to keep getting warmer. Yep, climate change is happening now – and not just in an ‘on-the-news, happening-somewhere-else’ sense, but in ways that affect us every day (and several times each night)…

So what do we do about it? Well, apart from stocking up on fly spray (notice how that doesn’t seem to work as well these days?),  I reckon the answer is to a) keep pressuring our leaders to commit to ambitious, binding emissions reductions (because man-made greenhouse gas emissions are the prime cause of global warming) – and b) commit to living well ourselves by living simply. 

By that I mean avoiding the worst excesses of modern life by getting back to basics. And to make that easy and achievable we’ve just published an issue of Green Ideas on exactly that (notice how we weave a subtle plug for the magazine into these letters? Ahem…).

The new issue is full of ideas for living simply that reduce the pressure on our planet and its climate. Ideas such as preserving fruit and veges at home to avoid packaging, waste and food miles (there’s a step-by-step guide that shows you everything you need to know). Or tips on what to do with pesky food scraps. There’s also a guide to growing spuds in tyres; four pages of upcycling ideas;  and even a guide to avoiding greenwash that’ll make you an expert at spotting fake eco products in the supermarket, and finding brands that are worth supporting.

After all, living a slightly simpler life can be better for the environment – and still satisfying and affordable. Fighting climate change needn’t be a slap in the face.

Greg

P.S. A word on compostable coffee lids

Do biodegradable plastics really break down? And should you put them in the bin, compost or recycling? We look at the issue on page 23 of the latest Green Ideas – and we’re also running a little long-term home science project: check out what a compostable PLA coffee lid looks like after 16 weeks in our worm farm. The normal plastic lid is on the left and the PLA’s on the right. While it’s hardly turning into soil, it has definitely broken down a little. Realistically, ‘compostable’ plastics are only biodegradable in proper council compost collections (and they definitely don’t belong in the recycling).

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