No Light Ecology attempts to contextualise the greening process; if we do not take account of the darkness inherent in the light, we risk creating an imbalance. People are often repelled by ‘goodness’. Naturally weary of do gooding, the mainstream masses can resist even the most sensible policies.
It is up to us to seek out eco-solutions with a sense of proportion: doing good without creating another storm of impending doom; uncovering the darkness that balances the light, as we go. The task ahead can feel overwhelming. So many products, so many lifestyle changes – will we ever make it? The magnitude of the crisis can be a source of darkness itself, if you meditate on it, even just for a few moments. There is a carbon crisis associated with climate change, and there is also a great deal of biodiversity loss affecting the planet. Whichever way you look at it, we are required to make a vast array of changes that benefit the environment. In other words, in energetic terms, we have to buy back the negative energy that we have foisted on the environment.
The word ecocentric refers to a belief system that puts nature at its heart, rather than anthropocentric, which puts humans at its centre. Ecocentralisation is the process by which industry reforms itself to look after earth. It assumes that humans are already being served by the industrial process, and that what is needed is a refocussing to protect the planet. What sort of things do we need to engage? I have grappled with the top six ways of reducing my impact on the environment for the past decade or more, here are my findings. Different approaches are needed to tackle each of the crises:
Households looking to cut down their carbon should adopt these six points: buy an electric car, change to renewable energy supplier, cut down clothes shopping, go flexitarian, avoid flying, and keep computers/phones for longer.
Someone looking to protect biodiversity should avoid plastic entirely, buy organic food, follow the mantra reduce-reuse-recycle, compost their food waste, use ecological cleaing products, leave grass to grow in ‘no mow May’ and ‘let it bloom June’.
Most eco-conscious people will want to do both, protect biodiversity and prevent climate change. There are many points along the road of consumption at which we are required to take action. It is difficult not to feel nourished by the good that we do for the environment. Saving the earth can be uplifting. But it is not always easy.
Ecocentralisation at home means stopping to think every time you buy something: can I buy a refurbished computer? can I recycle my old machine? do I really need to buy this made of plastic? By committing to putting earth at the heart of decision making you are empowering yourself to go green in everything you do. But it is important to remember, you are not doing it because it is lightfilled, warm and fuzzy, but because we face an emergency.
Urgent action is needed to stem the flow of carbon into the atmosphere. If we do not act now, the earth will be destroyed, it could quite easily become unliveable. When we invest in eco products we are acting from a place of urgency. Rather than geeing ourselves up with an eco shop, we are relieved to have found some solutions, to have stopped pouring waste and pollution into the earth.
By making our unconscious worry about the earth conscious, we are able to leverage that bad feeling to do good. Some people do not believe that there is a climate crisis, they are paralysed by apathy. When people wake up to the catastrophes of climate change and biodiversity loss they are able to remedy their damaging consumption patterns. It is not a question of ‘should I’, but ‘how can I not’. Ecocentralisation is something that, eventually, everyone needs to engage in, something that we do because it would be strange not to.
It is up to each individual to stimulate the businesses that provide eco solutions; to write emails to their favourite brands asking for ecological versions of their favourite products; to buy the new products on offer; to shop around for the most eco friendly solution. The internet makes things easier because smaller enterprises can offer niche products that supermarkets do not yet stock. The downside is that you often have to pay postage and packaging meaning you spend more.
No Light Ecology aims to reframe the debate about climate change and consumer activism. Buying into climate friendly products and services needs to become a force of habit. Without making the unconscious fear conscious, we risk indulging in earth friendly products as a fad. Nothing can be 100% light, so revering the darkness of climate action could be one way of assuring its perpetuity. Here is a list of ideas where darkness can be seen in otherwise lightfilled activism:
Sacrifice – buy less, make it last. This means changing what you buy leading to a change in your habits. This is best explained with some examples. Eating plant based foods for three days a week means going without meat and dairy for those days. You may feel cheated, or you may embrace the new foods. Either way you will undergo a process of sacrifice as you let go of what you once had to make room for something else. Coir sponge scourers are an excellent substitute product that reduce the amount of microplastics released into the waterways. They are more expensive than the classic green scourers, which are mindbogglingly cheap. I tend to use the coir scourers until they fall apart. As long as there is a bit of scrub left, I will use it. The delapidated remains can be composted in the garden. Wearing clothes for longer before washing them, and buying replacement clothes less often is another example where sacrifice can benefit the earth. It is a shame to buy less clothes, but on the other hand, you are protecting the planet from intensive carbon emissions. Clothes are one of the most surprisingly high emitters of carbon. On the upside, you will probably save money, good news, given the next point.
Financial cost – spend more, save less. This is the least popular darkside of earth friendly products, and what stands in the way of more people adopting new ecological product lines like eco cleaning products and organic food. In some ways, financial cost is used to imply quality, and mark eco products as high end luxury destined for an eco conscious elite. In theory, the prices should come down, the more people buy them. If you have a high disposable income, you should feel under more pressure to support the eco brands. Economies of scale have been central to economic growth over the centuries. It takes time to build a market and offer a new product. If you can afford to invest in new, more expensive product lines, know that you are part of something bigger, but that the market needs time to grow and reach more people before prices can come down. The more people who buy eco friendly products, the more new products will be developed. Spending more on eco products is like giving to charity: taking care of the earth is a priceless good cause. But you can only spend what you afford. If you save money by buying less and making it last (see above) you might just free up enough cash to buy organic more often.
Imperfect solutions – accept some damage to the environment. Few products are 100% natural and organic. It is difficult to produce a wholly natural product. When I first started to buy organic, I would scour the shelves for the most organic of products, rejecting those that were less natural. Now I still read the labels for the most natural, but I am a little less fussy. The saying ‘we don’t need a few people recycling perfectly, we need everyone recycling imperfectly’ comes to mind. If we can reduce our damage to the environment by 90%, that is a real achievement. But that remaining 10% deserves a pause for thought. Ideally, we would leave no trace on the earth. Recognising that the product is imperfect, or that the packaging needs recycling, which takes energy, is one way to honour the darkness inherent in a product. If we revere the earth and take a moment to honour it, we can appreciate the darkness inherent in even the most organic of produce.
Urgent action needed – realise how important protecting earth is. I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I didn’t think consumer activism was an essential part of fighting climate change. The dangers of greenhouse gasses, emitted by fossil fuels, have been known about for some time, but action was not taken. Now things are getting urgent. Every year breaks a new record high temperature, with record floods, fires, and droughts. If we want to reduce the greenhouse gasses, we need to change what we consume. Buying eco options is not all about doing good, rather, it is about responding to an urgent need. If you do not feel anxious about climate change, you are probably avoiding the issue. If you are more ‘wahey we’re having hotter summers and milder winters’, not, ‘uh oh we’re hotting up with no sign of stopping’ perhaps it’s time to take stock. Getting real about climate change can be a scary process. We need to mobilise so many of us to win the fight, it can seem insurmountable. But if we are to contain temperature rises and severe weather events, we, one by one, need to confront reality and take action. The future is uncertain, will we do it?
What a chore – breaking with the norm takes energy. Doing anything out of the ordinary, or stepping outside your comfort zone requires a certain strength of mind. When we go shopping, we make lots of value judgments about what we are buying. We can be overwhelmed by the choice on offer and deciding what to buy, without worrying about the climate, can be tiresome. Opening your eyes to new products, reading labels, and weighing up the differences between new eco-products can be quite a chore. I bought what I thought was an eco sponge with five E’s listed on the packet only to realise when I got home that it was made from polyester, a micro plastic shedding fibre, not very eco at all. Evading greenwashing and choosing the most ecologically friendly products is not always easy, it can feel like you’ve taken one step forward, and two steps backwards.
All in all, becoming eco friendly is not the all enlightening experience it should be! Fraught with peril, the journey to greening your shopping basket is unlikely to be smooth. Sharing tips with friends can reduce the burden. Buying in bulk to reduce postage costs can also help. What is worth remembering, or tuning in to, is that nothing is pure light; everything has a cost. By investing our time and effort into discovering new products, or going without sometimes, we are buying the earth out of its karmic debt; we are shouldering the price of our own material development, instead of expecting the earth to deteriorate for our benefit.
No Light Ecology is a hard sell. Few people sign up to say yes please, I’ll suffer and sacrifice. But in the context of a planet that has all but been destroyed, it is one way of returning to a time when we revered the earth, we felt its pain and we made decisions that put it at the centre. Eco products are not just for an elite of earth savers, but for anyone who dares to change the face of their shopping basket. While embracing all the darkness of ecocentrism we can reach a place of energetic equilibrium.
Sarasvati Flow 