Please join us in welcoming another new writer for VentnorBlog. Environmental Project Facilitator, Lois Prior is well and truly emerged in green issues – having worked on the Green Island Initiative for many years. In this, her first article for VentnorBlog, Lois raises issues that will resonate with many readers. Ed
The Energy Savings Trust, set up to encourage people to reduce their CO2 emissions, has carried out a survey and found that an amazing 59% of respondents thought that measures such as rationing or personal daily allowances were needed to help the British public cut down on excess.
Over two thirds also thought that using car and food sharing schemes in a spirit similar to the WWII community spirit will also help manage resources more effectively.
“People who lived through the Second World War were extremely resilient in the face of extreme hardship…and came up with extremely ingenious ways of making life’s essentials – food and clothing go that little bit further.”
“We can see now an age of ‘thrift being the new thrust’ and ‘frugality the new frontier’.”
As well as the Energy Saving Trust, the Imperial War Museum has started a campaign to rejuvenate the WWII campaigns in the face of economic crisis.
I remember my grandparents scraping the last little bit of jam from the jar and then using the jar for home made pickles, writing shopping lists on the back of used envelopes and never ever throwing out food that should have been eaten because it was out of date.
Even the vegetable peeling went onto the compost and a vegetable plot was at the bottom of the garden.
These were habits they picked up during the Second World War and they kept them their whole lives. I am ashamed to say that even though I am careful, I am guilty of throwing out food that has gone off that could have been eaten.
Is this a result of the demise of the corner shop where you would only pick up groceries for a day or two in advance? Have supermarkets unwittingly been the main cause of wasting our food?
Perhaps it is about time the government should start bringing back their war time campaigns, such as Dig for Victory, Make Do and Mend and Walk Short Distances.
How many of us have their own sewing kit or even a garden big enough to grow their own? I often think that with the imminent arrival of oil shortages, will rationing be brought back in once again?
Perhaps that is too much scaremongering to take on board, in the mean time, let the Energy Saving Trust use their own ‘Dunkirk Spirit ‘ tactics to achieve their aims.
You can follow Lois on twitter under greenwight.
Images:
Ration stamps by Freeparking
Jam Jar by KaiChanVong
