Why Bother? A Summary of Season 1 - with Max Winpenny

We’ve come to the end of season 1 of Our New World! Thank you all for listening - It’s meant a lot, and It’s been a great experience doing this podcast, and one that I’m going to continue with the input and help of all of you lot.

So, if we go back and remember that this series is all about women in the world, this episode is going to be clips from all the messages that these brilliant women shared about how we can move the dial environmentally and socially to make our world a better place. First though, I want to talk a little about the point of this podcast again.

So, I am by no means a perfect environmentalist. I struggle to eat vegan consistently, I still waste, and I even find recycling a little confusing. And that’s all after a Master’s degree in environmental science! So I’m aware how preachy some of this information could sound and how it’s actually quite easy to shy away from ‘environmentalism. My intention is not to try and guilt people into acting environmentally, my intention is actually to do the opposite.

I think that if we can see all of the positives that come from being connected to nature, it’s going to be more persuasive than seeing adverts with dying polar bears and forest fires left, right and centre. Don’t get me wrong, I think that we need to see those things, I think that we do need to be surrounded by those things, because glossing over the truth is not the answer and those things are happening. That being said, everyday people have lots of things going on. We have lives to live and we have largely been given this unsustainable template by which to live our lives. And trying to change that is really hard, and that’s important to recognize. It just takes a new years resolutions lists and a wasted gym membership to know that changing habits is difficult. No one is a bad person because they put a compostable coffee cup in the recycling. Most of us are just doing our best.

So the point of this is not only to help educate us and myself at the same time, because I certainly learnt a lot, but also to help us understand that we can live happily and prosperously, by being more connected with one another and more connected with the natural world. Ultimately, we have to change behaviors, but that doesn’t mean making huge sacrifices, and the sacrifices that are made bring benefits in other ways, which is a message that is gloriously conveyed by these people that I was lucky enough to talk to this season.