the question of convenience

My resolve has given way to convenience.

My fossil fuel footprint has increased recently because it was convenient – not vital, just convenient. I am still suffering from fossil fuel addiction.

My new home is a little wagon – a tiny house on wheels. Sadly, the one downfall of such an abode is it requires transporting from point A to point B. There is not, as yet, a fossil fuel free way of making this happen. I wish there was.

As is usual in my very fortunate life, with the assistance of several friends, the wagon was moved onto its new site. It will live in my friend Martyn’s backyard under two large camphor trees for now. 

I am a wannabe purist.

In my ideal world – the world I want to help create – I would not have used fossil fuels for my home. My options in this case were: use a vehicle to move this wagon or live somewhere else. I could have chosen the latter. That choice might not have required this unnecessary increase in my footprint. I could have avoided this self contempt.

I/we have been indoctrinated with, and spoiled by, convenience – the convenience of fossil fuels. As I write I am plugged into my friend’s mains electricity. I am still trying to force life to fit my immediate desires, despite the lack of real necessity and the long-term damage this kind of convenience creates.

Convenience may well be our planetary downfall. I am still guilty of this and so easily fall back into the trap of convenience when it suits me. Simple conveniences make life easier and more pleasurable to be sure, but I don’t have to destroy our home and other people’s lives to meet my desires.

In Australia, and most of the Western world, we often expect to go out and buy the latest conveniences with little thought given to the impacts of these things. We are totally addicted. We are part of the problem. I am still part of the problem. 

As for the other everyday ‘conveniences’ at my new home, I feel inexplicably excited about a simple kitchen sink and rainwater tank Martyn and I are currently working on. I will slowly fit out the inside of the wagon with shelving and a bed and build a kind of outdoor kitchen, hopefully without using virgin fossil fuels.

With the help of friends like Martyn (we all need friends like Martyn), and my burgeoning localised sharing economy, I intend to meet my needs with as little reliance on fossil fuels as possible.

We must lower our individual impacts. I want to see how low I can go.