When it comes to climate change and what we need to do, we’ve gone from years of scepticism and denial to it being mainstream news on a daily basis.
De-forestation, de-carbonisation, de-centralisation, reduce, reuse, recycle are all everyday buzz phrases on the news channels that leapt from no news to the normal doom and fear news.
In fact it’s all bit Dee’s and Ree’s in the world of Environment and Sustainability at the moment. We absolutely do need to restore and repopulate our planet’s ecosystems and biodiversity, we need to beat the drum of change from a position of positivity and enthusiasm to help promote that change is achievable, not from the media position of fear and sensationalism.
What would make a massive difference is if we could start presenting the story that these challenges we face also represent monumental opportunities for us all. For society, for science, for innovators, for entrepreneurs, for businesses, for everyone.
On Countryfile a few weeks back there was a fantastic story about a sheep farmer in Wales who’s business was disappearing before his eyes. Decreasing wool prices and demand meant his farm and his livelihood were no longer viable. Centuries of farming sheep on his land were seemingly coming to an end.
However, he used a fleece from one of his sheep one day to protect some young plants on his vegetable patch and began to notice immediate benefits with growth and pest control.
This developed into a conversation with a local wine producer and they began to trial the sheep farmers fleeces around the wine producers vines. There were significant results not only in the protection from pests, disease and frost but the wine producer also noticed that the vines improved in growth due to the nutrients and enzymes the fleeces imparted to the soil as a natural fertilizer.
What a story - the wine producer reduced his dependence on harmful chemical weedkillers by re-cycling and re-using a natural product to great success.
The sheep farmers business was saved. Not only that, moved back into profitability because he had found a way to change from how he saw the world using a different pathway.
A brilliant example of turning a problem into an opportunity.
Story by Syntech Biofuel
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