It's time again for a bonus podcast. A little extra audio for your ears. We thought that last week's episode was enraging and encouraging and devastating and hopeful and we had many thoughts and feelings and so we wrote them down and then said them out loud. This is the final episode in our first series and we'd love to know what you thought of it so why not leave us a review on iTunes or drop us a message on Instagram. We want to hear what you liked and what we could improve on as well as the kinds of activists that you want to hear from next time.
Transcript
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to The Revolution Begins at Home (bonus reflections podcast). My name is Cerys, I’m the producer here at The Revolution Begins at Home and, after each episode, I’m going to be sharing a couple of things the episode made me think about whilst I was helping to make it.
I have so many thoughts about this episode and, luckily for you, I am not going to just list all the things that I hate about cars or all of the terrible experiences I have had on my bike…
Episode
If you tuned into last week’s episode, and I really should say at this point, if you haven’t, you really need to go back and listen to it. Like, you’re missing the best bits of this podcast, i.e., the bits where Chantelle talks to some amazing activists and advocates about the incredible work they do, not this bit where I just sort of prattle on about my feelings and whatnot. Seriously, we’ve got some really good interviews in this podcast, go listen to them.
Anyway, if you tuned into last week’s episode, you’ll know that Chantelle spoke to Jemima Hartshorn, a human rights lawyer, environmental campaigner and cofounder of the organization Mums for Lungs.
Mums for Lungs fights to reduce air pollution in London through lots of different initiatives including school streets (streets that are closed to traffic during school opening and closing times). They have a wide variety of climate change goals, such as…
Jemima one of the things we want to see in London, for example, is that the whole bus fleet is electrified by 2030 at the very latest, with a priority of starting reducing those other polluting buses, on those main roads along schools.
and
Jemima we really want to see the ultra low emission zone that's being extended, expanded…. There's one problem with school streets, which is that they have never been delivered anywhere, where there is a really big road. So a main road or High Street are all TfL red routes, which are, obviously, the most polluting roads, because they have the most cars on them are those that don't get closed. So we've been complaining a lot about those issues as well.
The Ultra-Low Emission Zone charges drivers whose cars don’t meet a set of emission standards to drive within the zone and so, hopefully, will disincentivize drivers who have highly polluting cars. This means that schools in the zone that aren’t on school streets should also benefit from reduced amounts of traffic.
Mums for Lungs isn’t just looking at traffic and at drivers though.
Jemima it's also really about coming up with small feasible solutions.. so you know, providing support for schools and ideas around walking buses, or really encouraging schools to work more with organizations, allowing the neighbourhood to travel for the school run and that kind of stuff…
They have a lot of different projects, a lot of different solutions all coming at this one, massive problem of air pollution.
The problem
I like to cycle, to be honest, the state of London’s roads really stresses me out. I’ve had a lot of terrible experiences, a lot of close calls and a lot of lungful’s of toxins that have come straight out the back of a bus. But, I’ve already committed to not telling you about all of that in detail. I just want you to know that I found it really quite cathartic to hear Jemima speak so passionately about the work that she does and why however, when she talked us through the actual ins and outs of the organisation’s activism, I also found it quite overwhelming.
Air pollution, Climate Change, well, they’re just massive issues, aren’t they? We need people to stop driving diesel cars but how else are they going to get around? I think I’m doing a good thing by cycling but I always order online instead of going to the shops. Sure, you can make sure you switch the light off when you leave but that’s not going to put out the literal fire in the Gulf of Mexico. We’ve basically destroyed the world beyond repair but that doesn’t mean it’s futile to make small changes now except we need big changes and I can’t make them by myself but if I’m not demanding those changes then the people who can make the changes probably won’t bother and none of this changes the fact that I can’t cycle two miles up the road to the park without a driver skipping a red light and nearly hitting and killing me.
Honestly, I don’t know where to start.
I’m kind of in awe of Jemima and the volunteers she works with who get up every day and try to make the world a better place and then try to take their kids to school or to the doctors or a friend’s house and are repeatedly confronted with the thousands of things that need to be changed before they can even think about, you know, making a real difference, especially when…
Jemima The problem is with achievement in air pollution is there's not a single thing I could point to and say, this has only happened because of Mums for Lungs
Kind of, adds to the futility of the process, doesn’t it?
Even though Jemima was very humble in the way she described the work of Mums for Lungs, they are making a big difference by getting people involved in Climate Change activism which is accessible. Their approach, which provides paddling pools for children at meetings and helps you play to your strength, I think, is such an amazing way of conducting collective activism that it calms the deer in the headlights panic that contemplating the fate of the environment often gives me.
The solution
In the interview, Chantelle and Jemima kept returning to this push and pull between individual and collective responsibility. So, my choices and my actions are having a direct environmental impact on the world. As are yours. We can both decide to make lifestyle changes, like switching to a vegetarian diet or unplugging the kettle when we’re not using it or not dropping our kids off at school in a fuck off massive tank of a car and they will be but a drop in the ocean of the global impact on the planet this year especially when compared to say one of the 20 companies responsible for 35% of all greenhouse gas emissions[1].
And when we put the responsibility on individuals that detracts from the system which allows, encourages and requires people to pollute more than they would if they could easily get the bus or shop local or walk their kids to school.
But, if we fall into the trap of saying that everything is the fault of Shell and MacDonald’s and mega corporations then we absolve ourselves of the responsibility of making more environmentally friendly choices. It’s that kind of thinking that allows people like my brother to feel good about the fact that he recycles even though he has two cars one of which is big enough to eat an average sized hatchback (and also for me to feel some sort of moral high ground as if I didn’t get Maccy D’s on the way home last night and still feel kinda ok about that because, hey, at least I took public transport there).
These two approaches are in tension with each other, but we have to keep both ideas in our head and be mindful of both at the same time. And that’s partly because things like air pollution, they don’t affect us all equally. So, sure, I don’t pollute as much as an oil company but my impact on my environment is orders of magnitude bigger than many people across the world. I use more electronic devices, I travel more, I eat more imported food, I buy more stuff than a lot of the world’s population and by virtue of my comparative wealth and the place where I live, I am less affected by things like rising sea levels and extreme weather caused by Climate Change.
Even thinking more locally, I live in an area of comparatively higher air quality than many places in London. There is a correlation between the most polluted and the poorest areas in this city[2]. In the episode, Chantelle talked about class solidarity, about how this is an issue that we should all be fighting on. To me, that means not passing the responsibility onto the next polluter up the chain, but it also means making systemic changes, changing the law for everyone, not just working with your local community to make your corner of the city greener and nicer and pushing the pollutants a little further out.
Call to arms
I think that Mums for Lungs have found this amazing balance between thinking about the bigger picture and targeting the biggest polluters and not getting overwhelmed by the problem but breaking it into smaller chunks that can be chipped away at until they don’t feel so impossible.
What I have learned from this episode and hope that you have learned to, is that there are little things you can do that make big differences. We all have a responsibility to think about the way we engage with the world and the impact we are having on it. And, whilst this is not a problem that can be solved by individuals and individual actions, we do need to work together to demand change and hold companies and governments accountable. It’s not hopeless and if we don’t do anything nothing will change.
If you want to get involved and help fight air pollution, Mums for Lungs are always looking for more people to join and support them so head over to their website mumsforlungs.org.
Outro
Thanks for listening to The Revolution Begins at Home Bonus Reflections podcast. If you enjoyed it, you should check out other podcasts supported my Content is Queen.
This podcast was presented by myself Cerys Bradley.
Many thanks to Chantelle and Jemima for their great conversation, which you can listen to in last week’s episode. Thanks also to Amanda Moorghen for her help and advice.
The music for this podcast is from Blue Dot Sessions.
Thanks for listening!
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions
[2] https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/news/london-inequalities-infect-the-air-we-breathe/