As I’m sure everyone is aware, Scotland has been host to an important meeting about the climate crisis these past weeks. As a small sign of our commitment to change, the School of Divinity put together some patchwork banners for the towers of our building, New College, which looks out over Princes Street in the centre of Edinburgh.
My own contributions included a patch from the Edinburgh Buddhist Studies network (next to the T in NOT). In the network we have been discussing how best to change our own behaviours to better address the climate crisis. We have committed to moving away from short-term international visits, and to continuing creative use of online tools where this enables low-impact gatherings.
Personally, I have also committed to travelling by train wherever possible (I think I’ll be getting very familiar with the Eurostar in the coming year!) and the University of Edinburgh has at last issued a rule discouraging use of flights for work trips within the UK, something I already avoided, but which has apparently been causing the majority of our institutional emissions in recent years. These are certainly all steps in the right direction, and I feel positive about the ways in which people are talking more openly about the issues these days.
While we really do need the large-scale governmental change discussed at COP, we also have individual choices to make in order to tread more lightly on this planet.
Naomi Appleton's blog 