Low Carbon Lifestyle

On Wednesday this week, Mukti Mitchell, son of Satish Kumar (of 'No Destination' and 'Resurgance' fame) sailed his low carbon self designed and built award winning vessel, 'Chance' into Lyme Regis harbour for an unscheduled stop on his Low Carbon Lifestyle Tour. Starting at the Co-op in Broad St, and ending in a talk at the Marine Theatre, an excellent opening for the forthcoming Turn Lyme Green campaign.
Mukti delivered his message in an informal conversational style, which only served to enhance his obvious passion for his subject. Starting by telling us about his boat, continuing with pictures and anecdotes about his tour of the British coastline, and ending, not with doom and gloom prophecies, but by emphasising the pleasure to be gained from living a low carbon lifesyle.
I went along initially hoping to get a chat with Mukti, but we wound up recording the entire evening, including audience questions.
I found a lot of affinity with the last part of his talk, I'm a Low Carbon person myself, and have found over the years that it isn't always easy to live a Low Carbon life within a High Carbon society. I don't own a motor car for mainly ethical reasons, but when Mukti starts talking about the pleasures to be gained from giving up High Carbon ideals, I was in agreement all the way. That is to say, there's a certain bliss about not owning a motor car, and its a bit like the old cliche of banging heads on walls, you don't see the bliss until you stop doing it. But Mukti is right, when you travel by train, or bus, you don't experience the stress of driving, and you're able to use the time to focus on tasks to be done, rather than concentrating on the road. When I originally 'gave up' owning a motor car, more than 15 years ago, it was for altruistic reasons, but it wasn't until Mary and I owned a car briefly a few years ago that I quickly realised how wonderful it was to not own one. Note that i didn't say I ceased driving, I 'gave up' the unnecessary need to own a motor car. I firmly beleive that society is addicted to the beast, and doesn't know how to give up its dependance. Quite clearly, we live in times when there are much easier/safer/faster/more cofortable/less stressful methods of getting from one place to another, including, in this internet age, not going anywhere. People asked to 'give up' exhibit the same traits and excuses as drug addicts separated from the object of their need.
The honest unwanted truth is that we all have to reduce our Carbon Footprint, (the currently fashionable way of saying that we are using too much resource too fast), and the ultimate cause of global warming is now accepted as human in origin. Unfortunately, global warming is only one of the world problems created by private motoring and air travel. The other aspect is the global conflict caused by need for oil, and the speed at which developing countries can afford to live like us in the western world. Include a rapidly doubling human population, and the scale of the problem facing life on earth, is enormous.
So thankyou Mukti, was a pleasure to be in your company and hear your message.