Editorial

Going green is hard

Lef Apostolakis

28 Jul 2017 — 2 min read

Oh my god this issue is so green. SO GREEN I TELL YOU. Just reading it will make you healthier and add at least one year to your sad, Imperial-stunted life. You might wonder why. You might even vocally ask me on the off chance you spot me outdoors “why are you doing a Green Issue Lef? Caring about the environment is so 2001.”

And the truth is I feel you. As a former starry eyed biologist who wanted to work in conservation and legitimately tried to work on schemes that were fighting to save the rhino, I look at myself today and almost feel a bit sad. My dinner last night generated enough plastic waste to kill a small family of sea turtles (of course I know there’s no such thing as a family of sea turtles, sea turtles live solitary lives, you can take the biologist out of the field but you can’t take away all the countless hours I’ve spent watching natural history documentaries). My household orders toilet paper from Amazon. And I’ve eaten so much sushi this year I feel personally responsible for the decimation of global tuna stocks.

But as I said, I almost feel sad. Because caring for the environment is hard, demoralising, and draining. Regardless of whether it’s true or not, you soon accept that using eco-friendly products is inconvenient, turning all the lights off is hard. and caring for bees is pointless.

Looking in the mirror to find that you’ve become one of ‘them’ is a bizarre experience. Part of you wants to say “Snap out of it!” but all that comes out is “Meh”.

Still when Environmental Soc came up to me and said they were doing a Green Week and they were wondering if we could work on some content in anticipation, my tiny, oil-smothered heart skirted and once again we went all out. So once again we got a good deal of people legitimately caring and contributing their thoughts and advice, and it’s been nice (and surprising) to see some environmental consciousness protrude from this pile of corporate sponsorship we call Imperial College.

So read on and try not to dwell on the hypocrisy of trying to be green while printing 80,000 pages worth of questionable content.

From Issue 1657

17th Feb 2017

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