How to lessen our impact on the enviroment
Finland´s ecological footprint is the third biggest per capita in the world. All of this can’t be blamed on the Finnish lifestyle because of the cold climate that craves a lot of energy and the pulp and paper industries that are the backbone of the Finland´s energy. To this can be added the relatively long distances between cities which demands lots of travelling. But still the Finns could cut down a great part of the energy they consume by adopting a lifestyle that is more eco-friendly.
More sparsely use of energy will demand some sacrifices. When it comes to the way people move between places there’s lots of room for improvement. The first thing to do would, for example, be that one should leave the car when traveling short distances, or take the train instead of airplane when going further away. This would demand both economic and comfortchanges, and this is what often stop people from going greener. But by making eco-friendly ways of going places more attractive, maybe by making them cheaper would make more people interested. New technology could also be of benefit for transportation. Various forms of hybrids, hyrdogenic and electricity-driven, are all greener than gasoline fuelled ones, and they should therefore be made more common.
The food also affects the climate. Locally produced food should be eaten and imported food should not be consumed as much. The reason why food from abroad is more common is because it’s cheaper than its locally produced equivalent, and therefore it would be up to the government to make the local food cheaper, because there are not many consumers who pay more only because it’s locally produced.
The Finns need a lot of energy for warming up their homes and it would therefore be a smart idea to develop the various eco-friendly way of producing energy and make them as effective as the fossile ways of producing energy. Solarpower has great potential and it only need to be developed so it can obtain the massive amount of energy from the sun more effectively. Windpower could also be a way to get green energy, it only have to be made more common.
The will to be greener is the most important factor here and by making eco-friendly-living more desirable will eventually make more and more people become climate friends.
Robin