Recycling Rant

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is the Mantra
We reduce where possible. I have an old house and it is difficult to bring up to modern standards
Reuse. Yep do that eg the occasional acquired plastic bag goes to line a bin or is returned to the green grocer
Recycling:
Foodwaste (to the allotment);
Other compostable waste (council collection);
Cans (council collection);
Paper (council collection);
Glass (council collection);
Batteries (council collection);
Get milk and juice from the milkman using reusable bottles;
Occasional plastic milk bottle (council collection);
Cardboard (taken to the recycling centre when going that way);
Other plastic(taken to the recycling centre when going that way);
drinks cartons(taken to the recycling centre when going that way);
Other recyclables eg furniture (taken to the recycling centre when going that way);
No plastic bags except when forgotten to bring an alternative;
Don't have a car (but have access to one). Otherwise travel by train or walk;
Everything off at the plug;
All the radiators are on "3" and central heating use minimised;
All light bulbs are low energy;
May start eating own home grown food if the allotment bears fruit (bearing in mind the awful weather recently);
Walk to the greengrocer (which stocks mainly local produce)and the supermarket (Co-op, even though it is a truly rubbish shop) for our shopping;
Organic or Fairtrade where appropriate.

Everything recommended in local government and environmental literature.

Will it make any difference? I doubt it. We're all doomed by the multinational conglomerates, air travel eg the proposed 3rd runway at Heathrow (why not just link LHR to the High Speed Rail network?), population growth, Globalisation, consumerism, the burning of fossil fuels and the continuing industrial revolution etc. IT IS ALL TOO LATE
Nobody thought about it until the local pollution got so bad they had to introduce the Clean Air Acts, but even that was on a local basis. Now it has got so bad, the whole world is involved.
CO2 affects how the earth absorbs heat. It was started with the British and european industrial revolution and the sudden burning of masses of fossil fuel. This continues while we sit in our comfortable offices and houses in the west. All our manufacturing has been transferred to India and China (and so China builds a coal fired powered station every week to manufacture stuff to feed our habit). The excess Carbon in the atmosphere is clearly "dead" carbon, that was absorbed by the earth long ago. The carbon found in fossil fuels was laid down over millions of years. Because the organisms did not decay completely, the carbon was never released into the atmosphere as CO2. Instead, it was stored up in the earth. Once fossil fuel has been recovered, processed and burned, the CO2, which would normally have been released over tens of millions of years, is suddenly all released within a period of a few hundred years, thus increasing the amount of CO2 in the environment. Carbon 14 measurement (that tiny isotope of carbon that forms about a trillionth of all the carbon floating around) confirms this (and Carbon is such a small proportion compared to all the Helium and Hydrogen which form almost everything else). Our atmosphere is so fragile but it has allowed life to be created on this planet. Tiny adjustments to this atmosphere usually over millions of years have allowed life to adapt and evolve. Atmospheric changes have happened before, but not while sentient beings were on the planet. Ask Dr David Coley, he'll fill you in with the details. The next big extinction?
So it is probably all too late but what else can you do? We are all fucked. To my children, I did my bit, but what about all the others?
May be I won't bother, like the government and and big business don't bother. I am a western consumer too and there isnt much I can do about it. Party like it is 1999? Go and live on the side of a hill with a farm and a spring nearby?
I wrote this a while ago, but it makes sense to me.