Fossil fuels and globalisation and have made life so easy; when you want something you can just go to the High Street or supermarket and buy it – and cheap too! But this lifestyle is harming our planet. Everything we buy comes at a cost to the earth and is often shipped in from many miles away; whether that’s mining aluminium from mountain tops in India or drilling oil from the Amazon rainforest, how we live is having a massive impact on the environment, people and animals in the developing countries where we source the materials we need to maintain our way of life.
Developed countries are consuming too much, far more than our share, but another big part of the problem is that we have lost many of the skills that we used to rely on, making us more dependant on this consumer culture lifestyle we’ve created.
What if we could grow our own food again, make our own furniture and clothes, build our own homes, generate our own energy? With these skills we used to have we can live in a way much kinder to the environment, save lots of money (perhaps we could even work less and enjoy more time with friends and family) and be more resilient to the changes coming our way as natural resources like oil and other fossil fuels run out and competition for them increases.
PEAT members have organised a number of skills sessions including knitting, permaculture, bike maintenance and wood working. If you’d like to be kept informed of upcoming sessions please sign up to the website.
