Introduction to Project Planet Earth
When Ellen sailed around the world non-stop, she had to make sure that she had exactly what she needed for the race, and that she had enough to last her the whole way round.
This brought about a big realisation that we don’t need a lot of what we buy and use today – for example, we don’t need a whole sheet of paper towel to mop up a small spill, but quite often we will use far more than we need, purely because it is there. Kingfisher and B&Q were Ellen’s world while she was sailing round, they provided her with everything she needed to survive out on her own, but she had to be very careful not to over-indulge in any of her finite resources in order to make sure she had enough to survive to get round.
We use this as an inspiration for encouraging sustainable living on Scarlet, with the hope that this will influence people to take this way of living back to their homes and communities.
Our boat is a ‘mini world’ – on the boat we have a limited reserve of energy, fuel, water and food, and we produce waste. The boat is used as an example of what the Earth is like – it is a living planet that provides us with all we need to survive, so long as we look after it. Everything we do in some way has an effect on the Earth – in much the same way as if we deplete all our fossil fuel resources we will not (in current times) maintain the same level of living, if we use up all the fuel and water on the boat (without being able to refill) we will run out of these precious resources and not be able to continue ‘living’ the voyage.
So – what is sustainability all about?
Sustainability is the ability to manage the use of our natural resources in such a way that the harvest of what we use will be able to maintain the same or higher level, so that the future generations will be able to meet their own needs.
We have a limited supply of resources, and we need to make sure we use these in such a manner that they are able to replenish themselves.
We also have a climate change issue – and reducing our impact on fossil fuel resources will help reduce our impact on global climate change, by reducing our carbon emissions.
What we do on the boat, we can do at home!
For more information on sustainability, please visit the following site:
www.energysavingtrust.org
Information Source:
www.energysavingtrust.org
www.ciwm.co.uk
www.waste-technology.co.uk
www.eattheseasons.co.uk
Botkin & Kellar, 2005. Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet (5th Edition)
