What to gift a sustainability professional (or a thinking human being)
My birthday is round the corner and I can sense the tense atmosphere at home. Hurried huddles and suppressed whispers between the daughter and her dad. Thoughtful silences. Because getting me a gift is possibly the most stressful exercise ever. Anthropogenic activities, and not natural cycles and other things we can shrug responsibility off of, are responsible for that fire raging next door, unbearable heat waves a little ahead and devastating cyclones, floods, hurricanes all around. Not to mention zoonotics like COVID 19. Through our actions, we have ensured that the earth has warmed beyond a point of return – unless we drastically cut emissions, which is only possible if we drastically cut consumption. Now you see why you can’t buy me a gift. It is laden with carbon emitting processes and soil, air, water contaminating materials. So here are what I’ve received in the past and why they made sense. 1. Books. Paper sourced using Responsib...