Recycling & Environment, Alternative Energy, Ethical Investment, Environmental Education, Composting and more

Welcome to "envocare" ®. Based in the UK, it is:
the information site that promotes care of the environment.

Recent international events have focused our attention on the shortcomings of our societies. It is not that anything has really changed but that it has now become transparent (particularly in the UK) that many of the people we allow to govern us fall short, lacking the qualities of honesty, competence, compassion and rational judgement. These qualities, in our opinion, form the basis for for an ethical system and where they are absent or weak we are dealing with bad ethics.
Nowhere have we seen better examples of dishonesty, incompetence, lack of empathy and poor judgement than the commercial and political sectors. The resulting rupture of the economy, the disempowerment of the ordinary man-on-the-street together with the unpalatable sight of the failed elite rewarding themselves with amazing generosity has turned logic on its head. Energy providers are dictating their own terms to the UK; coal powered generators are to be built with ill-founded promises that they will be clean at some time soon and nuclear power stations will be built in this country despite previous policies and the lack of any strategy to control their long-lasting toxic wastes. A further blighting runway is planned at London Heathrow airport contrary to manifesto pledges. In the US the well-intentioned green president is opposed by extremely rich lobbyists financed by established fossil fuel concerns.
Lest you think that we are straying from our mission of promoting a better environment, we have argued before, and maintain now that a good environment will only be developed with sound ethical standards and behaviour. Those people we have elected, thrust into power or merely allowed to gain power by omission are the ones we are currently all too willing to blame. OK so it's their own fault and many deserve opprobrium but it does not let the rest of us off the hook; we should exert our own common, humanistic values with whatever influence we have. The flawed democracy that exists in the UK and some other countries gives us individuals some clout. And we should use it.
We admit it is relatively easy for idealists (for I suppose that is what we are) to argue the seemingly finer points towards a better future when many folk here and now are in severe dire straits, fighting to earn a crust and keep a roof over their family's heads. Nevertheless the future is what we've got and it is sensible to regard the future as crucially important. Had our community thought and acted more rationally about what was happening yesterday and not pontificated about a meaningless personal moral compasses, then today we would have had a much better existence and quality of life.
What is it then that we would suggest? Here are a few examples. We should look to making major investment to fight climate change by conservation and developing renewable energy technologies, and in the process create new jobs and chances to prosper from the distribution of our skills and methods. In this context no new coal stations should be built neither should nuclear reactors be entertained. Airlines should be made to reduce their carbon emissions and noise pollution and the proposed new runway at London should be aborted. Bureaucracy should be carefully and independently scrutinised to remove unnecessary costs, barriers to progress and incompetence. Cruelty to men and other animals should be banned outright. The laws should be seen to be just and equitably applied to all members of society.
We have long argued these points in the past but it's as if we were pissing into the wind. Nonetheless we have to keep on trying. Also we believe strongly that good role models are vital for despite our broad criticisms above there are some competent and moral influential members of the governing classes who deserve supporting. Amongst them three names that come to mind are Barack Obama, Vince Cable and Caroline Lucas. The first two you will be familiar with but we mention the third because her manifesto objectives as a Green Party MEP are almost exactly the same as our list in the preceding paragraph. She couldn't do better than that, could she?