Veganuary/Dry Jan/Plastic free for bushfire relief

My home is on fire. Smoke is covering an area half the size of Europe. An area larger than the size of Denmark has burnt and now that the fires have settled it’s time to rebuild and rehabilitate.

Australia had their hottest day on record last month only for that record to be beaten the following day. One day in December 2019 there was not one single drop of rain on the whole continent for the first time in history! We have unpaid firefighters working day in, day out, risking their lives and a few have died whilst heroically trying to save our homes and forests. The forefront in NSW alone, if put together in one straight line, would have reached from Sydney to Afghanistan. Australia is used to bush fires but not to this scale with these extreme conditions. And yet our Prime Minister escaped to Hawaii and still refuses to admit climate change is real! He still continues to support the money in fossil fuels and the worst part is that the Australian people voted for him! Just like the British recently voted in Boris Johnson and Americans somehow keep supporting the impeached Trump. Three big world leaders who care only for billionaires and care nothing for the environment. The environment needs to be our first priority!! Because once that is gone, we are gone. You can’t eat money. There is no Plan(et) B.

We are in the middle of a climate emergency, not just in Australia but worldwide. The Amazon is still burning in parts and the Prime Minister there is encouraging the deforestation because of the money in agricultural farming. The Amazon is 20% of the worlds lungs, we literally will struggle to breathe without it, especially as population numbers rise. But right now I am focusing on Australia and would like to try to do something about it instead of just sharing posts and crying out that we need to help. I am going to do Veganuary, Dry January and a plastic free month all at once to try to raise money for the WIRES wildlife rescues who have been working tirelessly to save wildlife and livestock, mostly Koalas, affected by these fires and rehabilitate them. Our animals are the worst off in this with over a BILLION thought to have perished.

The reason being vegan is so important to support the environment is because agricultural farming is the leading cause of deforestation worldwide and one of the leading causes of green house gas emissions. It causes more emissions than all of the transport methods COMBINED! It’s been scientifically proven that going plant based is the single biggest way you can reduce your carbon footprint. I have been a vegetarian for a while now but the dairy and egg industry are still so cruel and play just as big a part in this. We all know the damage plastic does to our planet, especially to our oceans and the dry January part is just to challenge myself even more (there’s not much else to do in miserably cold London in January so this will probably be the hardest).

I can’t donate much in monetary value but I can make better life choices to help the environment including reducing my carbon footprint, steering clear of big brands and companies that support poor environmental choices, reducing my plastic usage and voting for the right political parties (most important one of all).

I hope you can donate, big or small and thank you in advance if you do. Other good causes to donate to are the Red Cross or local fire associations. If you can’t or don’t want to, I hope this at least inspires you to be more conscious of your environmental impact every day. Wish me luck ✌?