Today is launch day! It’s been a while coming, but finally Look Near First is ready enough, and I am ready enough, to start sharing it as widely as possible.
It’s something I’ve been working on in the background while I was also trying to establish whether I still had a future as a pilot. It originates from my passionate belief that we can enjoy our world more and look after it better, if we slow our travel down, and spend more time enjoying what we find close by.
But I am only one person - I could tell you all the things I love about exploring locally (and maybe I will as this project moves on), but the real idea is to bring together as many people as possible who share this belief, to show that it’s not crazy, or unadventurous, or unambitious to say ‘I could travel a thousand miles for a few days of holiday, but I don’t need to - I can find what I need closer’.
In a way, this is a project that cannot fail. The question is: how successful will it be?
It is about individual actions, and amplifying their ripple effect. The goal is to help accelerate a cultural shift towards a tipping point where we stop routinely travelling further than we need to, and getting on an aeroplane to travel thousands of miles becomes very rare even among the wealthy. But can we really make a difference in this way? Don’t we need systemic change, coming from our leaders?
Do individual actions matter?
I was shocked when I learned that the term ‘carbon footprint’ was, if not actually invented, at least promoted and popularised by British Petroleum, near the beginning of this century, in an attempt to push their share of the responsibility for climate-change towards their customers. This is, of course, wrong. If you are supplying a harmful product, you are just as responsible for the harm it causes as the consumer, if not more.
However, it would also be wrong for us to believe that all the responsibility lies with governments and corporations, and that individual actions don’t matter. They do matter, partly because we have to shoulder some of the responsibility, but more importantly because our actions can inspire others to take action too - there is potential for a multiplier effect.
In his recent book Moral Ambition, Rutger Bregman examines many examples from history where actions by individuals or small groups have been hugely influential in changing the world for the better. As he summarises towards the end of the book, ‘Humans are social creatures through-and-through, and that means your choices can in turn influence the choices of dozens, hundreds or even millions of people’.
Get noticed living an awesome, low-carbon life
To increase the likelihood of our individual actions inspiring wider action, we can try to be visible and noisy about them. Especially if we find that, after reducing our carbon footprints, we find that we are happier.
This happened to Peter Kalmus, a NASA scientist who, when he saw the peril that our fossil-fuel addiction is leading us into, took steps to reduce his carbon-footprint as much as he could. He succeeded in shrinking it from being larger than the average American’s (he used to fly a lot for work) to less than one-tenth of the average American’s. He talks about how he achieved this, and the joy he discovered along the way, in his book Being the Change: how to live well and spark a climate revolution.
It’s exciting to think that, if that message were to catch on - that we can actually become happier in our own lives by casting off much of what has been thrust upon us by an economy addicted to fossil fuels - the climate crisis suddenly could suddenly seem much less daunting. We can choose to live more sustainably, not because of guilt, but because it’s awesome!
Look Near First is based on the belief that reducing travel miles is a great way to find this awesomeness, probably the most impactful and possibly the easiest - we just have to get better at enjoying the world closer to us. If you want to inspire others by sharing how you are already finding the awesomeness of local, please visit the website, looknearfirst.com
One more inspirational book
I have mentioned two inspirational books in this post so far, but I cannot close without mentioning one more, which was not only a big part of the inspiration for this project, but also provided the lines that made avoiding the worst of climate change so very simple and achievable that I felt I couldn’t not act on them: There is no Planet B by Mike Berners-Lee. After explaining why our ever-increasing demand for energy is at the heart of the reasons behind climate-change, Mike asks, ‘Energy: what can I do?’ He then provides a simple and achievable list of ways we can reduce our energy demands, and among them is this:
‘Get better at enjoying things that don’t require much energy. Examples include walks, books, most types of party, most forms of socialising, local holidays, and any hobby that doesn’t rely on fossil fuel.’
Do we really need more, most of the time? Maybe even all of the time? And I love that phrase - ‘get better at enjoying’. It suggests a little bit of effort might be needed - an openness to rethinking and learning new things - and it sounds like a journey of discovery. That’s how I see this project. I am so excited about learning new ways to love the world close to me, from the combined wisdom of wonderful people who choose to share theirs.
Some mentions...
I’d like to use this second post to thank a few people who have been hugely helpful in getting the project this far. Many people have been generous with their time, advice and support, and offers that I haven’t yet had time to take up, but hope to soon. But at this stage I have to thank my nephew Peter for building the website and being a great source of wisdom, friends, family and my co-fellows from Climatebase for the for more support and wisdom - in particular Charvi, Jessie and Joel E. - who have helped to shape the project with their energy and ideas; Olivia Stamp, Howard Hull, Silvie Hibdon and Alastair Humphreys for being the first guests of a completely new podcast by a novice podcaster; Alastair again, plus Tom and Charvi for being the first three contributors of their stories, and my wife Sarah for her support in a turbulent time, and allowing me the space to follow an idea.
References
Rutger Bregman: Moral Ambition. London: Bloomsbury 2024
Peter Kalmus: Being the Change. New Society Publishers 2017
Mike Berners-Lee: There is no Planet B. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2021
