Now I live alone I eat more convenience food. I used to love to cook everything from fresh ingredients but I don't seem to have the energy, inclination or time now. I go through the self service checkouts in supermarkets, being too impatient to queue behind people with massive trolley's full to overflowing. I drive to the leisure centre to swim. Partly to save time, but also because walking there & back carrying my kit takes more energy than I have. Also because going by bus takes more time because our service has become more infrequent & unreliable. That also means that I drive to the big supermarket because carrying my monthly big shop is completely beyond me.
The problem is that choices in favour of convenience have a huge impact when everyone chooses the same thing, for the same reasons.
Convenience foods are highly processed & use additives to prolong shelf life & improve "look". They contain too much salt, fat & sugar & have contributed to health issues like obesity. They use huge amounts of packaging, including plastics, which do not biodegrade & cause pollution & landfill issues. Dependence on meat, soya & palm oil in convenience foods has had a direct impact on deforestation.
The first self service shop in the UK was the Co Op in London in 1948. Customers picked their own shopping directly from shelves rather than being served by a shopkeeper. Self service checkouts were first introduced in Georgia USA in 1986. In the UK self service tills were first introduced by Tesco in 2003. I thought that this led to job losses, but apparently not. Research in 2023 says that most people who are replaced by self-checkout are offered a similar position instead. There are disadvantages, I seem to constantly have issues with the ones in my local M&S which need human interaction by staff. The most annoying thing I find is the repeated multiple voice recordings accompanying the process.
The issue of car versus public transport is very complex. The basic issue is that of time. Public transport stops to let people on & off. Traffic congestion, manpower issues & strikes cause public transport to be unreliable & even unavailable. In the UK our public transport is not integrated in the way that it is in Germany for example.
The thing is we need to change, sooner rather than later, because of climate change & the impact of our behaviour on the planet & it's ecosystems. I am currently reading a book called "How Bad Are Bananas" by Mike Berners - Lee. He is an academic at Lancaster university & everything is scientifically researched. It is excellent. Very clear & simple language giving the carbon footprint of everything. It is also shocking, because it makes very clear that if we are to meet our targets, everyone in the developed world needs to make substantial changes in our lifestyles.
The world is likely to breach 1.5 degrees C by 2027 according to the latest research https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/17/global-heating-climate-crisis-record-temperatures-wmo-research
It is no longer a matter of our convenience or inconvenience. It is literally a matter of survival of the world as we know it.
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