The Silent Climate Slayer

As we continue to snowball towards a climate catastrophe, there seems to be little hope of anything other than impending doom.

Day in day out we are reminded of what we must do to save our precious planet. Cut down on emissions from fossil fuels we are told. Stop eating meat they say. It is crucial we waste less and recycle experts plead.

I’ve spent many sleepless nights pondering why the situation remains so dire in spite of our efforts and do all of these things. One conclusion leads me to shine a spotlight on a deadly factor that seemingly has little to no mass coverage within the public domain.

This devil in the dark is called palm oil.

I’m sure many of you will at least be vaguely familiar with this product even if you may not know much else about it.

Palm oil is basically an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp of the fruit of oil palms; and you may be disturbed to learn that the farming of this innocent sounding product is having a monumental impact on the acceleration of climate change.

Anyone who opts to have a quick browse on the back of processed food packets might have noticed the words ‘palm oil’ crop up as a randomly listed ingredient somewhere amongst the other items. This is because palm oil one of the most versatile ingredients around when it comes to food preservation, cooking and also foaming. As a result, palm oil is used in everything from cooking oil, to chocolate and biscuits and even a wide variety of personal care and cleaning products. It is estimated that palm oil occurs in close to 50% of the packaged products we find in supermarkets.

It is safe to say the demand is vast. And it continues to grow!

So, what exactly is the problem here?

Quite simply the consumption of palm oil is one the main drivers of deforestation. Whole forests have been bulldozered down to make way for mass plantations, and the impact of this is frightening.

Trees play a vital role in balancing CO2 levels within our atmosphere through their ability to absorb this gas in exchange for oxygen.

Hacking down hectre upon hectre of our trees, not only takes away essential tools in the control of CO2 but it also means the CO2 contained with those trees is released in eye-watering levels back into the atmosphere. This coupled with the fact palm oil production requires carbon rich peat for growth is essentially fuelling this global crisis.

Discovering this outrageous occurrence is unfolding as consequence of our seemingly innocent trips to the supermarket, really did make me angry and my immediate thought was to boycott buying anything that contains palm oil.

However, as I continued my research it became clear that the solution wasn’t that simple. Palm oil is so essential to our everyday consumption that avoiding it completely in search of an alternative may actually cause more harm than good. This is because the production of alternative oils etc would actually require even more land usage and thus make the problem even worse.

Rather than avoid, we as consumers must buy from companies who use sustainable palm oil. Its shocking to believe that not all companies do already, but this is sadly the truth and one that should be highlighted with much more severity. Some purchase what the industry call ‘dirty’ palm oil and organisations such as the WWF are working tirelessly to change this.

What angers me here is that I had no idea about my responsibility until recently. As such it is not a far cry to conclude many other consumers will be oblivious to their invisible obligations.

Companies on the other hand, should know all about their responsibilities and have a moral duty to do the right thing. The future of our planet depends on it.

It is not too late to make a stand though! The WWF have a great free tool available on their website which enables consumers like you and I to key in the name of a company and find out how that company is performing in terms of its commitment and actions in regards to sustainable palm oil.

Companies are scored and categorised as such;

Non-Respondent

Lagging Behind

Middle of the Pack

Well on the Path

Leading the Way

This tool offers the perfect opportunity to hold companies accountable for their actions. For example, a quick search (as of publish date) revealed that The Kraft Heinz Food Company were scored as ‘Lagging Behind’. On the flip side this tool allows us to see which companies are doing their bit. Mars for example are categorised as ‘Leading the Way’.

There is no reason why we all cannot use this tool when considering what brands of product to buy. It takes 2 minutes and then we can avoid brands who are contributing to the earth’s rapid demise.

You can find the WWF Scorecard here https://palmoilscorecard.panda.org/#/scores

Whilst undertaking this important task, you may well discover (as I did) that a company whose products you swear by, unfortunately happens to fall below the expected standards. A bit of a bummer I know.

All is not lost. In fact, this scenario could act as a driving vehicle for ground-breaking positive change. Believe it or not, most companies care or at least are mindful about what their customers want. Therefore, if you find a company you like is not doing enough, call them out on it and demand change. In fact, do this publicly via social media and encourage others to do the same. Tell them your loyalty will cease to remain unless they change their ways.

The last thing big companies want is to lose customers and perhaps even more so, allow their brand image to be tarnished.

If we all do our bit, our rainforests (aka the lungs of the world) might just have a chance of thriving again. Trees may be our biggest weapon in the fight against our imminent climate catastrophe; and we need them!

Let’s get Physical

When I first published my debut novel back in the midst of lockdown, it was only ever my intention to unleash my creation to the online world.

Given the strong focus of online interaction and social media, I was certain that my book The Invite was destined only to be enjoyed through the screens of our devices.

After the initial launch I was overwhelmed and humbled by how well my creation was received. Job done then you could say. I achieved everything I could have hoped for and more through my offering as an E-book alone.

However, it was difficult to ignore the many requests from people who longed to purchase my novel in the way novels are meant to be, in the form of a good old-fashioned book.

I did manage it quite well at first and after a while the initial buzz of the Kindle dream started to dwindle and my mind began to pine for new writing endeavours.

However, I was unable to quench the thirst for new projects due to the reoccurring thought that my mission with The Invite was not yet accomplished without the printed article.

I therefore made the call to give the purist’s what they wanted!

After all there is nothing quite like wrapping your hands around a shiny new chunk of literary magic. Just the smell of freshly pressed pages and the slick, glossy and weighty feel of brain food that sits nicely in hand. I have to admit that there is a certain magic about it.

Ok maybe I’m also a purest at heart too.

I therefore embarked on a journey into the unknown in the pursuit of a physical home for my creation.

I’m not going to lie there has been lots of sweat, blood and tears involved in the process, but I’m finally delighted to announce that the finished product is now complete.

For those of you who are not yet familiar with my young adult novel The Invite, the book invites you to join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

So if you are one of the proud people who are loyal to the printed page, I salute you; and you can order your printed copy of The Invite now!

For those who of you who remain a convert to the Kindle way of life and wish to check out my online offering anyway, also on sale for purchase through the link above.

I look forward to you joining Lindsey’s virtual adventure, between both device or through the sheets.  

Reluctantly Back on the Grid

The Social Media Allure

I’ve been away from social media for months now.

What started out as an experiment to practice what I preach in my debut novel The Invite surprisingly evolved into a new way of life.

The initial aim was to progressively reduce my usage over a 3 month period until I reached cold turkey.

Although the process had a few ups and downs it was ultimately a great success. Little did I believe it would strip away all desire to reignite a return to shares, likes and posts though.

What is odd about the decision, is that I’m not really sure why I became so switched off.

Ironically the only logical reasoning I can think of, is that the idea of remerging with an infinite online community seemed quite frankly, effort!

With the decision has come great freedom and a sense of tranquillity. No longer being governed by a reflexive impulse to keep checking my phone for updates or mindlessly scrolling for a 5 second dopamine hit, offered a state of happiness and released shackles I never truly believed I was chained to.

However, a time has now arrived when exciting new updates regarding my novel writing exploits are on the cusp of being unleashed, but my new lifestyle has created a dirty big brick wall to my launch plans.

Like it or not I must face the fact that there is a very slim opportunity to spread the word about my latest offering to the world, without actually engaging with the world. Near everyone lives online now and therefore I must return to their home in order to complete my quest.

And in all honestly, I’m quite daunted by the prospect.

I can say with 100% conviction that my return to social-ality will be more of flying visit rather than a permanent arrangement.

It is my hope that at the end of the journey others may also choose to join me and unplug, even if it is just for a while.

All social media talk aside, your probably thinking hang on a minute, what is the new novel exploit…?

Keep your eyes peeled for my next blog to find out! In the meantime enjoy world book day guys.

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Victory is sweet as 2-month mountain is scaled

64 days ago, I made the bold decision to purge myself of all social media and practice what I preach.

Way back when we were still blessed with the last of the summer sun, I found myself in an unhealthy relationship were by I would habitually scroll through various social streams and then develop unnatural feelings of envy at everyone’s picture perfect portrayals of life.

Eventually recognising that this was a problem I decided to do something about it and figured this challenge would help endorse the underlying message conveyed with my teen fiction novel The Invite.

From here I formulated a plan to ween my way off all social media streams and then omit these from my life until Halloween (aka the 1^st anniversary of my debut book release).

I am truly thrilled to announce that I have reached the end of this experiment victorious!

There were quite a few occasions that offered the potential for me to slip-up, but I found the determination to maintain good mental health was enough to deter me from caving in during those moments of weakness.

Overall, I found the challenge surprisingly easy, not to come across as egotistical at all. For me it was in those rare moments of boredom or situations where our learned instinct to reach out to the phone for answers, that I came close to undoing my hard work. I’m not ashamed to admit that I did have a moment or 2 where I longed to post some content, purely in longing of attention/ approval from my peers. Thankfully this desire was short lived.

The social media platforms themselves did not make my task any easier in the end, as they resorted to sending me emails which included status updates from friends. This sneaky tactic did not sit right with me at all and just made me more determined to see things through to the conclusion.

As I now look to reflect on the impact this 2 month plus curb has had on me, the best way I can describe it, is a feeling of liberation.

When I cast my mind back to August, the thought I how I used to use social media now seems exhausting. My mind is no longer overwhelmed with constant information and a weight of expectation I felt is starting to dilute.

As I have mentioned in previous updates, this challenge has not been the miracle cure to feelings of depression at the complexity of life’s challenges. However, I would certainly conclude it has massively taken the edge off things.

In fact, I have found the cleanse so rewarding that I am yet to reactivate any of my social media accounts as yet. I don’t feel the need.

I would recommend a social media cleanse to anyone.

For those who are yet to read up about my recent challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

To mark the end of my challenge and the 1-year anniversary of The Invite I have some exciting news! All will be revealed in the next few weeks, so watch this space for updates …

Social Media Cleanse Diary – 2 Weeks to Go

Incredibly the end is almost in clear sight!

A whole 2 months of my life has been dedicated to the purging of social media and it is with sheer delight to announce that I remain on track to succeed in remaining t-total.

I’d love to predict that I’ll coast towards a triumphant victory in 2 weeks’ time and although everything has unfolded better than I could have envisaged so far, I dare not become complacent.

Once again, I am proud to declare that I am yet to succumb to social media since the 30 day mark; not even for one cheeky check on Facebook.

Although I have found this treacherous challenge easier and more rewarding than I had initially anticipated, I would be lying if I said there has not been instances where I’ve almost slipped up.

As per my previous observations, it is always in those moments of boredom where the urge to kill time kicks in that a strong and almost automatic impulse to check social media invades the thoughts.

Thankfully this hasn’t been too bad to overcome since I deleted all of the social media apps from my phone. This allowed time for rational thought to muscle in.

The other challenge I have found on occasions in previous weeks is a slight annoyance at being unable to utilise social media for some of the usages that are actually of benefit, such as finding out data to assist with my book promotion or to use the Marketplace function on Facebook to help me buy and sell during the process of our house move.

I guess it could be argued that I am now regarding social media for practicalities rather than simply to mindlessly kill time (in most cases). Perhaps this reflects a slight shift in my Psyche?

I guess the killer question at this stage is how do I feel?

Now I have given this thought a lot of consideration over recent days as I would love to say I feel great. Unfortunately, I can’t say this is the case. I think I am perhaps at an awkward stage in my life, a crossroads if you will. But what I can conclude is that I still feel better than I did before I started the challenge. And when I think about how I might have felt if I continued to bash social media during this phase in my life, I can only predict that I would have felt much worse.

I think to truly reap the rewards of not using social media is to give it up for good, or at least for a much longer period of time. And I can honestly say that I would be open to such an undertaking.

Anyway, as my world continues to remain hectic, I think this will be the last social media diary I log before I reach the end.

I’m confident I will manage to stay of the social until then, but make no mistake I will be keeping my wits about me to ensure I remain on the path of riotousness.

Wish me luck and see you at the finish line. 

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 30

I feel supernatural forces are in motion this year; hell bent on playing with the passage of time.

Only a moment ago I posted an update from day 5 of my social media challenge. Now here I am looking to catch up on my progress log, only to realise I have made it through an entire whirlwind month already. It has passed in the blink of an eye!

To be fair it has been a manic month as I have embarked on the exciting and also stressful journey of moving house.

Thankfully I have just about had time to keep on track with my tally of daily social media hits.

Given the lengthy delay in dishing out the dirt on my social habits, there was potential for this post to transpire as an essay style confession regarding my array of struggles encountered, accompanied with a huge list of social media useage logs.

I’m thrilled to use the word ‘potential’ as the past month has been anything but a disaster.

I can honestly say that my social media exploits have been practically non-existent since my last update. I still have to pinch myself to believe the words I write right now.

Here is an overview of how things have panned out over the past few weeks.

During week two of the challenge, I used Facebook twice for 2 minutes on each occasion, Snapchat once for 1 minute and Instagram once for 1 minute.

Now I could reflect on this with critical eyes, considering how well I had done in week one. The main plus here however is that social media usage has still reduced by about 30%.

Week 3 is where the magic really started to ignite. I only engaged with any form of social media a grand total of 3 times all week. This encompassed 2 minutes spend on Snapchat and 1 minute on Facebook.

I was in full stride during this period of time, fully absorbed into house viewings and mortgage discussions. This meant that even the idea of accessing social media, didn’t cross my thoughts for the most part.

Regrettably as the craziness from previous week simmered down ever so slightly I did regress a little bit in terms of my progress during week 4. I used Snapchat on 3 occasions for about a minute each time and Facebook twice, one of which to wish my grandad a happy birthday. I must admit the birthday thing did get me questioning this odd habit we have developed. Rather than actually saying happy birthday in person why do we feel obliged to send a Facebook message. This is something that may never have occurred to me in previous times.

Anyway this slight relapse just confirmed to me how insidious social media can be and how easy it is to fall back in the habit of having a cheeky check on it every now and then; particularly during times of boredom. This realisation prompted me to delete every social media App downloaded on my phone, with the exception of WhatsApp. And for the past 4 days I haven’t looked back.

In terms of how I’ve been feeling mentally during this whole time, it would be too good to be true to say that I’ve felt a million dollars every day of the week, but yes on the whole I am feeling pretty good. I am starting to no longer feel those strong feeling of envy that were becoming common place before and (if anything) I am actually finding peace in knowing other people are experiencing big moments in their life.

I don’t want to jinx it but I genuinely don’t think that the second half of my challenge will prove to be an almighty battle. I refuse to declare this with any certainty as I am all too aware how powerful the allure of technology can be during times of weakness.

As long as I keep working on my head space and sticking to my guns I’m hopeful this challenge will end in successful and enlightenment.

Regardless of the outcome I’m sure there will be some more twists and turns as I approach the end of this journey and so I’ll try and be on the ball a bit more with the updates from here on in.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 5

Looking back it this time last week…

I made it to the end of my first working week in surprisingly good shape.

I figured it would be most difficult to kick social media to the curb during working day as the impulse often becomes so strong at times of boredom whilst in the home office.

I must admit Friday could have been a potential banana skin as the workload started to die down throughout the day, thus introducing opportunities for boredom to take hold.

I’ll also admit I encountered some strong urges at various intervals, mainly as I craved to find sports updates in preparation for the weekend’s fixtures.

I ended up using social media just the once in the end, which I am chuffed about. I am however a bit bitter sweet about it too, as I felt it was a temptation that could have been prevented.

The indulgence consisted of a quick check on Instagram for updates on the climbing centre that I attend and had plans to visit at the weekend.

My friend had told me the centre was to be half closed due to a leaky roof and flooding and this threw our plans into disarray.

I tried to find out more on the situation through their website, to no avail. My friend advised updates were being provided on Instagram.

Great!

Due to this lack of consideration of those who do not use social media, I found myself too demanding of information to resist. Obviously, this meant I had a cheeky check on my Insta feed whilst I was at it.

As I say, very frustrating. But the good news is that this just ended up being a one off and I managed to steer clear of all platforms for the rest of the day, which was great.

Things since Friday have been crazy busy and so I haven’t had time to log how things have progressed in the week that followed. I plan to post a week long summary over the weekend so do keep your eyes peeled to find out how things have gone in week 2.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 4

I feel like the honeymoon period of my social media cleanse challenge is coming to an end today.

I don’t feel cocky in saying that I smashed it yesterday, but today has been a whole different ball game.

Looking at the logs, I have used social media 3 times altogether today which still isn’t bad considering there is no real urgency to go t-total as yet.

That being said there is no denying that it is worse than yesterday. Aside from the stats, it is more the urge to kill time on social media today that I found crippling. After the busy start to the week, I have had a day littered with periods of boredom and the weather has also taken a slump. I found that during these dull periods I craved some interaction and entertainment through actions such as sending Snapchats or scouring for news on Facebook.

I did allow myself to indulge somewhat, but I feel if I hadn’t enforced some serious restraint I might have been on and off the platforms like a yoyo all afternoon.

Maybe this is time where things do start to get taxing. It is a challenge after all.

The good thing this time is that I felt accomplished for showing some willpower. I have also been lucky in that my state of mind has remained pretty upbeat throughout the day. Hopefully this indicates that even though I did use social media a few times, I might have been hitting a healthy balance.

So even though it’s been tough, plenty of positives to take forward as we approach the latter half of my first week I would say.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 3

After yesterday’s myriad of mind games, I feel like today has been much more straight forward in terms of my emotional response to this social media cleanse.

The great news is that I have managed to build once again on yesterday’s success and in fact only used social media once all day!

In my wildest predictions I would not have expected myself to curb the habit to such an extent at this very early stage.

Oh I do hope the whole 2 months will continue in this vain.

The one time I did use social media, it was a quick 1 minute check on Facebook. I was immediately greeted once more with the social media post that has annoyed me all week and so I went straight to refresh the newsfeed wheel of fortune which decided I would like to read about a burned out car instead. How lovely.

It is worth mentioning at this stage that my partner is a bit sceptical about my methodology for this challenge.

She believes I should go cold turkey from the offset and she also doesn’t believe that I should keep Direct Message platforms such as WhatsApp available for usage.

She even believes that using my blog to post updates is in fact using social media and therefore contradicting what I am trying to achieve.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and my other half doesn’t hold back with her opinions I can tell you that much for sure.

Perhaps her observations are valid to some extent and maybe this is why I have found things rather easy so far. It is difficult to say.

In spite of this I will continue on with the same plan, but I am now contemplating whether to up the anti for the final few weeks of the challenge and simply ghost any and all online avenues until I reach the end.

Maybe I could go as far as chucking my phone out and communicating via barn owl. Who knows?

All I know is I’m feeling good at the moment and hopefully this will be a feeling that grows as the challenge goes on. Only time will tell.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 2

So, I breezed through my first day of cutting out social media yesterday and this injected me with confidence as I prepared for day 2.

All things considered my second day was another great success. Looking back at my log, I can see that I did in fact access social media one time less than yesterday which I’m ecstatic about.

I should note however that not everything was as rosy as it sounds. I experienced a strange complex whereby I found myself instinctively reaching for my phone in search of social media but then stopping myself before deciding to click on the App. Sounds like a good thing right? Maybe it is, but the problem here I feel is that this prevention tactic is actually preventing me from getting a clear picture of my social media habits. It has also meant that the few times I actually did access social media, it was accompanied with feelings of guilt and shame for some bizarre reason. 

Perhaps this is just helping me to achieve my full social media blackout more quickly? I do hope so.

Worse still the very few times I did access social media, I was displayed with the same update from an individual that filled me with anger and sadness. I felt as though Facebook knew that the post hit a nerve and decided to keep throwing it in my direction.

I feel all of this emotion is making me more determined to get rid of the damn platforms as quickly as I can, which is surely a good thing.

Another interesting conclusion I found from today is that I felt less likely to use social media as I knew it would involve making a log of it, which I simply could not be bothered to do.

Maybe I have just been overthinking things with the challenge today and hopefully tomorrow will be less tubulous and even more of a success.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.