Welcome to ‘Our World Matters’
Welcome to our shiny, shiny new blog. We have a lot of fun things planned for it!
Who are we?
We are Alice and Phil Oakley, two barely-adult writers who got married this October and are still failing to grow up.
We like Jesus and good books, weird facts and fluffy cats, nerdy pop culture and house plants, anything with sweet chilli sauce and definitely a desert afterwards.
And we’re also quite fond of this planet we’re living on. So we started this blog, because that’s what you do when you’re a writer/editor living with another writer/editor. It’s either that or drive each other insane with our rantings.
What exactly is the point of this?
Quite frankly, we’re worried. Our planet is showing serious signs of mistreatment and sickness. When humans get sick, we know it’s in our best interests to look after ourselves and take steps towards recovery.
And one way we can help our planet recover is by living better lives; ones that waste less and use less of the planet’s natural and thinning resources; ones that do not impact other people in negative ways; ones that cultivate healthy bodies and healthy minds.
We want to live lives that care.
We’re not perfect at it yet, but this is our way of saying we’ve had enough of making excuses. This is us taking a stand against any excuses we might have for not living better. This is our challenge to the rest of the world to look at the way they are living too.
So, what are we doing here?
The main reason for this blog is to document. We’ll be writing about the changes we’re making to live better and healthier lives. We’ll share our successes and our failures, our tips and our recommendations. And, this will come as a bit of a shock if you know us personally, we even have a content plan. IKR?! This is proper serious business time.
There are several kinds of posts we’ll be making on here.
1. Small Steps
This will be the weekly catalogue of changes we’re making in our daily life to do right by our planet. They’re small steps because everyone starts somewhere, and everyone is capable of making little changes. That’s the whole point of this project; to show how easy and simple better living can be.
The aim is that every week we’ll do something or talk about something we’ve done to make a positive change, whether that’s the food we’re eating, the clothes we’re buying or plastic-free alternatives we’re trying out. Got any suggestions for changes we could make? We’re all ears.
2. Do They Really Care?
It’s cool to be green these days. Big companies can get praise easily by claiming they’ve reduced their waste production, or switched to a greener material, or just put out a statement about the environment. And it’s good they’re making these changes because big businesses are some of the biggest causes of environmental harm. Their changes will make the most difference. So we think they should be held to account for their whole picture — how much good are they really doing right now and how much work have they got left to do?
3. Plain Ol’ Reviews
There are some pretty snazzy eco products out there now, and we’re very keen to try them out and find out how good of a solution they really are. That’s what these posts will be for — any eco product, service, business or solution we come across.
To give you a taster our first few blogs will be discussing bamboo toothbrushes, a renewable energy provider, how to greenify your period, beeswax food wraps and several pages of me freaking out about my package-free Lush haul. We are very open to being sent products to review, or to suggestions of things we should look into trying.
4. Awesome Person/Company of the Week
The world is slowly waking up greener — more people care about eco living and the fact that our ocean is full of plastic. People are using more reusable bags, reusable coffee cups, refusing plastic straws.
And there are some absolute heroes out there doing so much more — companies who are dedicated to making sure every part of their business is taking care of the planet rather than harming it, or humans going to infinity and beyond to live a better life and make a positive impact on the world. And those people deserve to be recognised. If you know someone awesome, please get in touch — we’d love to write about them.
5. Things to Care About
Change only comes when people care enough to make it happen. These articles are designed to present the reasons you should care, and what exactly we need to care about. When you have the full facts of an issue, it’s a lot easier to do something about it.
6. What Really Mattered This Week
Something we really care about is good mental health; it’s not just important, it’s essential. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes the news can leave us feeling less than positive and very mentally drained, especially if we consume it over social media. So this will be news condensed — just the bits that matter in easy-to-process chunks with quite a lot of happy stories tossed in for good measure.
This has been your official welcome to Our World Matters. We hope you’ll stick around and learn with us. Feel free to yell at us if we’re not posting enough or we’ve forgotten to write about something.
