17 Alternatives

If we were less captivated by property, what else might we spend our energy on? 

Here's 17 possible options:

  1. Eradicate Poverty
  2. Feed Everyone
  3. Good Health and Well-being
  4. Develop and Deliver Quality Education
  5. Gender Equality
  6. Provide Clean Water and Sanitation
  7. Guarantee Affordable and Clean Energy
  8. Decent Work and Sustainable Economic Practices
  9. Access to Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
  10. Reverse Rising Inequality
  11. Sustainable Urban Development (OK, this one's about property)
  12. Make our Ecological Footprint Smaller
  13. Combat Climate Change
  14. Protect Life Below Water
  15. Care for Life on Land
  16. Live Peacefully and Seek Justice
  17. Work Together

You might recognise them as the UN Sustainable Development Goals. They aren't the be all and end all and seem fairly heady. But practically, if we wanted to, this week we could:

  1. Make an extra sandwich and give it to a homeless person on the way to work.
  2. Plant potatoes in the garden. Heaps of potatoes. So many they'll have to be given away!
  3. Walk around the block.
  4. Sign up to read with a child at the local school.
  5. Take ten minutes to complete one of the online Harvard implicit bias tests.
  6. Put a milk bottle full of water into a toilet cistern. (Google search it if you don't know why).
  7. Bike or walk somewhere.
  8. Buy milk from the dairy.
  9. Take the bus. Anywhere.
  10. Read all the "room wanted" ads at the supermarket
  11. Contribute an opinion to a local council consultation.
  12. Turn the heat pump down (or air conditioning up) by one degree.
  13. Bike or walk somewhere again.
  14. Buy dishwashing detergent with less chemicals.
  15. Cook a vegetarian meal.
  16. Apologise to someone.
  17. Become a volunteer mentor for the local school.

Did any of these elicit a response along the lines of "I can't because I need to do XXX on my house"