Katalin Szili: a lifestyle with a small footprint can lead to a sustainable future

Katalin Szili, in her presentation to the management of the Pensioners’ Association as part of the Changers project aimed at informing the elderly rural population about the sustainable economy and environment, indicated that the small-footprint lifestyle includes solutions such as zero-energy active homes, plant-based meals, everyday climate-friendly, energy-conscious green lifestyle, they contain the elements of the car and airplane exemption.

Methods based on social justice and active citizenship can also be classified here, focusing primarily on local resources and the economy, on well-being that means happiness and not on well-being used in the material sense, he added.

Katalin Szili pointed out that the world’s population exceeded one billion in 1804, 8 billion by 2022, and is expected to exceed 11 billion by 2100, while the population of Eastern Europe is decreasing, and the rate of decrease in the Baltics exceeds 20 percent. as predicted.

While in 1970 humanity used one planet’s worth of resources in one year, today this number has increased to 1.75, he noted.

The honorary president spoke about the ecological footprint: if we divided the Earth’s area by the number of people, each inhabitant of the world would get 2.5 hectares, on average we use much more than that, 3.7 hectares in Hungary.

According to a survey, 60 percent of young people between the ages of 16 and 25 are especially worried about their future, and what the future will be like depends a lot on what our present is like and how many resources we ourselves use, he said.