I wasn’t very green. I was probably at my worst a decade ago. Way over my allowance for a fair, sustainable human existence on planet earth. I was in the Matrix too – consuming mainstream media, viewing the world through my airbrushed education.

I support the view that we need to change the system. We cannot know other people’s circumstances to presume to tell them what they should do, but we can know our own and make our own choices.

Since the arrival of COVID-19 I have made four important shifts in my own behaviours, because my circumstances have allowed it. I’m not unique and I’m rather late to the party compared to many, and I’m far from perfect.

So how did the shifts come about?

No more flying (I hope) – I haven’t flown for four years now having previously flown an awful lot. I thought offsets might work for a year but it felt like greenwash. Would my employers object if I made the call? No, it turns out. Do I still get asked to present at conferences? Yes, it turns out. Can I still get across Europe? Of course.

I’ve never been a big meat eater. But I did have a phase of ‘discovering’ steak. Yum. For a while. Then one day (and I can’t even remember when – perhaps two years ago) I just stopped eating meat altogether. I don’t yearn for a bacon sandwich. Plant-based steak is just fine. And contrary to the meat-industry propaganda, I still seem to be healthy and happy (though the latter may be helped by the heavy metal). This month I’ve finally made the move to oat milk too.

We’re a five person, two dogs household. We had two cars – one petrol, one diesel. I’ve also been a long distance commuter all my working life. We knew we just had to try and go for electric next. The diesel car failed its MoT. Down to one car. Then a few weeks later in January this year the petrol car got written off in an accident. Next thing you know, with savings and a bit of mortgage and thanks to having a driveway, we now have one electric car and a home charger. We’ve also just been moved from $-hell Energy to Octopus. Hurrah! Intellient Octopus Go means 7.5p per kWh for overnight charging. Add lots of flexible working and a bit of walking and guess what – one car just about does it.

Then earlier this month we took the plunge with some more on the mortgage – 15 solar panels and a 9.5kW battery. There has been a lot of rain since but still the solar energy is making a difference. And we can charge the battery at 7.5p per kWh overnight too now.

Life must be aweful wearing a hair shirt like this surely? Of course not. I don’t miss flying, meat, petrol stations or high energy bills. I do miss the times when the Nolan Principles seemed to apply in public life and experts were seen as something worth having.

Let’s hope the change that IS happening accelerates and we are able to look back from a much greener place to wonder what the hell we were up to collectively in the golden years of fossil fuels