This Rule doesn’t mean, as yet, that you have to do anything. All it means is a conscious decision to evaluate what you are doing to the environment, the world, and whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. You might choose to change what you do in the light of this evaluation. Or you may not, either because you figure what the heck or because you figure you’re pretty ‘green’ already and don’t need to change anything.

The reason I say ‘Don’t do anything as yet’ is that it is all too easy to rush headlong into action without having all the facts in front of you. You need to know if the changes you are making are actually making things better or worse. For example, when my youngest child was born I was seriously concerned about the reports of the damage disposable nappies are doing. Apparently they take some 500 years to decompose. But I was also concerned that terry nappies take a lot of washing with all the usage of electricity, soap, water etc. And some argue they are both as bad as each other when it comes to damaging the environment. Trouble is, you have to use something or you risk damaging your carpets . . .

So you might like to consider what car you drive; what sort of heating you use in your house; how you get to your holiday destinations (planes aren’t that environmentally friendly by all accounts); whether you recycle; if somebody else can use what you don’t want – that sort of thing. I leave the details entirely up to you (heaven forbid that I should lecture anyone on these matters) but it’s good to have a conscience about these things and to try and minimize the damage we are doing.

This goes back to the big theme underpinning all the Rules, namely that we need to go through our lives with our eyes open, conscious and aware of what we are doing and the effect we are having on the environment and on other people around us. We don’t have to become goody-goodies but we should at least be giving it some thought.

I think the time for complacency is over and it really is time to consider the impact we make quite carefully. And once we have considered it, we might like to start making a few changes to improve things. If we all did a little bit, it would make a grand difference.