If my week in Greece has taught me anything about how nature and people can live side by side - it’s this - we have the solutions.
Some of them very simple but we just need those making decisions in NI to use their noggins.
Take the glass walls dotted around the city of Athens. Each and every pane has a black bird sticker right in the middle so the city’s many feathered friends see them and can avoid a deathly collision.
Read more: Stormont probe scrapped after department to be reviewed cuts cash for watchdog
But back in good old NI, I recently had to scoop up an ill fated racing pigeon that sped head on into a glass bus stop at Tamnamore park and ride.
Its outline was imprinted on the glass, it lay lifeless below when I found it.
I pointed this out to Translink on Twitter, suggesting they put stickers on such shelters to help out birds, and didn’t get a reply.
How hard would it be to consider the many creatures we share our wee part of the world with, when we are well aware of the damage such reidiculous oversights can cause?
Greek authorities on the other hand, have spared birds a thought. And the city is buzzing with them.
But that could also be because of the tree lined streets, squares and circles where people can gather below leafy branches to relax with friends on the long afternoons.
Here the buildings are covered in greenery, allowed to creep across facades and there are few balconies not teeming with life of the horticultural kind.
And some of those trees even had fruit, like oranges, hanging from them for people to pick and eat.
One taxi driver even had a plant in his car - I kid you not. But why not, when we know the positive impact being surrounded by greenery can have on our health and wellbeing.
Athenians also do city life a lot better than us. Unlike Belfast, people live above its shops, offices and supermarkets and the result is a place that always feels busy and like there’s something to do or see.
I’ve spoken about this before on this page - that we need to get people back into the heart of Belfast - and what a difference it would make.
But in order to do that, we must first make it a city centre worth living in - with safe streets and parks where kids can play and apartments people would like to raise a family in.
Pushing everyone out into the suburbs has done nothing but kill the beating heart of our towns and cities - for what is a metropolis without people in it.
I’d love to see the dilapidated buildings spreading like a fungus across the once busy streets repurposed with homes and above and businesses below.
It would help cut our seemingly endless housing lists and I have no doubt, provide a to central businesses.
Already you can see the difference a few student blocks have made to the area around Ulster University.
We need to get away from this ingrained mindset that centres are just for working, shopping and drinking - and start believing that people can live fulfilled lives their hearts.
But first, let’s get those streets lined with trees, build bike lanes that work and that the powers that be will actually police for bad parking.
Let’s start thinking about Belfast, Derry and more as places where people could have everything within minutes of their homes and get on board with the idea that there’s a place for nature there too.
Without nature, there is no us
As I watch with bated breathe to see what happens with the Nature Restoration Law currently being debated, sliced and diced by the European Parliament, I can’t help but wonder why some people haven’t connected the dots yet.
Without nature, there is no us.
We need trees to breathe, we need healthy oceans to provide us with food and regulate our weather systems and we need healthy soils to grow food. And we need clean air for our health and wellbeing.
I know farmers often feel they get the brunt of climate and nature restoration outrage.
But in recent weeks groups representing them on these islands haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory.
And the rhetoric that has resulted from that has been misleading at best and down right dangerous, at its worst.
No one is coming to take land away from farmers - people want farmers to keep working - but in harmony with nature and not at its expense.
We can’t just keep taking and taking and expect our ecosystems to suck it up - they just can’t any more.
On this wee island, we know agricultural emissions are the biggest cause of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution to our waterways.
I think it’s high time we had an honest and open debate about the amount of dairy, beef, pigs and chickens we rear in this wee place and how we reduce the millions of animals fattened and sent to slaughter here every year.
We know from a plethora of reports that we don’t need as much meat as we are eating - for our own health and that of the planet. We also know that much of what is produced here is exported to other countries - so we are left dealing with the fallout while food producers and supermarkets who are quite frankly taking the hand out of farmers, rake the profits.
I’m not saying we put people out of business or ruin livelihoods - but we really do need to have a serious debate about the overall impacts of industrial farming on our climate and environment.
That has to start with fair prices for produce and realistic production targets that don’t kill nature.
I hope MEPs do the right thing and set some laws in stone that will change the way we forest, farm and fish and give us some hope that a better future is in sight for everyone.
Eco tip
Don’t forget to leave water out for the wee creatures in your garden. In this heat, the birds and more could be doing with a mini paddling pool of their own.
Just don’t make them too deep and put a few stones in them so insects or anything that falls in can climb it’s way out.
I’d also recommend ditching the hose pipe for a watering can - you’ll waste far less water that way - and it is a precious resource.
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here. To sign up to our FREE newsletters, see here.
