My Carbon Footprint: Refresh or fail, said nobody ever

The suggestion we are inadequate without an update is not realistic, says Kate Hughes

Omnipresent buying messages tell us that everything will be brighter with a consumer splurge (Getty/iStock)

It’s all my best mate’s fault. She came around last week and casually deposited a copy of the countryside aspirational living type of mag she’s got a rolling subscription to on the sofa. There, in big letters scrawled across the shiny cover – in yellow, obviously – was that word.

Whatever total chaos is going on in the wider world – ignored reports of an “unliveable planet”, genocide, political “leaders” ignoring the law but staying in office because of all the other chaos – nothing says stability, predictability, hope and, apparently, shopping as the turning of the seasons to spring.

You can sum it all up in one, increasingly grating, instruction: “refresh”. Now that the days are longer, the retail world is yet again telling us we need one – that what we really, definitely need to do right now is refresh our wardrobes, homes, entire lives it seems. That will make everything better. Definitely.