“My mum died four years ago and I have already thrown away all the jumpers she knitted for me.”
So begins an old blog entry I found today, loitering in the drafts folder since November last year. I’m publishing it now, unfinished (see the last paragraph), exactly as I found it. I think it speaks to my current state of mind and my deep feelings about the culture of consumption in which I find myself living and upon which I am dependent for my continued wellbeing. This is how it continues:
Despite the greenwash, Tetrapaks are made from a three-part composite of cardboard, polyethylene plastic and aluminum foil. The cardboard fiber can be separated for reuse in paper products and, I’ve read, there are some limited uses for the resulting aluminum-polyethylene mixture. And it takes energy to separate them. A quick scan of the web today reveals that not all UK councils offer collection points for them and I have not managed to work out whether or not those that do process them locally, or ship them abroad for processing. And there’s a limit to how many home-recycled tetrapak wallets you need.
Soy beans are not native of the UK and dry beans are imported. If you can live with that, you can buy half a kilo of dry beans in a paper or plastic bag, and make several litres of tasty soy milk. It’s even more fun if you do it with your friends.
Here’s an interesting and informative video about what choices we make regarding the possibility of global catastrophes within our lifetime.
Got ten minutes? Watch it.
Not got ten minutes? What the hell are you doing reading my blog? The only possible reason you don’t have ten minutes to inform yourself about the most important choice you ever make in your life is because you have already made that choice and you have chosen to take action.
My photo of home-cooked maize meal with cabbage and carrots which now appears on the Ugali page in Wikipedia
A while back I posted an entry here about home-cooked Kenyan maize dish called Ugali and how this had given me a sense of connection with my time in Kenya. Well today I’m celebrating the fact that this photo (which I published on Flickr under a Creative Commons licence that allows it to be reused as long as I am credited as author) has found its way onto the Wikipedia entry for Ugali!
In case you want to know more about this stuff, including how to make it, I once blogged the recipe as a flowchart.
The campaign for the Prime Minsiter to make a televised address to the nation on Climate Change
I think it’s a great idea to use a web site, influding a Facebook page, to petition the Prime Minister to make an address to the nation on Climate Change. Whether or not you believe that politicans are able and wiling to make a difference, I believe it will bring the debate to the attention of many people who currently allow themselves to think it is not important precisely because the government is not treating it as such.
Returning to the subject of my recent visit to Climate Camp, I want to try and sort out some of my thoughts on the question of activism.
Climate camp is “The Camp For Climate Action”
a place for anyone who wants to take action on climate change; for anyone who’s fed up with empty government rhetoric and corporate spin; for anyone who’s worried that the small steps they’re taking aren’t enough to match the scale of the problem; and for anyone who’s worried about our future and wants to do something about it. — Climate Camp website
A couple of weeks ago I was talking about my own challenge to take action for precisely these reasons: I am worried that the small steps I’m taking aren’t enough to match the scale of the problem. Read the rest of this entry »
My experience of Climate Camp was a startling and challenging one. A lot of experiences and information in a very short time; my thoughts and feelings are scattered and, to some extent, shattered. More of that later but first a few words about the police. Read the rest of this entry »
After a couple of days of re-sealing tent seams and adjusting the gears on my bike, the bike-trailer is full of sleeping bags and mats and the packed lunch is ready. Bitterjug is cycling to climate camp, leaving in three hours time.
Despite my recent challenge to self to do something about the state of the planet, I neither wrote here what it was that I wanted to do; and neither, in fact, have I done it. What’s that all about? Read the rest of this entry »
Karen called me a gardener a month ago at Schumacher college, because I had found my garden. I replied that we were not real gardeners until we had eaten from our garden. That time has come. I
