Environmentally Responsible, not Green

I love dolphins, birds and rainforests as much as the next person and used to regard myself as Green, an environmentalist. In fact I wrote the first environmental policy for the Oxford college where I worked in the early noughties.

However now I find that being 'Green' seems to entail ditching all my old school tech and investing in a load of smart technology with built-in obsolescence and believing in scary sounding concepts like 'global compliance' and 'depopulation', I am having to revise my position and thus Green identity.

My idea of being environmentally responsible is somewhat different;

• Rescuing heritage buildings and retro-greening them in preference to demolition and erection of glass and concrete blocks with a 50 year life span.
• Walking, cycling or busing most places but occasionally driving a 16-year old car containing no unnecessary electrics or air conditioning but which has outlived its carbon footprint, passess its yearly emissions test, runs on unleaded and is easy to repair.
• Expecting clothes to last at least 5 years.
• Seldom flying
• Recycling
• Remaining child free
• Not wasting food or anything else (if I can help it)
• Being an almost-vegan (aside from the odd bit of cheese)
• Ignoring most fashion and fippery (ok unless it's a REALLY cute piece of jewellery)
• Eschewing so-called 'smart' technology including the Internet of Things, which are all just a waste of electricity and batteries to perform simple tasks I am more than capable of performing myself.
• If I could buy a computer that lasted a decade and a mobile phone ditto, I'd be delighted, but computers tend to have a 5-year lifespan tops, even with upgrading works and you are lucky to get 2 years out of a mobile phone before the manufacturers cease support for it and it becomes increasingly unusable. You cannot even remove the battery from new phones any more.
• Being strongly opposed to scrapping pefectly good cars, utility meters, boilers and street lights in favour of over-engineered, ugly and inflexible new ones, which claim to be green, but will take years to prove it and meanwhile could have detrimental affects on our health.

In a nutshell my own personal environmentalism translates into 'being sensible' and not buying stuff for the sake of it.

'Extinction Rebellion' and Greta Thunberg have to all intents and purposes, been put out of a job by the current CV crisis.
Enter various wealthy public figures, stage left, to opine that the world is 'over-populated' and that de-population measures will need to be adopted.

Whoah! Let's stop right there shall we?
1. Who are these (mostly unelected) public figures to make these decisions and without public consultation or consent?
2. How is there an ethical means of shrinking the world population within the next ten years beyond making free contraception universally available to all and tax breaks and other financial incentives to encourage people to have fewer kids? (and yes, I do want my enormous tax break for having none!).
According to 'Freakonomics' human beings respond best to financial incentives for behavioural changes.

If there is no ethical, consensual and transparent means of bringing this about, how is the architect of de-population any better than Mr H.itler? How is de-population any different to g.enocide?

If you adulterate a human being's food, environment, air, water or medicine to compromise their natural health and life span, this is murder. As for wars, whether military or germ, these are not ethically acceptable population thinners either.

I do not consent to this world and nor should you. You can bet your bottom dollar that the super-rich are not going to be affected by it, same as they are exempted most other human issues.

If you think I am being melodramatic, do your own research.  It doesn't take many clicks to find verifiable evidence on independent news sites. And it's a head frack to say the least.

Only don't forget to speak out and share the knowledge when you do. Bad things happen when good people do nothing. Moreover...

Ask What Your Government Can Green For You

A culture of environmental blame and guilt is putting the onus on every one of we wanton wastrels of Earth's precious resources to mend our ways. And yes of course, the vast majority of us have 'oil on our hands' and need to do a great deal more than we're currently doing to neutralise our big ugly carbon bootprints.
However turn the issue around and consider what a handy smokescreen this is to distract us from enquiring too closely what our own government is doing about the environment, yes, that august body we look to for leadership and which was elected (albeit by the narrowest whisker), to lead, and let's ask our 'Brownfield site' the following key questions;-

• Where is the Buy British campaign (sod the EU restrictions, this is important) to reduce food miles and encourage home grown organic farmers?
• Where is the re-nationalised train service run on the same efficient lines as the Swiss and not designed to price us off because it cannot cope with demand? Why is freight traffic not being re-patriated to the railways and off the roads?
• Where is the rejection of out-of-town retail parks to encourage customers to walk and prevent town centres turning into ghost towns?
• Where is the 4 x 4 taxing of 4 x 4's and PCV's for those with fewer than four children?
• Why do developers have to pay VAT to restore old buildings, but not to build new ones?
• Why are new buildings not erected to last at least 100 years and compulsory eco-builds? (new buildings appear to be following in the wake of the rest of our throwaway society with an average shelf life of only 40 years).
• Why are throwaway fashion shops not severely taxed?
• Can we dump all our old analogue tellies and radios outside No. 10 for re-cycling?
• Why de-regulate junk mail? The government should be banning all junk mail and newspaper/magazine inserts if we much-maligned householders are supposed to be reducing our waste.
• Where is the reduction in food packaging?
• Why is there no campaign against built-in obsolescence (and we all know they can make a a torch bulb last longer than 2 years!)
• Why is there no campaign against the throwaway society and consumerism for the sake of it?
• Why have the council started leaving my lovingly washed glass items on the driveway instead of taking them away, and spurning my conscientious shreddings (also advised to prevent ID theft)?
• Why does my paper re-cycling bin have no lid so that if it rains they will not collect it and if I put it in my own bin (with a lid) they won't collect it either?
• Why are food leftovers not accepted as pig swill any more. Is pig swill any less safe for pigs than mechanically recovered meat, ash and assorted hormones and additives?
• Why are they charging us for re-cycling?
• When is the free school bus going to be reinstated, so the majority of children can be transported to school in safety?
• Can we 'infrequent flyers' have an incentive to stay grounded? £50 a year at Christmas perhaps?
• Can someone please tell all local governments and utility companies to please STOP deluging us with leaflets and newsletters telling us how much paper they're saving and how the latest nuisance water shut-off or road closure is doing us a favour really!
• What is each MP and Minister individually doing as a shining example to us all?
• Can I have a free bicycle?

I don't support 'pay as you throw' incidentally. It is just an excuse to separate charges so that councils can cash in. I remember what happened to my grandparents' bills some years ago. The moment 'water' became a separate cost to be paid to a private water company and not part of the all-inclusive local council 'rates' charge, it started becoming an exhorbitant charge in its own right and my grandparents never got a penny back in rebate either, now the 'rates' no longer paid for water. To further confuse and confound taxpayers from protesting, councils countrywide started re-branding 'rates' council tax, notwithstanding a costly and disastrous flirtation with 'poll tax' in between.

UPDATE 30/08/07: Friends of the Earth have just contacted me to mention their campaign to put pressure on the British Government to do more (hurrah!). It's called The Big Ask

*Posting photo by me!

Housing a Crisis

While the factors of increased immigration combined with a slowdown in house-building are oft-parroted as the causes of the housing shortage in this country, few pundits seem to have much to say about the biggest reason of all for the UK housing shortage - namely the breakdown of family life, marriage and the concept of live-in relationships in general and the fact that virtually every time a household breaks up an extra household is created.
Is it considered too 'judgemental' or 'Nanny-stateish' to mention? Or more to the point is it the case that if it were acknowledged, someone would then be obliged to do something about it? Other than the lavish £20 a week incentive to marry suggested by the Tories (which might just about pay for the wedding day by the time of most divorces!).

Or might government acknowledgement of the problem lead to a more uncomfortable line of questioning straying dangerously into the psychological, aka why, in an age where it's theoretically never been easier to be gay, straight, bi or just housemates with a global pool of partners/friends to choose from, and with the majority of us claiming we don't want to be lonely, are so many of us paradoxically opting for our own front doors?

And is there a parallel between this growing preference and that other selfish desire - to each cocoon ourselves in our very own tin box transport rather than rely on communal transport or live closer to where we work?
Not that public transport currently makes itself amenable or even a viable option for many, granted.

However neither of these choices sits well with the green remit. Indeed there are few choices more environmentally-hostile one can make than living alone and owning one's own car. Sharing and co-operation would seem to be the only green and future-proof options. Guardian: Solo Living's Eco Threat BBC Single Households 'waste energy'

I speak as a paid-up hypocrite incidentally, fully guilty of both. Which isn't to say I actively chose to remain unmarried or 'put my career first' as the euphemism goes - and I keep the gratuitous driving to a minimum, own few gadgets, and re-cycle to the best of my ability. But after a life that didn't quite work out in the way I might originally have hoped and two stressful housemates with 'problems' in succession, I needed a break from living with 'other people', whatever the financial stretch. Hopefully one day I will be able to share my space, and even my life again, fully. But for now I relish the sanity and peace of my own space and the chance to re-charge the inner batteries!

But all this is by the by. What is 'other peoples' excuse? Do all single people have problems that render them unable to live harmoniously with one another? Why do so many relationships and marriages break down so quickly? Do we all give up too easily these days or are we dizzied by the potential global 'sweetie shop' of partner choice to the extent that we never make a full decision about or commitment to anyone, on the basis that we might meet another we like even better just round the corner? Perhaps the pervasive influence of drink and drugs have had a greater effect on societal breakdown than anyone dare admit. Certainly I like to hope I've always worked at most relationships and entered into them with hope in my heart that they might be for life and not just for Christmas!

It seems that social engineers as well as civil engineers will be needed to construct a more cohesive society, and long-term happiness and how to attain it might also need to be key ingredients in the housing-for-all equation, if never quite developed into a science as exact as floor loading!

For my poem 'Great Britain 2030' which relates to much of the above, visit Oliver's Poetry

Re-Cycling

man in dustbin!,
originally uploaded by i am yj.

I tried to re-cycle a boyfriend once.

But the council fined me £120 for my civic mindedness.

Apparently I'd put him out on the wrong day in the wrong bin...

Carbon Trading Coup!

A good start to the day today.

I sold my neighbour my excess carbon trading tokens to offset his new swimming pool.

Nice, huh?

At last I can afford to put my central heating on more often!

The First Eco-Warriors

There's Eco-Warriors and eco-worriers...

Re-Cycled

Bubble and squeak at least twice a week
They grew their own nil-food mile organic vegetables.
Kept their own GM-free chickens during the war
Had a bedtime routine of unplugging everything,
Lit and heated only the rooms they were using.
Two suits and three dresses of daily use and Sunday best
Every envelope, bag, bottle and bit of string re-used.
Furniture circa 1926 wedding, and 'til death did they part.
Evenings were whist, being good neighbours and mending,
Indulgence was following the Shell Guide in a dormobile
Around Britain in fifty five summers,
And two flights in their seventies, reluctantly persuaded.
Disgusted when the television broke down after only 23 years
And couldn't be fixed.
Appalled when the vacuum cleaner blew, a mere stripling of 19
Loathe to admit defeat and throw anything away.
My grandparents were committed environmentalists
For people who didn't know the meaning of the word.
The maddest they went was a Fridgidaire
When fifties white-good fever swept Britain in 1955.
Even the TV was a retirement present from Grandpa's firm
Fashion didn't exist - there was no temptation they couldn't resist
And they died contented in their late 80's in the early 90's
Still blissfully unaware that the purpose of existence is spending
And consumption had moved on from TB.
Or perhaps they knew it alright, but chose to disregard.
I think about them as I put my bottles in the bottle bank
My newspapers in the paper bank
And get back in the car
For the five minute drive home.

© LS King 2006