Plastic Fetish
Consumerism, Society — by George Monbiot April 10, 2009
by George Monbiot – journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
Do you remember that unspeakably naff designer accessory, I’m Not A Plastic Bag? The “design”, by Anya Hindmarch, involved thinking up the gauchest slogan ever contrived then printing it on a white shopping bag of the kind old ladies used in the 1960s. Tens of thousands were sold, at mind-boggling prices.
More to the point, does anyone still use one? There still seems to be a small market among collectors – there’s one for sale on eBay at the moment for £179.99 – but when did you last see someone shopping with one? This excrescence was supposed to be the antidote to the throwaway society. Perhaps the bags haven’t been thrown away, but no self-respecting celeb would be seen dead with one now. They are sooo last year. Anya Hindmarch doesn’t sell them any more: now she markets a new range of granny bags (starting at £165), printed with glossy pictures of designer children, dogs and motorbikes.
Comments (0)More Nails in Satire’s Coffin
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts April 9, 2009
 Click for full view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
Truth is far stranger and dumber than fiction.
Noel Lynch brought the Tesco idiocy to my attention thus:
Today’s Guardian has a half page advert for TESCO. It is headed ‘Turn lights into flights’. It shows a low energy light bulb and says that if you buy it you can get a clubcard voucher that you can turn into 60 Airmiles. So save a small amount of energy by buying a low energy light bulb and then consume a large amount of energy by flying an extra 60 miles. Doh
Quite so.
The Earth Hour folk also drop a bollock with Alanis – really quite breathtakingly numb of them:
Comments (0)Choice and Prosperity
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts April 8, 2009
Click for full view
Courtesy: Throbgoblins
It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? Development and climate change. Such a dilemma – convoluted and labyrinthine, loaded and provocative. Whilst India pushes for escape from endemic poverty by pursuing a Nano for everyone, its islands start to disappear, as do its neighbours. The result of success will be failure. Hmm. Tricky. Plenty of arguments to be had there. Good job we’re all totally focused on it and not distracted by beer and football.
Elsewhere the Murray dries up, as do the Cedars of Lebanon. Bankruptcy beckons.
The poles are not so far apart after all.
When even the CBI say we’re not doing enough, we know we’re in trouble.
Comments (0)Food Forests Across America Campaign Hits the Airwaves
Consumerism, Food Forests, Food Shortages, News, Presentations/Demonstrations — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor April 6, 2009
Food Forests Across America: it’s more than just a wonderful concept – it’s a campaign. If you missed our recent post on this, do check it out.
Eric’s latest news is that tomorrow – Monday April 6th at 8pm Pacific Standard Time – the campaign will hit the airwaves by way of a one and a half hour call-in talkback show on Visionary Culture Radio with Laura Fox. Special guests on the show include:
- Erik Ohlsen – Founder & Director – Permaculture Earth Artisans
- Ethan Roland – Founder & Director – AppleSeed Permaculture
- Marisha Auerbach – Founder & Director – Herb ‘n Wisdom
- Max Meyers – Director – Mendocino Ecological Learning Center
- Jay Ma – Co-Founder, Director of Programs & Development – Living Mandala
- John Valenzuela – Veteran Permaculture Designer, Educator & Consultant
You have the opportunity to call in and get involved in the discussion, or just listen in online. Click here for full details on how to do so.
Comments (0)A Farm for the Future
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 26, 2009
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2750012006939737230
Seeing Permaculture promoted on the BBC is yet another positive sign of the times. In this 50 minute presentation, wildlife film-maker Rebecca Hosking returns to her farming roots – hoping to take over the reins of her family farm in Devon, UK – and duly considers exactly what kind of farm she wants to develop. Significantly, Rebecca looks at where the world is heading in regards to food production, and, in particular, thinks about the serious implications of peaking oil supplies on our fossil-fuel dependent agriculture.
After talking to energy experts, Rebecca seeks out a few UK-based Permaculturists in a bid to learn how some are managing their land without fossil fuel inputs, and on the way discovers the key lesson in Permaculture – that nature is just waiting to work for us, and very productively, if we’d only exercise a few observational skills.
I’m reminded of the following very astute quote:
Comments (4)Michelle Obama Begins Kitchen Garden on White House Lawn
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Demonstration Sites, Economics, Food Shortages, News, Urban Projects — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
Here’s a little more on arguably the best news to come out of politics this year:
And, word around the campfire is that the garden will be organic. You can see a garden plan here. It’s not exactly a food forest, but it’s a great start! Congratulations to all who lobbied the Obamas on this issue. Here’s hoping this little garden will bring the intended results – inspiring millions to do the same.
Comments (2)Following Orders
Alternatives to Political Systems, Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts March 24, 2009
 Click for full view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
More than 7 million quids worth of police will be ensuring that protestors don’t contaminate the G20 summit with any new ideas, thus making the world safe for inadequate investment, climate chaos, dehydration and myopia, with some open-ended blank cheques thrown in.
So, all in all, a nice little inheritance for the kids. But Nil Deperandum. The revolution starts at home.
Comments (0)In Memory of Dorothy Stang
Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 21, 2009
Preamble: I post the following today, as next Wednesday night (8pm March 25, 2009) HBO2 in the U.S. is running the new documentary They Killed Sister Dorothy. If you have opportunity, be sure to watch it. Read the following to find out what it’s about.
If you have opportunity to pick up a January 2007 copy of the National Geographic, take it. It’s easily recognisable by the startling image of a forlorn looking tree, standing alone where was once a thick bio-diverse rainforest. The author, Scott Wallace, unfortunately doesn’t follow through very well on the external connections that are causing the Amazon to shrink, instead focusing on some of the main local antagonists in the battle over the land the forest sits on. Despite this weakness, however, I believe that meeting these characters helps bring the whole tug-of-war over the environment a little closer to home, and in this he’s done an excellent work.
Veggie Garden on White House Lawn
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 20, 2009
We asked for it – a veggie garden on the White House lawn. Could this be true?
ABC News’ Brian Hartman Reports: President Obama’s latest shovel-ready project is close to home — in fact, right in his own yard. In an effort to promote healthy eating, the first family will be planting a vegetable garden right on the White House grounds. – ABC News
The ABC news article says one of the Park Service workers confirmed that the garden will become reality, and went on to state that it will be organised by White House residence staff, not the Park Service staff that normally maintain the grounds. This infers that Michelle Obama will be in charge of the garden, as she is head of residence staff.
Comments (3)Will Obama Allow Organic Farming and Farmers’ Markets to Effectively Get Banned?
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, GMOs, Health & Disease, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 19, 2009
A potential new legally enforced system of regulating how food is produced and processed currently before the U.S. Congress has profound and worrying implications for everyone who eats – and all those seeking to work towards sustainability. Significantly, the Bills before Congress may give a new ‘Food Safety Authority’ enormous powers of control – despite not specifically detailing exactly what this new authority intends to do with this power…. This post needs to be read, considered and acted upon by all.
Note: Feel free to skip my intro, and the background, and jump to the meat if you so desire.
I have a dream.
I dream of an age where governments stop pandering to big business lobbyists, and start incentivising a sensible, transitional shift to small-scale, localised food systems. This dream has our current dependence on (rapidly diminishing) supplies of oil – with its extreme cost in human life and economic and environmental destruction – effectively short-circuited. With current industrialised agriculture consuming ten calories of fossil fuels to create a single calorie of food, I see that this dream, if it doesn’t crystalise into reality, and soon, could quickly become a nightmare.
Comments (4)A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot March 17, 2009
Editor’s Note: While we may tire of hearing bad news – the reality is that this tendency to only want to hear positive news is contributing to disaster. We’ve been ignoring or wishing away the potential impacts of climate catastrophe for decades. Below George Monbiot echoes what I’ve come to understand over the last several years – that averting dangerous climate change is now likely impossible. Does this mean we should give up. Hell no. If averting it is impossible, we need to need to get frantic about minimising it. With many people still asleep on this issue, I’ll risk your disdain by posting the article below.
If you think preventing climate change is politically difficult, look at the political problems of adapting to it.
by George Monbiot – journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it’s over. The years in which more than two degrees of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we’ll be lucky to get away with four degrees. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to what nature sends our way. If we can.
Comments (0)Scrap It
Consumerism, Economics, Financial Management — by George Monbiot March 11, 2009
by George Monbiot – journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
Pay drivers to scrap their cars? We might as well burn ten-pound notes in power stations.
The magic numbers spin before our eyes. No one can grasp the scale of the hand-outs, or understand how public money which didn’t exist – could never exist – for hospitals or schools or public toilets begins to flow as soon as the bankers fall to their knees. We are punch drunk, reeling, uniquely vulnerable – because none of it makes sense any more – to new demands from every species of scrounger.
So prepare yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, for the worst scam of all. It’s another reward for failure, but this one offers no prospect of rescuing the economy. Thanks to its cunning disguise as an environmental measure, we seem willing to be conned. I want to show you why we should resist it.
Comments (2)Zeitgeist Addendum
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 1, 2009
Some of you will have watched ‘Zeitgeist – the Movie‘. I don’t know about you, but I thought it was complete rubbish. I must confess I only watched about a third of it, as right from the beginning I started fact-checking as I went and found it full of holes.
Because of this I was reluctant to view the follow-up – Zeitgeist Addendum. But, in a moment of recklessness, I did, and was pleasantly surprised. It’s long, but well worth a look. Readers who enjoyed Money as Debt, and The Crash Course, will appreciate, in particular, the first half of this new production, as it delves deep into the money system that is shaping our societies and framing our unsustainable way of life. Productions like these are well worth sharing, as they’re helping more and more people to see the need for systemic change – not only at the grass roots level, but also in the entrenched, but failing, economic and political systems that are bringing us to the extreme edge of a viable humanity.
In the latter part of the documentary, the producer Peter Joseph tries to find solutions to the problems well outlined earlier on, but unfortunately however, in my view, he falls well short in this area. But, you guys are all grown ups, so will leave you to come to your own conclusions. Let us know your thoughts:
[googlevideo]7065205277695921912[/googlevideo]
Zeitgeist Addendum
Drag the slider to 1:55 if you want to skip the long ‘arty’ intro
Comments (18)The WHO Farm (The White House Organic Farm)
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 20, 2009
Imagine a United States President that was aware – aware of Peak Oil (and all that this means for our ability to feed ourselves), aware of Peak Soil, aware of Peak Water, aware of the health implications of industrial agriculture, a system that locks us into a cycle of stupidity and is doomed to fail us in every way. Imagine a President that realised that we’re facing an economic and environmental crisis without precedent, where consumer demands will soon become far simpler than they have been – where the desire for cheap electronics and holidays is already giving way to the more pressing need to put affordable food on the table. Such a President might be tempted to set an example to his nation (and, indeed, the world) with the land at his disposal, might he not?
During WWII, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a large Victory Garden on the White House lawn, inspiring millions of Americans by her example. If ever there was a time to inspire citizens with the potential of their lawns to solve a great many problems – now is that time!
Click here to sign the petition to urge the Obamas to ‘Eat the View’.
Comments (3)Supermarket Secrets
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Health & Disease, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 17, 2009
Here’s a great behind the scenes look at modern supermarket and supply chain practices that have significant implications on the health of our environment, our animals, our food – and ultimately our own health. If you don’t have more than a few minutes up your sleeve, bookmark this to watch when you do – as these are two full (and very interesting!) 49 minute documentary episodes.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5774892958354867332
Part I: 49 minutes
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