Recently in education Category

This is my last post for Community Care, and I'd like to thank all readers, especially the few who have written interesting comments, and my employers at Community Care who have been so good to me.

Green Man meets a Morsbag

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Over the past few years there's been a lot of noise about the evils of plastic bags.  They've been blamed for filling up landfills and inflating people's carbon footprints, mimicking jellyfish and confusing turtles, even being labelled 'witches knickers' when blown into Irish hedges and trees.  Now, in the grand scheme of things, plastic bags are not the biggest of our consumption 'wrongs', despite a million being given out every minute.  But every little thing we do to improve the problem helps us go in the right direction.

Green Man wonders how to get the message across?

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There are many ways to convey a message.  And when it comes to climate change and overconsumption, there are blogs, protest marches, films, and I've just discovered poetry.

 

So, I'd like you to click on this link: http://www.myspace.com/dannychivers and then click on the poem 'Consumed' by Danny Chivers, and listen, whilst you read the text.  But as I'm inexperienced in this bloggy webby thing, I've discovered that clicking on this opens Danny's page in the same window so you'll have to open a new window with this page in to read the poem at the same time.  Getting the message across isn't always that easy!

CONSUMED

By Danny Chivers

Plastic throwaway junk won't go away:

Sixty thousand tonnes or so a day.

The styrene shells from 'round Big Macs;

The bags from crisps and other snacks;

Teetering stacks of Tetrapaks

Forced into bulging rubbish sacks.

Landfill: a fine memento mori

Monument to our vain glory...

But this is only half the story.

 

Coal fuels the dark, satanic mills

That choke the air in Indo-China

Making useless dross to fill

Our homes and dustbin-liners.

This trail of fault gives a result

You might find rather strange

With every piece of merchandise

Included in the burger price

And every pack of useless tat:

"Look Mum - free climate change!"

And so we're cooking the planet

With fresh fruit packaging, gnomes with wacky grins

Odd little plastic inside cracker things

Blow-up chairs, spray-on hair,

Clothes you know you'll never wear

Low-fat grills, weight-loss pills

Electric salt and pepper mills

Garden strimmers, nose-hair trimmers

Buzzing belts to make you slimmer

Blackhead guns, rubber nuns,

Cuddly emoticons

Plasma screens, ski machines,

Ant and Dec figurines

Flashing ties, dolls that cry

Another book on Princess Di

Electronic Hang-Man

Fake tan, Cillit Bang

Bottled water, coin sorters

Stuff to make your eyebrows shorter

Fake rocks, heated socks

The complete DVD boxed

Films of Michael J. Fox

In a Teen Wolf lunch box

A robot dog called Humper who thrusts gamely at your leg

While you de-bobble your jumper and auto-de-shell your egg.

Wave goodbye to spills with this fantastic

Olive oil decanter,

And get festive with this life-sized plastic

Yoda dressed as Santa.

 

Every tragic item in this wretched litany is real

So please try to understand just how ridiculous I feel

Attempting to explain this to my unbelieving friends

Like some mad prophet of doom convinced the world's about to end:

"All those Kinder Eggs you buy

Will drain Botswana's soils dry!

Your room-perfumer (Alpine Fresh)

Is flooding towns in Bangladesh!

How far has the Sahara grown

For your dancing banana phone?"

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised

They've not yet done all I advised

And of course it makes far more sense

To just ignore the evidence

And keep on wiping out the species by not turning off our PCs

Fill our kettles to the top and ruin another country's crops

Watch the coral reefs erode in the name of stand-by mode

Turn Oxfordshire into an isthmus buying strawberries at Christmas...

The methane locked in frozen bogs,

Could thaw, and push us past the brink

But we need cute hats for our dogs

And plastic stirrers for our drinks...

But why? We know the marketeers

Are preying on our hopes and fears

With pseudoscientific junk

To make us buy their bottled gunk

We know it's nonsense when they swear

We need their slime to shine our hair

And four layers round a tangerine

To keep our kids safe from gangrene

It's not too pro-vitamin complex

For us to understand

That their fun for all the family is getting out of hand

It's a crazy, one-off deal

(Blind tasters all agree)

Using mass consumer growth to run the world's economy

Try to get a New! Flexi-Grip!

On what I'm trying to say

Things that add nothing to our lives

Take others' lives away

And bring eco-armageddon

A bit closer every day

We know we can live rich, full lives

Without their junk, and waste, and lies

And sensible restraint could save

Us from our closest ever shave.

To easy-swift-wipe clean this mess

(As proved by independent tests)

We need new rules on tax and trade

To stop this junk from being made

So join me on the barricades

                                               And start demanding LESS!

 

I met Danny at a meeting of the Climate Speakers Network.  Which means you can easily book Danny (or any of us!) to come and speak (or in Danny's case, perform) at an event or to a group.  And in Danny's case, this would be entertaining as well as informative.

 

 

Green Man celebrates Lent... sort of... with a cigarette!

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I quite like the idea of Lent, despite my not being Christian.  I like the idea of giving up stuff... eating less... perhaps no chocolate, or stopping something more 'sinful' like smoking... Anything which can reduce our profligate consumption has got to be good, and if this reduction helps our health, even better.

Earlier this week I took the train up to Middlesborough to do some filming wih the BBC, for the programme 'Inside Out' which has local editions for the different regions.  I'd been asked to go and help a radio presenter, John Foster, start a week of living on a pound a day.  This was inspired by a book by Kath Kelly called How I Lived a Year On Just a Pound A Day.

Green Man learns to 'ooffoo' and is definitely Not Stupid!

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As the Green movement gathers speed and more and more people realise they should be part of the solution, as if they are not, they are part of the problem, more networking websites pop up.  I don't know how long it's been in existence, but I've discovered ooffoo.  This is hosted by The Natural Collection, and is a platform which allows people to swap and recycle, share information or ideas, read reviews and discuss things.  It is restricted to things which benefit the Planet and people... and I've listed my compost as an 'offer'.  And if you were wondering where 'ooffoo' came from... it's HTML programming speak for the colour green!

Green Man supports the 'Open Eye' Campaign

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I only learned about the new 'Early Years Foundation Stage'  a few weeks ago, catching up on a Summer Edition of Green World which had got lost in my cluttered day bag.  I was appalled to find that very young children are now, by law, being compelled to explore ICT technology and are subjects of targets and literacy goals.

Green Man on how to persuade people to go greener..

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I subscribe to a number of email newsletters, and one came through last week with news of an eco-calendar which has caused a bit of controversy. Ethical Junction member Flipside Vision have produced a 'Calendar of Climate Change' for 2009 with a plethora of wonderful images depicting our world, many of which have significant connections to climate change themes.  For instance, February has an image of a Dutch painting of a windmill and a canal, and alongside this, a smaller picture of modern windmills which generate electricity.

Late last week I had a meeting with a new friend who had come to York to participate in a historical re-enactment event.  I knew nothing about this pastime/lifestyle apart from seeing quite a few re-enactors at the Norfolk Park event in Sheffield a few years ago, when I attended as Professor Fiddlesticks. It looked as if they were having fun, but I though little more about it.

Green Man recommends a good book

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Books per se are not that green.  They use lots of resources in their manufacture, are printed in one place and have to be carted all over the place and are heavy.  Most are only read once and then sit in a bookshelf... OK, bookshelves are a way of sequestering carbon, but really we should share our books and use libraries more... but I am going to suggest you go and buy a good book. (And when you've read it, lend it to friends!)

 

I am very fond of Kate Lock, whom I first came accross as a columnist in the York Press, and soon met as she was having some problems with her compost and she asked a volunteer York Rotter to come and sort it out.  It turned out that she was on some kind of mission to be greener and that my assisting her meant that I would appear in the book she was crafting.  That book is now on sale and I have spent a good few hours of my holiday immersed in it..   'Confessions of an Eco-Shopper, the true story of one woman's mission to go green' (ISBN 978 0340 954676, Hodder & Stoughton 2008) is an excellent read, with everyday challenges such as having a veggie-box delivery and wondering what to do with unknown veg,  growing her own herbs and salads, ethical fish suppers, dispensing with the bleach and using vinegar instead, experimenting with 'green and reusable' sanitary protection, finding out if fair-trade tastes as good as 'ordinary' teas and coffees.  Kate put a lot of effort into researching the book, trialling all-sorts of products and lifestyle changes.  Of course my favourite 'Isle' (its arranged like a supermarket!) is the one on rubbish and recycling, where we follow her path from non-composter to happy and successful rotter, even trying out a wormery and 'Bokashi' to recycle her cooked and meaty foodstuff wastes.

 

I read the book cover to cover, and learned a lot.  It is really good to read a female approach to living a greener life... so many commentators are male, and they tend not to write about clothes, cosmetics or sanitary-wear.  So I am going to shamelessly plunder some of these topics for future blog posts.  Although Kate thanks me for helping her with her composting, I'm sure she will see this as a 'fair swap'!