Looking through the human veil

Apparently, single-celled animals do not edit sense impressions. Donald E. Carr notes that "This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is".

We, being complex of structure and mind, have to make do with our own interpretations. Where our senses fail us our minds attempt to plug the gaps. Perhaps it could be otherwise..

The joy of letting go and simply accepting nature and our world as it is without edits or add-ons, or even subtractions. The joy of a world where all is taken for what it is, has been, or could become. The joy of the whole, where reduction is a temptation resisted. The joy.

Bees signal problems

Last year the ongoing decline in bees was highlighted when a study looking at the UK and Dutch bee populations found that wildflowers that rely on specialist species of bees for pollination have declined in step with the reduction in bee numbers. Together they seemed to be in a joint cycle of decline.

Now we have even more worrying indications that all is not well with bee populations. Studies in the US, where in some states the numbers of bees have been suddenly, perhaps catastrophically, decimated have talked of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This happens when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear. According to a report in 15th April edition of The Independent "The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives."

This strange and worrying tale takes another turn when CCD is linked to mobile phones and electronic equipment. So far the CCD Working Group in the US is playing down this connection, noting that it has occurred in areas where there are no phone masts or reception. Other potential causes of CCD have been identified as harmful pesticides, increased solar radiation, falling queen fertility, and use of unauthorised bee treatments.

Who knows? However, yet again the fragility of our small planet is emphasised. We mess with our ecosystems at our peril and can initiate responses and changes that we can neither understand nor easily stop. One day we will view our world holistically - hopefully that day is not too far in the future, for all our sakes.

Is green the new cliche?

Yesterday's Observer Woman supplement carried an article entitled "Is green the new black?". First I had to get past my wondering how many more articles, exhibitions and events mildly related to eco-fashion could carry this tediously overused cliche of a title. Then I tried to come to terms with what was actually being said.

"...as with all matters of consumer choice, this growing phenomenon comes with a whole new, and sometimes subtle, set of rules. Falling foul of the ever-expanding green agenda - by, perhaps, serving air miles for supper or driving empty bottles of Cloudy Bay to the recycling centre in the back of the 4x4 - is this year's social obstacle course. Get it wrong and you may as well whack kids, drop litter and chain-smoke Lambert & Butler in public." This was an amusing comment on our greenwash world and, in many ways, took us to the heart of the issue.

A bit of recycling, a bit of slightly shifted consumerism, more organic food and off you go bathing in the delights of greenwash. To my mind the article would have been better called "Carry on consuming and convince yourself you're not". Ultimately fashion and sustainability are irreconcilable bedmates. All the heart wrenching guilt and greenwash posing of the vast majority of fashion designers, producers, and retailers cannot hide that fact. The "social obstacle course" of the "green agenda" was precisely what the Observer article and the numerous others of its ilk are zig zagging their way through. The new black always has to be found in fashion and so will the green that temporarily replaces it. That is not a sustainable position.

Branded and Confused

I recently encountered a new eco-friendly fashion brand. No real news there you might think, and their clothes were hardly the stuff of revolutionary design. What really grabbed my attention was their name. We were introduced to THE NEW TIMELESS COLLECTION BY g=9.8 That's right the brand is g=9.8 Most companies would be content with a catchy strap line, but not g=9.8 They have to explain their name....g=9.8 is the figure for earth's gravitational acceleration,which varies from 9.78 m/s2 (at the equator) to 9.83 m/s2 (at the poles).

Its a catchy and educational strap line I'm sure you'll agree!

Perhaps we should just be pleased that they didn't choose Newton's law of universal gravitation as their brand name.

F = G m1 m2 / r2

F is the force due to gravity, g the acceleration due to gravity, G the Universal Gravitational Constant (6.67x10-11 N.m2/kg2), m the mass and r the distance between two objects.

That Anya Hindmarch bag...again!

I cannot resist returning to the strange tale of the "I'm not a plastic bag" story that is getting so much publicity.

OK so it is not a plastic bag but is it very sustainable? What precisely is it made from? Is it organic cotton, is it fair traded? I don't know the answers, although I fear that at least the answer to the first question is no. It would be great to hear more from the designer and the retailers about the provenance of the bag.

Then there's the colour. If you wanted to make something with a life of shopping and lumping around in stores and on buses then you would not make it cream. I think that this has much more to do with appearance and the fashionability of it than sustainability.

I've said it before but I'll say it again. It has caused another consumer craze - not sustainable. It has a hundred alternatives that are more fit for purpose - not sustainable.

It looks fine to me. It kind of sends a message. That's no big deal. Let's stop going on about it and discuss some real issues of sustainability. Its a fad, a craze, a PR stunt. I won't mention it again (probably!).

Where is the sizzle in climate change?

"Don't sell the sausage sell the sizzle" is an old marketing adage. "Good news sells, bad news switches people off" could be another.

The problem with communicating climate change is that the sizzle and the good news can be hard to spot. Much of the media coverage and the word coming from NGOs is of the "we're all doomed" style. It might keep a few people awake at night and scurrying off to buy energy efficient bulbs while dropping off their recycling, but it isn't societal change at the level many believe to be essential. Maybe that is why there is such a difference between the numbers of people who acknowledge the reality of man-made climate change and those actually prepared to change behaviour. Despair isn't usually the most creative emotion.

Maybe it is time to promote the opportunity that climate change presents. The opportunity to bring creativity and change to our individual and collective lives. The burgeoning Transition Town movement seems to be succeeding because it offers creative community-based responses that allow people to reconnect with neighbours and fellow community members to adapt to climate change and peak oil while actually reinvigorating values that many have yearned for over many years. It is the positive, connecting and creative spiral that is the very opposite of the plummet into impossibility that seems to be the subtext of so much communication of climate change.

Bags Bags and more Bags

So San Francisco supervisors (the kind of equivalent of our Town Councils) have voted for the banning of petroleum-based sacks in the city. The Mayor needs to approve it but it looks likely that he will. This is great news and a step that I hope will begin a massive backlash against the plastic bag culture around the world.

What is our obsession with the polluting, littering, oil consuming plastic bag? Why is getting rid of it such a big deal? In the UK we apparently use 10 billion plastic bags each year a staggering amount by any standards.

The Anya Hindmarch bag being offered in Sainsbury bemuses me further and illustrates the bizarre nature of our relationship with plastic bags. Hindmarch comes up with a bag that says "I'm not a plastic bag", it sells for a fiver, and people go crazy and it sells out. What is the deal with this - we have numerous opportunities to reuse old bags, buy cloth bags, use boxes. Instead the new bag causes a rush of yet more consumerism. I wonder how many will actually get used for shopping?

A secret-shopper survey run by the Grocer magazine, a food retail trade publication, found that Asda used 13 bags to deliver 29 items on a trial of their home-delivery service. With the large supermarkets committing to reduce usage of plastic bags by 25% by the end of 2008 it seems that it is attitudes and habits that need to change first. Consumers seem to pick up plastic bags without thought while retailers issue them without thought.

Maybe we need to follow the San Francisco example and simply ban them - that might concentrate the minds of retailers and consumers alike.

“A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns….”

The quote that I have used to title today's blog is from G.H. Hardy, mathematician and "discoverer" of Ramanujan, the brilliant young Indian mathematician, early in the 20th century. Last night I was able to see the new work emerging from Simon McBurney and Complicite - the theatre company formed in 1983. Complicite is a constantly evolving ensemble of performers and collaborators, now led by McBurney. The first performances were produced at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth.

Conceived and Directed by Simon McBurney, Complicite's A Disappearing Number is a new devised piece meditating on mathematics, cultural identity, creativity and the imagination. Yet it is so much more AND hugely enjoyable, funny, deeply sad, inspiring, and a delight to the eye, ear and mind.

Ostensibly the work explores Ramanujan and Hardy, their work and relationship while simultaneously giving us a window on a number of other relationships divided/linked by space and time. One day on from the production and I still cannot say what it is exactly about, primarily because it is about nothing and everything, associating it all with series theory, string theory, infinity, the past, the present, the future.

It is wonderful stuff that I wholeheartedly recommend. For me it spoke also of sustainability and holism in the way it refused to compartmentalise people, events, time but rather saw that there was more to connect us than we could ever understand.

"An equation for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God." (Ramanujan)

Mind the Gap

The Gap, at least in North America, is going to be selling a white, organic, unbleached, non-chemical dyed t-shirt. Good news - sort of. It will be interesting to learn about the equity in the supply chain - it does not claim to be a fairtrade item.

Where are we headed with ethical consuming? Of course many would say that consuming can never be truly ethical and that it is all a way for monster retailers and brands to help us conveniently forget the REDUCE that comes at the beginning of the reduce, re-use, recycle mantra. Others will point out that we do need clothing, although not in the large quantity that we currently purchase, and that what we buy should comply to the highest ethical standards.

The internet is full of ethical, organic, sustainable, eco, green, conscious fashion. Maybe it is time that the big retailers started to jump on the bandwagon - and Gap are certainly not the first by a long stretch. For me the question remains - is this a response to customer demand or actually a greenwash PR initiative that actually results in greater consumption, more money for retail giants, and another passing fashion?

I hope that the cynical interpretation is proved wrong. Time will tell. For the meantime a weather eye needs to be maintained that ethical fashion doesn't prove to be an oxymoron.

Budget Fudge It

Yesterday's optimism in the beauty of Devon seems a long time ago now as I reflect on Gordon Brown's budget. I fear that Mr Brown will never become Mr Green.

Taxation and fiscal measures surely have to form some part of the response to global heating (a far more meaningful term that the benign warming I always think). Yet the Chancellor seems to have had the wind put up him by the "fuel protests" of a few years back. Now he has no teeth in addressing transport issues and he seems to have lost his nerve completely over flying. Yesterday's budget was a fudge at all levels.

Even the money to protect forests in Afica appears to be the Chancellor's favourite old trick of reallocating or renaming money that had already been committed. Does he think that we are all so naive that we still fall for that soft shoe shuffle?

Billy Bragg once wrote "You can be active with the activists or sleeping with the sleepers". Gordon Brown and the politicians of Westminster are fast asleep so I guess the rest of us better get active - fast.

Blue skies and crisp mornings

Today is just a wonderful, joyous morning in Devon. The sky is blue, the sun is shining brightly and there are the last residual spots of frost on those plants that the sun's rays have not yet penetrated. It was a cold night and a chilly start to the day but perfect in so many ways. As I write I can hear jackdaws, a pheasant exclaim, blackbirds singing and collared doves sharing their calming call. Somehow "it is as it is" seems easier on these kind of days.

Why do we need to be subtle in dealing with gas guzzlers?

While walking through London I was hit once again by the obscene numbers of gas guzzling cars. There were lots of 4x4s of course, but big saloons, lots of sports cars, and plenty of big expensive motors.

Now so far the government approach to discouraging gas guzzlers has been at best a tweak. I say forget this and go in hard! My plan would therefore be to announce that in 3 years' time Road Tax on cars under 1000cc would be nil, on cars 1000 to 1500 it would be the same as now, on 1500 to 2000 it would be three times the current rate, and on cars over 2000 it would be ten times the current rate. At the same time I would remove all duty on biofuels. Equally I would make all cars over 2000cc pay £25 for congestion charge.

This isn't subtle. It doesn't address every nuance of the issues. So what - our aim is to reduce carbon emissions, pollution, and road congestion. So what that many old cars are much bigger polluters than new cars (the dust to dust carbon footprint is still probably lower than buying a new car). I say that this would be crude but effective. It is not so hard that people will simply revolt. Its tough love and I think the planet needs that right now.

Shopping Bags

Marks & Spencer seem to be quick off the mark in their public anouncements on carbon footprints and sustainability yet maybe their staff have not all got the message. I found myself needing to shop there today and wasn't prepared with my usual old bag to put things in. So I found myself in a major struggle with the person on the check out about trying to minimise the number of bags I would use - are check out staff given targets for using as many bags as possible? This came to a head with the British Daffs I purchased - these were deemed to need two bags! When I protested and got them in with the rest of my shopping this was almost viewed as revolutionary action and the look of horror was only barely suppressed. Oh well, the great leap forwards may take longer than I was hoping!

Who is "The motorist"?

It seems that any suggestion to reduce traffic congestion or car use now draws a customary response from one of the motoring organisations. News stories on television or radio usually turn to a talking head from either the AA, RAC, or one of the new organisations "defending" the rights of "the motorist". Who told them that they represent all motorists? I have a breakdown contract with one of the big two but I certainly neither want nor expect them to speak for me on matters of policy. These spokesmen (for generally they seem to be men) always add something along the lines of "Yes we need to adress these important issues" but it always appears to have a subtext of "But we will never support anything that is done to address these important issues."

It is lazy journalism that allows this imbalanced approach and gives airtime to these people. Please note all you defenders of "The Motorist" - you don't represent me and please stop pretending that you do.

Reclaiming Activism

At long last corporates and governments seem to be awakening to the climate change issue. However, I don't think we should be too satisfied with the response to date. We must remain wary of greenwash and the power of the PR machines that back up all our large institutions these days.

Announcing seemingly bold targets for lowering carbon emissions, reducing energy use, increasing recycling and re-use, all sounds like good news. Yet we have to ask if progress towards these goals are going to be transparent, measured, published, and generally meaningful. As a consumer I'd like to know more about what is being done to deliver real change in company behaviour. Reading their supposed good intentions in advertisements and Annual Reports and knowing that they have ticked all the boxes in a Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) report is nowhere near enough.

Of course there is another danger in that we place responsibility solely in the hands of the large companies and institutions. We must not abdicate our personal responsibility for either our own consumption and actions or for pressurising those with financial or political power. We must all become activists, making active choices to support real change.