Every day is Earth Day

I’ve been torn about writing something for Earth Day. Earth day should be every single day, and I am so very wary of tokenism. However I rarely make my beliefs explicit here and I have so much stuff to get off my chest, so where do I begin? This blog usually takes a diary form, with me describing something  I’ve seen or experienced of the natural world in a narrative of some kind, and though I do try to infuse it with passion or meaning however slight, so often it just reads like a damn travelogue. Maybe it’s time for once to ditch the pretty narratives and get on with writing about why these places, these animals and plants matter.  Not just why they matter to me personally, (although they do and I’m not intending to scrub the personal from my writing as if it were dirty, quite the opposite) but why they matter to us all.

No matter how little we do to stop global warming, habitat destruction and pollution in general, I don’t (perhaps foolishly) believe we have the capacity to completely destroy life.  But if we carry on dirtying up the nest, Gaia will eventually shuck us off with one elegant shrug; us and all that we live beside in lovestruck familiarity – whales, tigers, all that charismatic fauna we love to watch on tv and all your favourite wild flowers too, we’ll all go together when we go.  When a report is published describing a decline in zooplankton of more than 70% since the 1960s, as top banana in the food chain we need to be worried. If we want a world fit for cockroaches to live in, we are currently going the right way about it.

We all depend on our biosphere. Once that’s screwed so are we all, and oh,  let’s not forget just how extremely screwed our children will be.  There is no way off this planet; some day we will realise that there is no-where left to run. Global warming, habitat destruction and all that these entail make for a crisis far bigger than any other that humanity has had to face, yet we keep our heads down, sweat the small things and do nothing about the big fat gas guzzling elephant in the room.

We can ALL make a difference, by using less energy, lobbying for more clean renewable energy sources and not least protesting the lack of change from on high. Don’t wait for Government or big business to make changes, be the change yourself! Whatever your political or environmental beliefs, who wouldn’t want clean fresh air and a safe place to live,  given the alternative?

Get Busy… click the links and find something positive to do on Earth Day!

Greenpeace International

Greenpeace UK Climate Change Page

Friends Of The Earth International

Energy Saving Trust

Centre For Alternative Technology

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The Earth Is Burning

All yesterday I kept coming to my computer to upload and share images of  a snowy, festive London, and every time I tried my eye was caught by news of unfolding devastation in Australia. It seemed grossly inappropriate; I just couldn’t do it. Harrowing eye witness accounts of entire towns lost in a four storey conflagration made the British reaction to our own extreme weather event feel mortifying,  almost laughably hobbit like – people complaining because they couldn’t get to work? Stamping their feet in indignation when our otherwise gentle climate throws a wobbly and we – horror of horrors – run out of grit for the roads? I do not mean to belittle the danger in our recent unusually heavy snow and rain (people have died here) but I’ve been observing our nations joyless reaction to the whiteout with a growing sense of disbelief. Actually, I’ll qualify that last remark by saying that every single “real” human being I’ve spoken to has loved the unaccustomed snow (the rain not so much) and the carnivalesque effect it has on human behaviour. The unfolding news in Australia has I hope given a new sense of perspective to politicians and press who enjoy the whipping up of shamefully petty discontent and anger to such futile and self serving effect.

I’m currently looking out of my window at swirling black rain clouds and hissing rain; the beauty of last week utterly vanished, we have a leaking roof in the kitchen and it’s so dark here I’m having to work with the light on. There’s no sign that the rain will let up any time this week, and right now it feels like it could easily go on forever. Right now however I’m also profoundly glad of these cold soaking conditions – my dreams have been scorching, acrid.

Ranting about climate change at this point is horribly tempting but then I’d be no better than the politicians and the press – hijacking real and terrible human suffering to pursue an agenda. Right now I just want to express my horror and sympathy to the Australian people, and to anyone with loved ones there.

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Buy nothing day…no purchase necessary

Tomorrow, November 24th 2007 is the UK’s annual Buy nothing day. To quote the official UK website:-

It’s a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life. The rules are simple, for 24 hours you will detox from consumerism and live without shopping. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!

I agree with the above sentiments so strongly, despite being an ethical shop owner myself. That’s right, I don’t even want you to buy from me! I think it’s bizarre that shopping has become such an important leisure activity when there is so much more fun to be had elsewhere. Last weekend I was being dragged round Hamleys in central London by my partner who wanted a gift for his niece. It was so packed in there that security guards were manning the escalators to ensure it was safe, so suffocating you were breathing other peoples air, I lasted about 30 seconds before I frantically squeezed my way out of that shrieking madhouse and on to the tourist clogged but marginally saner Oxford street. Not my idea of a fun way to spend a weekend, and yet it seemed to me that the whole world was out shopping and diddn’t feel my fear and loathing one bit. Do people really, truly enjoy being corralled into consumer hellholes where they will shell out more than they can afford for some vacuous plastic crap that will be spurned and forgotten by boxing day? I confess, I have always been freaked out by how, when it’s the weekend and I grudgingly have to go to some soulless DIY store for some supplies, it is rammed solid with entire families doing what looks suspiciously like recreational shopping. Do me a favour people, on the 24th November, watch a favorite film, go play some football, take a walk on a blustery beach, sunbathe if your climate will allow, eat some pizza, read a good book, start writing that novel, go for a bike ride, sit in the pub all day, go to the park, a museum, a lovely garden, stay in bed, make some stuff, paint a picture, bake a pie… do anything – ANYTHING – but shop!

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Blog action day: the environment

This blog has grown to be mostly about my feelings for and reactions to the natural world rather than a fact packed eco-warriors bible. In the short time I’ve been here I’ve seen so many blogs crammed with lists of “20 ways to save the environment” or “50 ways to cut down on plastic bags” and while I do read them, many are an exercise in recycling in themselves; there is often precious little that is new. At one point I wondered if I shouldn’t be doing those lists too; how could I call myself an environmentalist if I’m not constantly writing about a greener lifestyle, the latest petition to sign or direct action to take. But I don’t want to write about the struggle, or the lists. I feel that caring for the environment has to be more than a numbered bunch of chores, more than a fashionable, sexy blog subject to be toyed with and disposed of in favour of the next big thing. Blogs that give you real, concrete and achievable things to do are vital for providing the information we need and I thank their authors for the work they put in to bringing us this information; but I realised today that my blog isn’t like that. It’s about my passion for the natural world; it’s about the why rather than how.

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What’s wrong with this picture?

It’s a classic image of springtime, delicate apple blossom unfurling on the branches of an orchard tree. What could possibly be wrong here? The problem with this image lies in the date it was taken. It was taken this year on the 16th September; apple blossom is supposed to emerge around about April time. If this is not eerie enough, the same tree was sporting a heavy crop of apples alongside it’s unseasonable flowers.

Similar phenomena have been observed in recent years. This article written in October 2006 describes unseasonal blooms and other signs that plants and animals are becoming increasingly confused as to the season, probably due to global warming. In 2005 there was a “phantom spring” in November, including sightings of red admiral butterflies, trees in blossom and flowering violets.

Allotment holders and other small growers that I know have reported that crops like cabbages and lettuces benefited this year from a very late emergence of butterflies, which in some places only started to fly in August this year. The dull rainy summer kept them grounded; does this mean that they will be breeding late and therefore risking their caterpillars to the onset of winter?

Perhaps apple trees use light and day length to gauge when the seasons change – if this is so, then it may explain the freak blooms. This summer was possibly one of the dreariest ever, and lack of light for a couple of months may have fooled these trees into thinking that winter has already occurred. I’m going to be watching out for other peculiar effects of our cold, dark rainy summer.

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