As always, attempting to lighten my carbon dependency, I tried to bike to the pub yesterday. Dog lead fell through basket, caught in spokes and I was catapulted over the handlebars. Midnight found us in Bath casualty, a lady plastering my right arm. So Green Wife may go off the air for a few weeks (v slow typing with left hand).
I should have taken the car...
Monday, 31 March 2008
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Individual v collective responsibility
In so many ways, trying to be green appears to come back to this: do I do the best for myself and my family - or do I try to do my tiny bit to make things better for the world (even though I know my contribution will have infinitissimal effect)? Like travelling: I would love to take my kids to all the extraordinary, wonderful places I've been - and more. Having those experiences has made me who I am, broadened my emotional and moral as well as physical horizons. Seeing and learning about different cultures has made me aware that ours is not the only way to be, that what seems right for us is not always appropriate for a Madagascan or Indonesian, for existence.
By not flying (theoretically), we are denying those opportunities to our children. How will they suffer as a result?
We were talking about this the other day when my sister asked whether 'martyring' ourselves (ie not flying whenever and wherever we want) makes people react the other way (our family have a strong streak of perversity)? I replied that it wasn't about martyrdom, but about acting according to our conscience. Even to me that sounded priggish. But it's also true. I feel as if I've breasted the watershed, and instead of wanting more stuff, I now want to give it back. An essay I was reading (the introduction to "Do Good Lives Have to cost the Earth?), tried to define happiness, particularly its relationship to money. It found that, over a certain level (about $15,000 pa) there was no correlation. None at all. Although this is inevitably complicated by factors such as expectations, it still makes increasing sense to me. We don't need more stuff to make us happy. We've been conditioned to think we do - thanks Maggie, Coca Cola, Vogue etc. - but it's a load of bollocks.
We've got to realign our expectations, rethink what it is that makes us happy. The same essay suggested that, beyond enough money to satisfy our basic needs, the important vectors to happiness are time and giving something back - helping others. One of the best evenings I had last year was when Mark and I took a couple of beers and walked up the Downs to watch the sunset. It beat the premiere of Casino Royale, dinner at the Dorchester, pretty much everything.
Today, I got inordinate pleasure from planting out the spinach, baking baguettes. The kids loved our 'Night Off' last week, when we switched off the mains, and ate and bathed and read stories by candlelight. We laughed more, stressed less. We were making a tiny difference, but it was more fun than computers and noise and television. I had forgotten how seductive the sound of silence could be.
So maybe the premise is wrong? Perhaps we can do good for the individual and the greater good simultaneously? Perhaps my children won't suffer by not flying to Bogata. Or maybe we'll go by boat.
By not flying (theoretically), we are denying those opportunities to our children. How will they suffer as a result?
We were talking about this the other day when my sister asked whether 'martyring' ourselves (ie not flying whenever and wherever we want) makes people react the other way (our family have a strong streak of perversity)? I replied that it wasn't about martyrdom, but about acting according to our conscience. Even to me that sounded priggish. But it's also true. I feel as if I've breasted the watershed, and instead of wanting more stuff, I now want to give it back. An essay I was reading (the introduction to "Do Good Lives Have to cost the Earth?), tried to define happiness, particularly its relationship to money. It found that, over a certain level (about $15,000 pa) there was no correlation. None at all. Although this is inevitably complicated by factors such as expectations, it still makes increasing sense to me. We don't need more stuff to make us happy. We've been conditioned to think we do - thanks Maggie, Coca Cola, Vogue etc. - but it's a load of bollocks.
We've got to realign our expectations, rethink what it is that makes us happy. The same essay suggested that, beyond enough money to satisfy our basic needs, the important vectors to happiness are time and giving something back - helping others. One of the best evenings I had last year was when Mark and I took a couple of beers and walked up the Downs to watch the sunset. It beat the premiere of Casino Royale, dinner at the Dorchester, pretty much everything.
Today, I got inordinate pleasure from planting out the spinach, baking baguettes. The kids loved our 'Night Off' last week, when we switched off the mains, and ate and bathed and read stories by candlelight. We laughed more, stressed less. We were making a tiny difference, but it was more fun than computers and noise and television. I had forgotten how seductive the sound of silence could be.
So maybe the premise is wrong? Perhaps we can do good for the individual and the greater good simultaneously? Perhaps my children won't suffer by not flying to Bogata. Or maybe we'll go by boat.
Green House
We spent yesterday with friends, and I was acutely aware of how greenness has taken over our lives. Everything I talk about seems to have greenish highlights. It doesn't particularly feel that way to me - which, I suppose is a measure of the extent to which it has become internalised, part of how we think, which must be a good thing?
We went to a movie with the kids and afterwards, Sally suggested picking up a pizza from Sainsburys. 'No can do,' I said. She asked what I was up to, and I gabbled on about setting up an Eco Mums' support group. We talked about holidays and I admitted that Mark hadn't come to South Africa because he refused to get on a plane. And so on. I do hope I'm not getting boring.
I was up in London last week, and a friend asked how it was going on 'Planet Green'. Oh God. I had subjected myself to a 24-hr succession of not-buying opportunities. First, a friend's gallery opening, in which at least a quarter of the paintings were of our fields/trees/hills. I was itching to buy 'Sam's duck house', but managed to restrain myself (or, rather, the price ticket did it for me). We went to an after-party at an obviously very well off Spanish divorcee's house in Knightbridge. A butler in white gloves opened the door, while Philippino ladies wearing starched white doilie aprons handed around plates of canapes before dinner. At least half the food wasn't eaten, and I can't imagine they had a wormery in which to dispose of the excess.
I stayed the night with Fev, who offered me yoghurt for breakfast. I opened the fridge to get it, and found a punnet of Chilean blueberries nestling temptingly on the bottom shelf. 'I'm sorry,' she said. I gobbled the blueberries gratefully and wished she hadn't felt ashamed.
Kate was holding a sale of James's sister's kids knitwear at her house. I would have loved to have got some. I took my cup-candles along, but only J & Kate, Alice and Allie bought them, under pressure. I am going to use the money as seed capital for 'the Eco Mum Movement', perhaps to buy a domain name?
Allie is pregnant, but stressed that she wasn't going to be the sort of mother that pushed the pram around, or kept the baby attached to her hip. I bit my tongue. We bumped into her Mark later, and when I congratulated him, he said, 'It's going to be the Philippino's baby.' I am sure, when it comes, they'll feel different. I hope so.
I know that my friends in London think of us as some sort of curiosity, while I feel that is they who are behind the curve, with their hot houses, fast cars, and long haul holidays.
I came home. I mixed up some dough and put it in the airing cupboard. I hung the washing in the hall, and watered the broad beans growing rapidly across the way. I guess we can't kid ourselves. Mark may have spent months making a greenhouse at the end of the garden, but he needn't have bothered: we're already living in one.
We went to a movie with the kids and afterwards, Sally suggested picking up a pizza from Sainsburys. 'No can do,' I said. She asked what I was up to, and I gabbled on about setting up an Eco Mums' support group. We talked about holidays and I admitted that Mark hadn't come to South Africa because he refused to get on a plane. And so on. I do hope I'm not getting boring.
I was up in London last week, and a friend asked how it was going on 'Planet Green'. Oh God. I had subjected myself to a 24-hr succession of not-buying opportunities. First, a friend's gallery opening, in which at least a quarter of the paintings were of our fields/trees/hills. I was itching to buy 'Sam's duck house', but managed to restrain myself (or, rather, the price ticket did it for me). We went to an after-party at an obviously very well off Spanish divorcee's house in Knightbridge. A butler in white gloves opened the door, while Philippino ladies wearing starched white doilie aprons handed around plates of canapes before dinner. At least half the food wasn't eaten, and I can't imagine they had a wormery in which to dispose of the excess.
I stayed the night with Fev, who offered me yoghurt for breakfast. I opened the fridge to get it, and found a punnet of Chilean blueberries nestling temptingly on the bottom shelf. 'I'm sorry,' she said. I gobbled the blueberries gratefully and wished she hadn't felt ashamed.
Kate was holding a sale of James's sister's kids knitwear at her house. I would have loved to have got some. I took my cup-candles along, but only J & Kate, Alice and Allie bought them, under pressure. I am going to use the money as seed capital for 'the Eco Mum Movement', perhaps to buy a domain name?
Allie is pregnant, but stressed that she wasn't going to be the sort of mother that pushed the pram around, or kept the baby attached to her hip. I bit my tongue. We bumped into her Mark later, and when I congratulated him, he said, 'It's going to be the Philippino's baby.' I am sure, when it comes, they'll feel different. I hope so.
I know that my friends in London think of us as some sort of curiosity, while I feel that is they who are behind the curve, with their hot houses, fast cars, and long haul holidays.
I came home. I mixed up some dough and put it in the airing cupboard. I hung the washing in the hall, and watered the broad beans growing rapidly across the way. I guess we can't kid ourselves. Mark may have spent months making a greenhouse at the end of the garden, but he needn't have bothered: we're already living in one.
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
SA plastic
I knew there was something different this time. The streets and windswept plains of the Cape looked noticeably cleaner. Then, when I went into a supermarket (I had an enforced sabbatical from my supermarket-free existence), and they explained that they charge for each bag, I realised why. Plastic bags used to be known as the national flower of Africa. Now they are virtually extinct. It's brilliant.
Driving back from Heathrow the following week, I saw them everywhere - on the verges, in the hedges and ditches. They are an affront to our landscape. Now that Africa is ridding itself of the scourge, has Britain taken over her mantle of plastic bag nation?
Driving back from Heathrow the following week, I saw them everywhere - on the verges, in the hedges and ditches. They are an affront to our landscape. Now that Africa is ridding itself of the scourge, has Britain taken over her mantle of plastic bag nation?
Fly-by-night
Confession: we have just returned from 11 days in South Africa, and no, we didn't swim there. The kids and I (Mark didn't come), climbed onto a plane for the first time in over a year - and blew about three years of carbon emissions in order to visit my grandmother (their great-grandmother), who is about to celebrate her 91st birthday. It wasn't just us: both my sisters came, niece, brother-in-law, boyfriend-in-law. Granny and Sipho flew down from Johannesburg to Cape Town for a week by the sea. Together, we probably emitted as much as Mali or Guam. Uh-oh.
I wish I could say I felt guilty about it - and I suppose I do, in a way. But it was also heavenly, a beautiful and joyful way to reconnect to my roots - both familial and geographical. I could try to argue that it was important. Certainly it brought a huge amount of joy to Granny. It opened Alf and Notty's horizons: they learned to surf, ride a camel, and what naturally-ripened mangoes taste like. We ate figs straight from the tree, fish fresh from the ocean. We saw squatter camps and vast, empty beaches. We talked about Mandela and apartheid, which should be a part of their history and heritage, as it is of mine.
On the grand scale of things, our proportion of the carbon emitted by our plane was a proverbial grain of sand. But it was also more than that. It was a betrayal of my moral position. It ran against what I've been preaching to all and sundry. It was a big, fat hypocrisy. What's the point of freezing in an unheated house all winter when I go and heat the equivalent of a hotel for a year? Someone described carbon offsetting as 'like eating a chocolate brownie and then going for a run'. That makes a bit of sense to me. This was more like gorging on ten double Big Macs and a gallon fries - with a Diet Coke on the side. Greedy, indulgent, not strictly necessary, but.... just wonderful.
I can't calculate the benefit from our trip. Nor do I want to. I want it to be a glorious memory, not an albatross.
But if it showed me one thing, it is that, however much we want to give it a positive spin, learning to live our lives in a way that the planet can support is not going to be easy. There are going to be sacrifices involved. I refuse to be a martyr - or to act like one - but if I never visit South Africa again, and if my kids never get to see the incredible things I have had the privilege of enjoying, then it will be sad. Very sad.
I wish I could say I felt guilty about it - and I suppose I do, in a way. But it was also heavenly, a beautiful and joyful way to reconnect to my roots - both familial and geographical. I could try to argue that it was important. Certainly it brought a huge amount of joy to Granny. It opened Alf and Notty's horizons: they learned to surf, ride a camel, and what naturally-ripened mangoes taste like. We ate figs straight from the tree, fish fresh from the ocean. We saw squatter camps and vast, empty beaches. We talked about Mandela and apartheid, which should be a part of their history and heritage, as it is of mine.
On the grand scale of things, our proportion of the carbon emitted by our plane was a proverbial grain of sand. But it was also more than that. It was a betrayal of my moral position. It ran against what I've been preaching to all and sundry. It was a big, fat hypocrisy. What's the point of freezing in an unheated house all winter when I go and heat the equivalent of a hotel for a year? Someone described carbon offsetting as 'like eating a chocolate brownie and then going for a run'. That makes a bit of sense to me. This was more like gorging on ten double Big Macs and a gallon fries - with a Diet Coke on the side. Greedy, indulgent, not strictly necessary, but.... just wonderful.
I can't calculate the benefit from our trip. Nor do I want to. I want it to be a glorious memory, not an albatross.
But if it showed me one thing, it is that, however much we want to give it a positive spin, learning to live our lives in a way that the planet can support is not going to be easy. There are going to be sacrifices involved. I refuse to be a martyr - or to act like one - but if I never visit South Africa again, and if my kids never get to see the incredible things I have had the privilege of enjoying, then it will be sad. Very sad.
plastic bombastic
I'm sorry, but the argument that 'if you're going to the supermarket you need lots of plastic bags in which to take away your weekly shop' just does not wash with me. Firstly, assume you need to go to the supermarket; all you need do is imagine there is no such thing as a free plastic bag, and you'll soon remember to bring your own. I bet it'd take about two weeks to ingrain the habit. It should be an automatic association, like keys and a car, hot date and a condom (whoa).
But let's take away the first assumption. Try imagining there is no such thing as a supermarket. Build food shopping into your routine, little and often. Then you don't need so many bags. A few strong hold-alls and you're done. You'll buy half the amount of stuff you don''t need (far fewer biscuits, I guarantee), and be able to carry it all recently. You'll also eat fresh food, support small, local shops, and help to loosen the stranglehold that supermarkets have on producers and consumers. Our town centres will begin to rejuvenate, farmers will be able to afford to improve their methods, childrens' attention spans will improve... We all benefit.
All by saying no to plastic bags.
But let's take away the first assumption. Try imagining there is no such thing as a supermarket. Build food shopping into your routine, little and often. Then you don't need so many bags. A few strong hold-alls and you're done. You'll buy half the amount of stuff you don''t need (far fewer biscuits, I guarantee), and be able to carry it all recently. You'll also eat fresh food, support small, local shops, and help to loosen the stranglehold that supermarkets have on producers and consumers. Our town centres will begin to rejuvenate, farmers will be able to afford to improve their methods, childrens' attention spans will improve... We all benefit.
All by saying no to plastic bags.
Monday, 3 March 2008
Plastic fantastic
It's wonderful to watch something steadily gather momentum until, Bam, it reaches a tipping point and explodes into the public mainstream. I've been vaguely warbling on about banning plastic bags for years. Then came Modbury in May last year, and it's been a speedy ride since then. We went to stay with friends in Hay-on-Wye on December 1st, when they launched Plastic Bag Free Hay. Weeks later, a campaign was started in Melksham.
We wrote to the supermarkets, then went to see their managers, who greeted the initiative with enthusiasm (they have to pay for the bags after all). We tried to make Feb 14th PBF; plastered the town with posters, then stood around handing out leaflets and used bags.
Most people were polite; many were even enthusiastic; a few refused to take our recycled bags: 'They don't work as well as new ones', 'I don't hold with that. You sort out China first.' (Just two days later, China announced they were banning bags). But I still felt like a fringe act, a faintly irritating do-gooder aiming my sharpened lance at people's guilt boils.
Then, just two weeks later, the Daily Mail wades in with its campaign to ban the bag. M & S immediately jumps aboard, closely followed by a panting Gordon Brown. With a few pages of well-aimed righteousness, we'd been promoted to the main stage.
Halleluja, I suppose. Some environmentalists have been muttering about Green Wash, and I can see their point. At the grand table of things, plastic bags are bird feed: they'll have minimal impact on the planet's march into the furnace.
But I'm not with them. At best, the ban will get people thinking about the planet. And once they've taken the first, small step, the next will be easier, and the next, and maybe, one day, they'll break into a run?
At worst, we'll have got rid of plastic; seabirds and turtles will be relieved of a dangerous menace, and our hedges will be able to grow, unadorned by flapping plastic.
We wrote to the supermarkets, then went to see their managers, who greeted the initiative with enthusiasm (they have to pay for the bags after all). We tried to make Feb 14th PBF; plastered the town with posters, then stood around handing out leaflets and used bags.
Most people were polite; many were even enthusiastic; a few refused to take our recycled bags: 'They don't work as well as new ones', 'I don't hold with that. You sort out China first.' (Just two days later, China announced they were banning bags). But I still felt like a fringe act, a faintly irritating do-gooder aiming my sharpened lance at people's guilt boils.
Then, just two weeks later, the Daily Mail wades in with its campaign to ban the bag. M & S immediately jumps aboard, closely followed by a panting Gordon Brown. With a few pages of well-aimed righteousness, we'd been promoted to the main stage.
Halleluja, I suppose. Some environmentalists have been muttering about Green Wash, and I can see their point. At the grand table of things, plastic bags are bird feed: they'll have minimal impact on the planet's march into the furnace.
But I'm not with them. At best, the ban will get people thinking about the planet. And once they've taken the first, small step, the next will be easier, and the next, and maybe, one day, they'll break into a run?
At worst, we'll have got rid of plastic; seabirds and turtles will be relieved of a dangerous menace, and our hedges will be able to grow, unadorned by flapping plastic.
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