Planting positivity

Taken by J

Taken by J.

I may be having a blip and not be able to get outside or indeed downstairs at the moment but that doesn't stop the garden and allotment being a real source of strength and positivity and I'm so very grateful for it. Today I've peeked out of the window and watched the blackbird eating the cotoneaster berries from the hedge, looked down on the beds that J managed to do a bit of work on yesterday and spotted the scabious still in bloom and the strawberry and flowering currant leaves taking on their Autumn tints of red and yellow. He's also been busy sowing broad beans and onions in modules in the hope that the mice and voles might leave them alone if they are rooted when we put them in ground. Tonight we ordered our seed potatoes for next year's harvest courtesy of the Transition Loughborough Potato Day online system and J has spent some time pricking out and potting on the cuttings and biennial sowings I made at the end of the summer so we can look forward to pansies, violas, sweet rocket, verbena and penstemons next year - mind you we're already running out of window ledges!

Next stop part 2 of the brilliant Northern Lights adaptation. Happy Sunday all.

Puzzlement - when action seems to fly in the face of logic

I'm having a confusing morning this morning as I sit in bed listening to the news of the latest Climate Action protests. By now I hope it's nice and clear where I stand on the need for change, the need for us all to do whatever we can to make changes and improve the future. As part of that need I obviously support the right to protest, demonstrate and march, to create beautiful protests like the one Jackie Morris and other artists and writers, poets and performers are coming together and using to remind us why we need to change, what we are trying to protect and the right to point out as effectively as we can that companies, corporates, government and all the individuals that make up society need to make changes. And yet today's targets for the Extinction Rebellion protests seem incongruous with the messages we are all trying to send to folk who have yet to come on board for whatever reason. And, terrifyingly to me, judging by a lot of the reactions I'm hearing and reading on social media they have the potential to have the exact opposite effect to the one we need. To alienate not to persuade, to close people's ears, minds and hearts and destroy the good work of thousands of small local groups and individuals who work tirelessly in their communities to demonstrate the changes that people CAN do..

An efficient, clean, reliable mass transport system has to be the cornerstone to any country's response to cleaning up the air and environment as a whole. People need to be able to get around and the need to do it consistently and safely and know they are going to get where they need to be, when they need to be there and if, by shutting down the very networks that currently do that (more or less) then what are all those folk going to do? They are going to shift to personal transport - to cars and vans that they feel they have control over, to planes that will get them to that meeting in Scotland when they have to be back in London or Manchester or Newcastle that evening, to going backwards and point blank refusing to make any changes to their behaviour. I'm also puzzled when those same protesters start to damage infrastructure and destroy things - things that will then need to use finite resources to fix. I fear a backlash from the current actions and that, in my view, should worry us all...

But what can little old me do....

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the headlines and soundbites around the climate emergency and the attempt to paint small actions as inadequate, ineffective, "not enough". It makes people feel helpless, hopeless and dangerously, gives us permission to bury our heads in the sand and say what's the point? I might as well carry on as I am, after all "they" say it won't be enough and doing or not doing that thing will involve a change, a bit of effort, not doing something I like doing as often as I want to, learning or trying something new and could be a bit scary or different and I'm already busy/tired/poorly/struggling to make ends meet enough as it is....

After all one person not using peat in their gardens isn't going to save all the planet's peat bogs, one person not using herbicides and pesticides isn't going to protect all the soils and lives of all the creatures that depend on the micro-organisms that live within it, one person switching to a re-usable cup and water bottle isn't going to stop the production and dumping of plastics in our ocean, one person switching to the bus rather than driving to work isn't going to suddenly result in improved air quality in all our towns, one person taking the train from London to Scotland instead of flying isn't going to stop that plane taking off and... you get the picture.

But what, for me, is getting lost in all this is the multiplier effect - whether deliberately or just plain ignorantly our media and vested interests are feeding us a line that we just might not be able to make enough of a difference by our own behaviour, that dangerous implication that maybe just maybe we therefore shouldn't bother even trying. And yes, I know there is a danger here of my sounding like a completely paranoid conspiracy theorist but that doesn't change the facts that folk with money and livelihoods at stake will always try to influence the outcome of an argument in their immediate favour - apart from anything else that's human nature - what's in it for me? how will I benefit? immediate self-preservation - it's just what humans do.

However, all these "it's not enoughs" ignore a vital fact, no matter our creed, colour, gender, age, location, beliefs, education, income or any other characteristic we like to label and pigeon-hole each other with, we are a society, a collective of people who share this planet and hold the key to our own survival - the planet will exist whatever we do, it won't be the same but it will be here, it's our species and the other creatures that suffer from our choices and actions, it's our children who struggle to breathe on their way to school, our watercourses that are getting clogged up with poisons, soil run-off and rubbish of all kinds, our food-chain that has been contaminated with plastics and poisons... we have been and still are doing this to ourselves by our own small, cumulative actions and in-actions over centuries and now that we actually understand what is happening and can even see it with our own eyes, feel it with our own breath and know that things can be different if we want them to be, surely it just makes sense that we make whatever small choices or changes we can just on the off-chance that it starts to improve things for everyone...

Pondering on Plastic

Friday was Transition Stratford's monthly Film Friday and this month we watched the wonderful Clean Bin Project about a Canadian couple who challenged each other to live for a year without producing any waste. This funny but thoughtful film provoked much discussion and gave me plenty to think about as I plan this month's shopping list. The stand out comment for me came when Grant was questioning the validity of what they were doing but Jen pointed out that so many of the current environmental problems - The Big Things - Global Warming; Peak Oil; Air Pollution; even I suspect Famine and World Hunger - would be sorted or at least reduced if only we could cut down on over consumption and by extension waste.

Plastic- What do you do with yours?

Underlining this was a feature mid-film about the plastic island in the middle of the Pacific and the alarming rate at which Albatrosses which nest on Midway Island are bringing it ashore - plastic floating in the water looks like food to an albatross and other sea life you see - and even more alarmingly they are feeding it to their young and killing them. If you want to know more about this and see some heart wrenching photos of plastic-choked skeletons then head over to the Chris Jordan website. To be honest even if you don't want to see the photos you really should try to look at them, but be warned they aren't pretty. Chris helped produce the Journey to Midway film which sought to highlight the problems being caused by human waste in an area about as far away from human habitation as you can get and still be on the planet.

For those of us in the UK wanting to know more about reducing the waste we generate by changing the way we shop the team over at The Rubbish Diet Blog have plenty of ideas. If you are up to it they have issued the Rubbish Diet Challenge and our own Transition group will be re-issuing the Plastic Challenge later in the year.

The overriding message for this weekend is that if we use it we need to take more responsibility for it and that brings me back to the old environmentalist mantra - Reduce, Reuse, Repair & Recycle - and whilst Recycle gets all the headlines the most important of these by far has to be Reduce.

So it looks like there is no hiding place for me - time to look at that bin and revisit the shopping list. Will you do the same?

Food for thought

Today our Transition group held a shared lunch before its quarterly members' meeting. We all took a plate of something and then sat and chatted about life, the universe and everything before the business of the day began.

Sitting there watching folk take a bit of this and that, compliment each other's food and swap recipes set me thinking about how few opportunities I now have to do this kind of thing and I realised that I kind of miss it. There is something very elemental & satisfying about preparing food for other people to share then trying things that they have taken the time and trouble to select or make for you. Now some of us are lucky and still have enough family around to gather together and share a meal once in a while or we may go out to a restaurant with loved ones or occasionally colleagues but I realised today how rarely I sit around with acquaintances and literally break bread with them. How focussed on me and my life I have become and how little time and trouble I now take to find out more about the people & community that surround me and what makes them tick.

So as the year turns, the days lengthen and we celebrate Imbolc with all its hope for new beginnings it feels like it's time for me to try to change that, to look outside my comfort zone a little and take more time to get involved.

Snowdrops - Heralds of the New Year