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Greenpeace are running at ‘Energy saving [r]evolution – first 7 steps‘ campaign – why not sign up and see how it works for you.
“We need to kick start an energy [r]evolution! By burning fossil fuels for energy, we’re altering our atmosphere – causing climate change. To reverse it, we’ll need to stop burning so much coal and oil. Renewable energy like wind and solar power is part of the answer, but the fastest (and most cost effective) way to reduce our global warming pollution is simply use less energy.”

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Guardian: Most British women now expect to have cosmetic surgery in their lifetime. How did the ultimate feminist taboo become just another lifestyle choice?

A practice widely regarded not a decade ago as physically risky, morally doubtful, prohibitively expensive and socially embarrassing has been rebranded as something so innocuous and sensible as to be mundane.
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For a large part of the 20th century, patients who wanted cosmetic surgery would generally have been recommended therapy, their desires interpreted as an indication of pathology.
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When cosmetic patients talk about their bodies, dissociation is a recurring theme, as though they no longer inhabit their own skin.
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By identifying with actresses and models and pop stars – people who really are judged on their looks – women exchange a three-dimensional identity for an image, and life becomes an unending audition, involving all the anxiety and rejection of Pop Idol.
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Feminism would once have expected to offer a viable alternative, but its unresolved attitude to beauty has created an ideological vacuum.
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For all the rhetoric of “individual choice”, surgery is a symptom of something much larger than the body – of faulty self-identity and celebrity obsession, and the transfer of moral authority from disinterested health professionals to the commercial media.

It’s not a new article – it was published in 2005, but given the BBC articles that suggest breast implants are now uncritcally mainstream, I think it’s timely.

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This BBC article, ‘I love my new C cup breasts‘, which reads like a PR piece about a site that ‘makes the UK’s top plastic surgeons available at prices women like unemployed Lucy can afford’ really disturbs me. The article doesn’t question why women who can’t even afford to pay full price for it should want invasive surgery, and although one of the final paragraphs says:

“She certainly looked much more self confident, she had changed her hair style and her previous stoop and round shoulderedness had been replaced with a more confident upright appearance.”

there’s no discussion of whether there are non-surgical ways to make someone feel more self-confident that should be considered before surgery.
Perhaps ironically, this article was also on the BBC site today: Breast implant website condemned

A website where women can raise cash for breast implants using personal photos is unsafe and degrading, say UK cosmetic surgeons.
The implants are paid for by male “benefactors” who, for a fee, can access the women’s personal profiles, pictures and contact details.
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Adam Searle, consultant plastic surgeon and former president of the BAAPS, said: “This is really quite shocking. The invitation for women to post suggestive photos, sell personal items and chat with strangers over the Internet in exchange for a breast augmentation is just plain degrading.”

I find it shocking, and really horrible, but then I also find a cut-price charity boob job website shocking.
(I managed not to make any jokes about BAAPS)