This article is practically tofu pr0n. Seven types of tofu, anyone?
Category Archives: hippie
“Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with.” (Age)
Is global business hijacking the Fairtrade bandwagon? Guardian
What is the real price of cheap air travel?
“The arguments against flying are compelling. … A return flight to Australia equals the emissions of three average cars for a year. Fly from London to Edinburgh for the weekend and you produce 193kg of CO2, eight times the 23.8kg you produce by taking the train. Moreover, the pollution is released at an altitude where its effect on climate change is more than double that on the ground.
More frightening is the boom in the number of people flying, fuelled by cheap flights with carriers such as Ryanair and Easyjet. In 1970, British airports were used by 32 million people. In 2004, the figure was 216 million. In 2030, according to government forecasts, it will be around 500 million. The trouble is that the people most likely to be aware of these figures, are the ones who probably enjoy popping over to Europe for a weekend. It makes for a large amount of guilt, and a lot of denial. ”
Guardian
This article almost matches the course of my thinking about cheap flights. At first I was off-setting flights by donating to Future Forests to have trees planted, but I’ve come to realise I just can’t justify taking so many short-haul flights.
On the other hand, I hope I’ll be taking longer trips and savour them more, or travel more by train. I love train travel anyway – the trip Min and I are planning to Ukraine, Moldova and Romania is designed around the European rail guide.
Serves him right.
Amazon ‘stealth’ logging revealed (BBC)
Go to Greenpeace to sign a petition asking the EU to ban the import of illegally logged timber.
Nestle to get Fair Trade mark?
To make up for that, here’s the ethical shopping guide.
How many harmful chemicals are in your home? How do they affect you? And how many of them could be avoided?
Friends of the Earth has a campaign for real food. You can take action on issues like Tesco’s dominance of the UK market, and GM foods.
Which reminds me, a while ago I signed a petition at Bite Back (a site about shark and marine conservation), and got this email a while later:
“Thank you. The Bite-Back campaign emails you sent have helped inspire Tesco, the country’s biggest food retailer, to stop selling swordfish and marlin.
It is now impossible to buy either fish species from any of Tesco’s 1779 stores. In fact, because of your support for Bite-Back it is also impossible to buy shark at any ASDA store and it’s no longer possible to find swordfish or marlin on the shelves at Sainsbury’s.
Your emails have helped inspire these retailers to amend their buying policies in favour of some of the most threatened fish on the planet. Congratulations!”
It’s lovely to know that petitions can work. A few clicks, and some re-writing of emails to personalise them takes a tiny bit of my lunch break, and it can make a big difference. Yay!
If you stopped buying Converse when they were bought by Nike, consider the ‘ethical, worker-friendly, environmentally friendly’ blackspot sneakers/trainers instead.
In other news, I’ve booked the flights to go to Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Romania at the end of September, arriving back in London just in time to hang out with my friend Cat.
Oh, and they’ve called the election in Australia, so we can look forward to lots of flying bullshit.