Save money and do the right thing for the environment: Recycle old mobiles

“Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.” BBC

Blimey!
“One of the best ways to go green at Christmas is to give up the turkey. The meat industry is responsible for more of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions than cars, according to a UN report.” Guardian

It’s Buy Nothing Day on Saturday.
From the website: “It’s a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!
This year our message is simple, shop less – live more! The challenge is to try simple living for a day, spend time with family and friends, rather than spend money on them.
Buy Nothing Day also exposes the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism. The developed countries – only 20% of the world population are consuming over 80% of the earth’s natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth.”
I’m not generally drinking alcohol at the moment, which makes it easier because the hard part would be getting through the different events I’m meant to be going to without buying someone a drink.

“Parents have forced a school trip to a mosque to be abandoned because they did not want their children exposed to a religion that was not their own.
…
But a number of parents withdrew their support saying their children were too young to learn about other faiths.” BBC
It’s not April 1 so this must be real. I know I was a precocious brat, but I’d rejected the Catholic church and become an atheist by seven or eight. How can ten year olds be too young to learn about other religions? What better time to teach them?
I don’t know if my primary and secondary schools were unusual but we studied comparative religion the whole way through. (And I turned out just fine… oh, ok, fair enough.)

Worried about climate change? Check out the Big Ask.

Not just in London, but wherever you are…
BLACKOUT LONDON
4th November 2006
Starting at Sunset
4.30 pm to 7.30 pm
You are invited to take part in the largest demonstration of People Power that London has ever seen on Saturday 4th November 2006, by turning off all your lights, and switching off all your non-essential electrical equipment at Sunset.
The principal cause of Global Warming is the rising Carbon Dioxide emissions into the atmosphere from the burning of Fossil Fuels, for electricity generation, transport, manufacturing, industry, space heating and air conditioning.
REMEMBER, REMEMBER, THE FOURTH OF NOVEMBER !
For one day in November, we are asking everyone who receives this message to think about what they can turn off, switch off and unplug, toshow support.
We want the power demand in the United Kingdom to reduce so much that the newspapers are obliged to report it. We want the lights to go out in London, so that on the evening of 4th November 2006, the dimming effect will be visible from space.
If you are at home, switch off your set-top boxes, pull all the chargers out of the wall sockets, turn off lights in any room you are not using, switch off any machine with a digital clock in it, unplug the hi-fi and the TV and the games console, de-frost your freezer, switch off your fridge for a couple of hours. Turn the central heating thermostat down to 16 degrees and put a woolly sweater/jumper on if you’re cold.
http://www.workface-limited.co.uk/html/powercut.html
COME OFF IT !
Blackout London is being called in cooperation with Come Off It the
campaign from Dave Hampton, the Carbon Coach, as part of a series of regular events to produce negawatts – negative power demand – from the People’s Power Station :- http://www.carboncoach.com/comeoffit/index.html

An excellent site for cyclists.

Cute story, if you like kids and stuff like that: “Albert Park Primary is one of more than 30 schools encouraging students to travel using some form of sustainable transport instead of the family car.” Age