Aug/Sept 08

Copenhagen ‘09 - Our last best hope to avert climate chaos.

The current belt tightening all of us are experiencing may be good news for the environment in that it is encouraging us to cut back on excess consumption and reduce, reuse and repair wherever possible. But the fact that 2 million of us still jetted off on foreign holidays the minute the schools went on recess shows we still suffer from a lemming-like symptom of going with the flow despite its obvious trajectory. Much maligned creatures as lemmings are – they don’t actually throw themselves off cliffs – I’m afraid the same cannot be said of humans. As the old saying goes ‘genius may have its limits, but stupidity is infinite’.

We all know that sooner or later we will have to pay for our indulgences but despite the great strides towards sustainable living that have been made in recent years the predominant attitudes still seem to be ‘make hay while the sun shines’ or ‘I’m sure some very clever bloke will figure out a way to fix it.’ Such is the strength of delusional thinking. If I were of the paranoid conspiracy theory school I would say our economic imperatives are part of a vast plot to wipe the majority of us out and leave the conspirators to rule a desolated earth from the safety of their self-contained bunkers. But as the other old saying goes – ‘Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.’

One misconception currently prevalent is that the soaring price of fuel will have the environmental benefit of forcing us to cut back on consumption. It is also blithely said that it will make alternative energy more attractive and encourage the production of electric cars. And though money is being invested in these it is mere tokenism beside where the big money is being spent - on developing previously uneconomical sources of oil. The quarrying of tar sands, for example, is now devastating vast swathes of Northern Alberta. It cost 23 dollars a barrel to extract as against 9 dollars from conventional wells and production emits 3 times more greenhouse gases. There is almost as much of it around the world as from conventional sources but the environmental devastation and toxic by-products it contaminates the environment with make conventional production look like an exemplar of ecological values.
And now I find out from this month’s Ecologist magazine that in our own back yard, the Weald Basin of Sussex, Hampshire, Surry and Kent, permission has been granted to prospect for oil and gas where 200 million barrels of previously unviable deposits are estimated to lie. Never mind it is a conservation area, Councils hard pressed to augment council tax revenues are hardly likely to reject such a windfall and the sight of nodding donkeys on the rolling downs is not that far away.

All this convinces me that they are not going to leave any oil in the ground. While there is a market for it, carbon fuels will continue to be exploited no matter what the economic or environmental costs. It is simply not going to run out – not until long after breathable air has.

As the title of one book sent to me this month asserts we have ‘Seven Years to Save the Planet’. Its author Bill McGuire points out that to salvage a civilisation capable of maintaining a semblance of organisation approximate to what we have now, we must achieve a near zero-carbon economy by 2050. The first step to this requires we halt the growth in greenhouse gas emissions by 2015. In other words, 2015 must be the last year in which greenhouse gas emissions increase. Subsequently they must decline. The Kyoto Protocol, modest and inadequate though its ambitions were has been largely ineffective in achieving these and its agreements are set to expire in 2012. Despite this McGuire holds up the UN Climate Change Convention in December 2009 at Copenhagen to be the last best hope for humanity. It will discuss and hopefully agree what is to replace the Kyoto Accord. Let us all hope that its agreements are strong enough and binding enough to meet the challenges we face. Otherwise we will encounter a future of increased chaos, catastrophic climate events triggering wholesale economic collapse, and resource wars as survivors battle with refugees to hold on to what little they have left. All thoughts then of doing the right thing and moderating our desires will become passé as we succeed in proving to ourselves that our selfishness does indeed outweigh our altruism.


As I used to walk past it on occasion I mused that it is surely with some irony that a car dealership on Camden Road, just before it intersects with Holloway Road, has named itself the Holocene Motor Group. The Holocene is the geological name of the present period of relatively benign interglacial climate we have been enjoying since the ice sheets retreated 10 thousand years ago. Why would a business engaged in destroying climate stability name itself after the geological epoch it is contributing to bring to a swift conclusion? My inquiries discovered, however, that the name was adopted over 35 years ago, before our current climate concerns attained such prominence and the name had a ring of modernity about it. Personally I think it should now rename itself the Pliocene to emphasise how outdated their thinking has become.

(Seven Years to Save the Planet by Bill McGuire - www.orionbooks.co.uk)

June/July 08

The credit crunch is good news for the environment.


There is no doubt that the majority of us are now feeling the effects of the ongoing credit crunch. Soaring food and gasoline prices, increased repossessions and bankruptcies - every day brings more tales of woe. After years of living on easy credit underpinned by soaring house prices we now have to tailor our expectations and live within our means.

But from the environmentalist point of view, the end of living on the ‘never-never’ can be seen as a blessing in disguise. Less ‘lastminute’ weekend breaks to European capitals, less gratuitous shopping trips to the mall, a surge in demand for allotments and more chicken coops in back gardens.

One thing this crises highlights is how at odds the needs of humanity and of nature have become. With the recent news that between a quarter and a third of the planet’s wildlife has been lost since 1970 at the same time as human population has increased by about 80%, it is clear which species is winning the numbers game. Yet our short term success is threatening our long term survival.

For years environmentalist have appealed to our ‘enlightened self interest’. To moderate our desires for the greater good, to cut back on consumption, to repair and reuse rather than replace. They appeal to people’s better natures and altruistic notions of a world community. But now the bankers who so recently encouraged us to live beyond our means have provided an even greater incentive. Cut back on excess consumption or lose your house!

I’ve no doubt that some economists are busy compiling statistics about how having less money to spend will be bad for the environment and ethical businesses in particular. Such ‘value added’ items as organic and fair trade goods will suffer as our wallets win the battle over our consciences and dictate we can no longer afford such indulgencies. But overall, I believe, this return to wartime austerity is to be welcomed. If we are thrown back on our own resources we might realise we are richer than we think.

We live in a world were scarcity is largely manufactured. As the old saying goes ‘there is enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.’ Because of the way our economy is built upon a usury that predicates constant growth we have to constantly seek out new resources to exploit. It is a well understood reality that we do not really own our own homes - the banks do. But less well known is that more than half the price of the majority of goods is going towards the interest payments on the loans the manufacturers, the wholesalers and distributors and the retailers have had to take out to operate their businesses in the first place. And half the wages these business pay to their employees goes to servicing the interest on their personal debts. In fact many enterprises are forced to continue to borrow and expand their operations because if they are profitable and not carrying huge debt they are subject to hostile takeovers leveraged by their own untapped borrowing capacity.

Since communism has pretty much been discredited and in the absence of any viable alternative, capitalism with its promise of a better standard of living for all is free to ravage nature and commodify every aspect of our lives. It is unsustainable but it has no serious challengers. And as the majority of us are all so invested in it neither is there a revolutionary zeal for its overthrow.

So it can be seen that the bulk of our enterprise just goes to swelling the coffers of the super rich at the top of the pyramid whose lavish extravagances breed a culture of envy where we all aspire to jet set lifestyles neither we nor the planet can afford. It all has to stop somewhere - either in economic or ecosystem collapse - or maybe both. Hopefully economic collapse will come first because without nature we won’t have an economy. But if the ecosytem is still viable we may yet be able to salvage a new economy from its remains.

So while we wait for this usurous system to collapse maybe we can learn from the present tightening and gear up for the real squeeze when it comes.

It will hurt for sure but those who will be best equipped to survive are those who are presently busy ‘futureproofing’ their lives. Installing the solar panels and wind turbines, turning the soil in their gardens and allotments, building strong communities of like minded folk who will trade their produce and skills in ways that don’t exploit each other or the planet. Out of their endeavours a sustainable economy free of usury will develop where everyone has an income sufficient for their basic needs as a right and is free to create and develop their skills and resources without compromise to the overbearing economic imperative that currently controls and stifles our lives.
This is the vision we must work towards and every minute spent serving the old economy is a minute more we prolong it, and a minute longer we have to wait for a sustainable world economy to develop.

If you have any comments on this editorial
please email pmccaig@btconnect.com

April/May 08

What difference does a couple of billion make anyway?


I heard from somewhere recently that the world’s population now exceeded the amount of people who had ever lived. IE there were more people alive now than had previously died. I found this amazing. “You’re not going to get into some Malthusian spiel,” said a friend when I shared this with him. “No, no,” I said. “I just think it’s amazing. A watershed moment in the history of mankind, in fact. We should all take note of it as a significant indicator of the success of our species. Though if you’re inclined to the apocalyptic in your thinking they say all the dead will rise again on judgement day, and if you tie that in to a belief in reincarnation then perhaps all the souls who had ever lived are now reborn and the end of days is upon us.” My friend looked at me sceptically. I was at the time well into my second pint and babbling on a bit.

It is a wonder though that ten thousand years ago the world population was approximately 5 million, less than the population of London now. And at that time London’s population was just 3 and these were French tourists who had crossed the land bridge from Europe without visas on a hunting expedition. A tradition that continues to this day. Also these humans of ten thousand years ago, a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, would not have been much different from ourselves. A bit grubbier and more hirsute perhaps, but give them a bath, a shave, put them in a suit and with a weekend’s training they could be city traders gambling all of our fortunes as if they were pretty shells or mammoth teeth.

Yes, I do have a low opinion of the so called money masters, but it does take a special kind of genius to be able to make billions in profit and reap huge bonuses while loosing money hand over fist. My child’s trust fund – which the government so generously kick started and is the only stock market related investment I’ve ever made – actually fell in value this last year. They then have the audacity to charge fees when I would have been better off putting it under my wee bairn’s mattress!

The good news as far as population is concerned, however, is that the increase is actually slowing. At its peak in 1963 it was 2.19% per annum; in 2000 it was down to 1.14%. Since 1961 we have added 1 billion people to the planet every 12 to 13 years. According to current predictions we will reach 9 billion in about 2050 but add less than a billion in the following 100 years. This is of course not taking into account any major catastrophes like a raging disease or a meteor impact or the Republicans retaining the American presidency. So all things being equal, the orthodoxy of rising living standards and social welfare provision being the most effective way of stemming population growth seems to be holding true. (And judging by the way my wife is grumpily heaving her swollen body around as she approaches full term I think the women of the world will be only too happy to keep the birth rate at replacement level of two.)
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The main thing we have then to worry about is how we feed ourselves. How sustainable will our resources be in relation to the average consumption of an expected peak population between 9-10 billion? Especially if people in rapidly developing nations justifiably desire affluent western lifestyles.

Now, as we’re being told, we can’t expect the world’s poor to moderate their aspirations if we cannot set a good example. But the constant hectoring of the good people of Britain ‘to do their bit’ is having a negative backlash. We are reacting with denial and blame. According to a recent survey 1 in 5 Brits do not believe global warming will affect them in their lifetime and eight out of 10 think it’s mostly the fault of industry – displaying an obvious disconnect from the fact that our incomes and the goodies we spend it on are the fruits of these industries. Judging by the number of old CRT monitors and televisions being stacked in my local dump it’s obvious most people are not losing sleep agonising over whether to buy a flat screen TV or install solar water heating. The flat screen wins every time.

But one can hardly disparage the average citizen for growing apathetic and cynical when our government - in cahoots with the oil companies - continues to negate all our environmental credits by staging aggressive wars of acquisition on poor nation’s resources. According to a recent ICM poll more people believe we invaded Iraq to gain control of the nation’s oil than for any other reason. And this is backed up by the fact that proposed hydrocarbon legislation for Iraq will give control of its oil fields to foreign companies, including Shell and BP, for the next 25 years.
Now how are we expected to behave like obedient greenies and do our recycling while our armed forces are put to the service of oligarchs? And how can we expect the good people of Russia and China to do likewise. It smacks of the old colonial paternalism.

But such are the dilemmas that face us in this modern age. If human nature is such that we will constantly find ways to dodge the issues and weasel out of responsibilities then there is not much hope for us - whether we be 6 billion or 9 billion. But if our path is one of integrity where people of conscience do the right thing when all around others seem to descend too easily to the lowest common denominator then perhaps there is still some hope.

It would sure be interesting to be around in a hundred years time to see what the result will be. After all it’s my children’s future I’m wagering. Let’s hope it’s a better investment than the child trust fund so far.


Consulting that source of all knowledge true and reliable, Wikipedia, I find out that what I’d heard about the previous number of humans ever to live was wrong and that estimates vary from between 45 billion to 125 billion. But if you concur that individual human souls would have had several previous reincarnations then it could still hold true that we are all presently incarnate and the eschatologists can continue to wring their hands about our imminent reckoning. And even if the end is not nigh, maybe karma will dictate that anyone who doesn’t do their recycling this life will be reborn to forage on rubbish tips. If only life were as just as such spiritual rationalisation would have us believe. Now whose round is it?

If you have any comments on this editorial
please email pmccaig@btconnect.com

Feb/Mar 08

Staying connected is the greatest service.


It is of course an age-old question. Is man fundamentally good or evil? When I was young I was fully convinced that man’s goodness would soon assert itself and the world would become a benevolent and hospitable place within my own lifetime. As I’ve ‘matured’ and with awareness of both my own personal limitations and the almost constant reminders of man’s stupidity, pettiness and greed I do at times, as they say, feel somewhat jaded.

But then I get an email in from an American friend who has spent recent years working with the victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam and promoting organic agriculture and I am again convinced our goodness outweighs the evil. “In Tuyen Quang Province, our team is busy planting new seedlings, making compost, and caring for the trees. There, we have been meeting with local farmers, landowners and officials, exploring ways in which the upland areas of the commune near our small farm can be reforested (this will help restore and maintain water levels in addition to being beneficial from other environmental points of view); in addition, we want to help farmers shift from growing cassava and acacias to fruit-growing which will be more economically viable for them and much better for the environment. We envision this as the beginning of a campaign to plant over 3 million trees in Vietnam, one tree for each life lost during what here is called the ‘American War’.”

But there are also things that make me doubt. Recently as Radio 4’s Book of the Week they chose to recite excerpts from Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’. It was, of course, a sobering listen and an interesting insight into the thought processes and strategies of those who attain and wish to hold on to power. Its premise is that man is fundamentally evil and it is only through appreciating the fact he will always act in his own best interests that one can manipulate and control others. This is of course true only to a certain extent. The assuming of power inevitably leads to dilemmas in which one must choose between the lesser of two evils - so often, in fact, that one can loose faith that there are any good choices. This is why power inevitably corrupts and why anyone who holds on to power too long – á la Robert Mugabe – ends up profoundly corrupted to a point where giving up power would leave him open to the revenge of all those he has persecuted. And is also why the majority of us prefer to avoid power and would prefer to leave these difficult decisions to more power hungry individuals, who of course are roundly criticized by us whatever they choose. It is our personal abdication of power - whether to a dictator or an elected individual - that bequeaths to us the moral high ground.

Most people of course in most circumstances would choose to do the right thing. Even in extreme situations such as war where you would expect everyone to turn into ravenous wolves there are examples of great self-sacrifice and heroism that make you realise extremes also bring out the best in people. Perhaps this is why the challenge of such situations attracts so many people wishing to do good. And it is also why capacity of people to do evil when there is no particular pressure on them to do so makes one despair.
Many people’s goodness is fuelled by religious conviction. Indeed, religions are the methods we have devised to promote man’s goodness. But in the wrong hands they become instruments for exploiting man’s superstitious nature. So the question of whether they are good or bad in themselves become secondary to that of man’s essential nature – they are reflections of ourselves. Richard Dawkins in his atheism asserts that without religion there would merely be good people doing good and evil people doing evil – only religion can induce good people to do evil. But in my mind there are many influences and circumstances where good intentions result in evil acts and to heap it all on religion deflects us from the fundamental debate.

The most pertinent religious axiom in my opinion is that man has free will. We are free to do good or evil. God is not standing above us with a rod to beat us the moment we transgress and he does not come to our rescue when we suffer. We thrive or survive on our own merits. It is up to us. Though our worst tendencies may be moderated by fear of punishment there is no divine imperative or genetic key to prevent us from becoming mass murderers or child molesters.

So maybe the answer is we are both. We have good and evil within us in equal measure and the challenge is to inculcate the good and minimize the bad. The question then becomes one of nurture rather than of nature. As we look at ourselves and observe other people we must look at what it is we do to preserve goodness and where we may weaken towards acts of selfishness and cruelty. For some it may be a religious or spiritual practice that keeps them whole. For others involvement in a campaign, charitable or community endeavour. Or it may simply be the love of our family and friends. It is all too easy however in this world to fall into isolation and alienation, and it is when this connection is lost – with ourselves, with others, with the divine – that evil does flourish. So it is through staying involved with one another, staying close, sharing our feelings and our differencies that we perform the greatest service, both for ourselves and for others.
Peter McCaig

If you have any comments on this editorial
please email pmccaig@btconnect.com

For more information on the organic project in Vietnam see www.greenvietnam.org

Dec/Jan 08

The end is nigh... and other dire predictions.



Back when this publication started up nearly 17 years ago environmentalists were often accused of crying wolf. And still we are labelled as doom mongers. Many people still don’t take seriously concerns about genetic engineering, nuclear energy and species extinction. These are still minimised as necessary evils and unfortunate but manageable outcomes of progress.

But at least there is one thing that even hardened industrialists now acknowledge we have to do something about – rising CO2 levels. Chairmen of multinationals and corporate social responsibility officers are busy looking at ways their business can reduce its carbon footprint, offset their emissions and achieve best practise. This is to be applauded, but unfortunately, cannot ultimately be successful for as long as our economy is based upon the principle of growth.

The current credit crisis has exposed the weakness of the dollar economy we are all dependent upon. Because of the US dollar’s favoured position as the currency of commodity exchange the US can just go on printing money in exchange for the world’s goods. This is why it keeps on devaluing. We give the US the fruits of our labour and they give us the pieces of paper that we need to buy oil, and whatever else we can’t produce ourselves. When we talk about the price of oil increasing, what we actually mean is the dollar devaluing. We can’t use our own currency because the world markets will only accept dollars. So we give more of our products to the US, effectively for free. This is why stuff in America is so cheap – they have got too much of it. Here however we have to pay a lot more because we are also repaying the interest on the loan the producers had to take out to make the stuff in the first place.

This, of course, is because our economy is underpinned by usury. It is the only way money is presently created – as a debt that bears interest. It’s how the money masters keep the rest of the world in debt slavery. And it is why the economy has to keep growing and why more and more natural resources have be exploited to provide the Iphones and Wiis that keep us all distracted and happy while the natural world crumbles to dust around us. It is also why the once idealistic concept of sustainable development has become such an oxymoron.

Corporate leaders may be striving to achieve ISO14001 certification, the benchmark of social responsibility, but it is only so they can keep their sales up. Nobody anywhere is talking about ceasing the economic activities that produce all this stuff that we don’t really need – because we are all in debt and there is no way to pay it back without exploiting resources. Nobody is talking about maybe just leaving the oil in the ground. Nobody is going to miss an opportunity to make a fast buck. Not until we say the buck stops here and we introduce a monetary system that negates exploitation and waste. Such systems are available and feasible. We just need to break the chains that bind us to the present one, and that can only be done when we and our government stop believing economic growth is a good thing.

It is good, however, that it is now accepted wisdom that the main cause of global warming is rising CO2 levels. Yet current CO2 levels are only a fraction of what they once were in Cambrian times when the Earth was a lot warmer. As life processes have sequestered more and more CO2 into carboniferous deposits the Earth has become less heat retentive, which is just as well as the sun is now 25% warmer than it was then. One day a mere 7 billion years from now it will consume our planet. But let’s not worry about that just yet; let’s see how we will survive the next few thousand years first.

It may not feel like it but we are actually in an ice age. For the last 2.5 million years the ice has slurried back and forth across the planet in a delicate balancing act between the CO2 thrown out by volcanoes and that absorbed by plants. The last ice covering ended only 12,000 years ago, after a period of maximum ice extension that had lasted over 100,000 years. The previous warm interregnum had lasted only 15,000 years. Some say this is where the myth of the Garden of Eden comes from.

During the present ‘warm spell’ before industrialisation kick started our excessive burning of fossil fuels, the atmospheric norm for Carbon Dioxide was 280 parts per million. Today it is 360 parts. By the end of the century it is predicted to be 560, or double the norm.

Scientists predict, without the effect of man-made global warming, the ice would return within the next few thousand years. Factor in our burning of fossil fuels and the next ice age could be delayed by as much as fifty thousand years (yippee), or conversely, if the melting of the Greenland icecap switches off the gulf stream, it could trigger a sudden relapse and Europe could be plunged into Siberian conditions within mere decades (uh oh).

The most likely scenario is that as the arctic permafrost melts and the seas warm vast quantities of methane trapped in the ice and stored at the bottom of the sea will be released. Methane traps heat 25 times more effectively than carbon dioxide. The earth will heat up rapidly in a run away greenhouse effect, with raging forest fires releasing yet more CO2, wiping out most plant and animal life. And as atmospheric methane is quickly broken down by sunlight we will soon plunge back into an ice age more severe and prolonged than would otherwise have occurred.

I say we, but it is unlikely that many of our descendants will be around to bemoan what we have lost. Our cities will have been ground to dust by the advancing ice, all our art and aspirations obliterated.

Extinction is the ultimate fate of every species and we are living through a period of rapid extinction. There are occasional cataclysmic events like meteors or super volcanic eruptions that wipe out myriads of species – the super volcano of Toba in Sumatra which erupted 74,000 years ago almost wiped out the human population, reducing us to no more than a few thousand worldwide – since then we have been on borrowed time. Under normal circumstances a single species goes extinct every 4 to 5 years. At present 4 to 5 species are going extinct every day in Brazil alone.

Is this just the environmentalist crying wolf? Maybe. But it is not yet beyond us to avert an abrupt demise. Yet I don’t think all our science and engineering is going to help us unless we are willing to fundamentally change our ways. And this will involve adopting a new set of economic imperatives and bringing about fundamental change to our political processes. There are means and methods for us to survive beyond the immediate threats of global warming but it is going to take an effort of will that few are so far exhibiting.

Without this will, humanity will have been a brief flowering of intelligence on an extremely rare planet in a hostile universe. Like most flowers we will have faded just when we were at our most brilliant.

Christmas is upon us and what was once a time when we would show reverence and gratitude for the blessings with which life has graced us has now become a feast of conspicuous consumption. We use plastic to buy more plastic that creates ever more CO2 in its production and transportation to your living rooms and again when it is disposed of and transported back to the landfill.

All of us are a long way from perfect and there is no man alive with a clear enough conscience who can point his finger at someone else and say you are not doing enough. But if in the dark winter nights ahead you can turn off the telly and take the time to reflect then here below is a suggested winter reading list - from which much of the preceding has been gleaned – which I hope will give you the insight and inspiration you need for the year ahead and will also make very good gifts for those you love and would wish to journey with a little while longer on mankind’s brief adventure.

If you have any comments on this editorial
please email

The Big Earth Book – Ideas and Solutions for a Planet in Crisis by James Bruges.

From the publisher of the Little Earth Book, Little Money Book and Little Food Book, this wonderful tome builds on these and takes us though clear and concise descriptions of the state of the world’s eco systems, and the political and economic agendas that have brought this about. It highlights the issues that challenge us, points out where we are going wrong and offers often very simple, unexpected solutions.
£25 HB Thomas Sawday’s Publishers ISBN 9-781901-970876
Currently on special offer £10 off at www.sawdays.co.uk/bookshop/

The Life and Death of Planet Earth by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee.

An insightful digest of the findings of geology and cosmology. It describes how the Earth was formed and what a rare combination of cosmic and planetary forces and good luck have come together to allow life to evolve on this planet. It plots the possible future scenarios of how the world will develop and eventually end. It also pops the balloon of those fantasists who believe that humanity will one day escape to the stars or that aliens will visit us. It is just technically impossible – this is the only habitable world we will ever know. A sobering read.
£8.99 PB Piatkus Publishers ISBN 9-780749-950095

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

The best possible layman’s guide to the current state of scientific knowledge and what it means to be unique and special beings on an amazing planet. Written in Bryson’s inimitable jocular style.
£8.99 PB Black Swan Books ISBN 0-552997-048

The Penny Pincher’s Book Revisited – Living Better for Less by John and Irma Mustoe

A myriad of ideas for keeping your money in your pocket and a great way to show your profligate friends that you care about them without forking out too much on their pressie.
£7.99 PB Souvenir Press ISBN 9-780285 637979

Sufficient – A Modern Guide to Sustainable Living by Tom Petherick

One from the River Cottage stable on how to produce as much and survive on as little as possible. The main focus is on organic gardening and rearing animals on a small holding but also useful tips on energy efficiency and self-generation.
£25 HB Anova Books ISBN 9-781862-057739

Oct/Nov 07

Will we change the world or be changed by it?


It is an accepted fact that most people just want to get on with their lives as best they can. The majority of us have enough on our plates without having to get involved in political activism or grappling with the mysteries of the universe. We try hard to pay our bills in a country were we are taxed to death, to raise a family were there are so many dangers and unsavoury influences to protect them from, and try hard to be good respectful citizens in a society were civility and respect are fast eroding.

Though we yearn for meaning and direction there is no galvanising sense of purpose that drives us to any greater commitment. Climate change, the overarching issue of our times, doesn’t quite give us a well-defined enemy who we can have a decisive victory over and seems to involve too much self-sacrifice. Our wars are unjust, our objectives ill defined.

This is why religion with its mythologies and consolations still holds such a sway in our supposedly liberal secular society. It has for so long filled this void for those who are content with ready-made answers. We might not like it but have found little else to replace it.

Human beings are naturally superstitious. If something goes wrong we immediately ask what have we done to deserve this as if it were some kind of divine retribution, or we embark on a witch hunt seeking a scapegoat to blame, often for irrational reasons, looking for signs that would point out a suitable victim. So we lived in heathen darkness until the prophets came along to enlighten us. It is as Voltaire said, ‘If god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him’. And though I would not defy someone a one on one relationship with their creator it is all the doctrine and dogma the priests and mullahs would impose on us that I find unacceptable. Religion may provide some kind of moral order but its priests are not particularly interested in deeper meaning or opening people’s minds to higher truth. They are primarily politicians imbued with a will to power who manipulate their herds for their own goals, altruistic or otherwise.

So now we live in a new dark age – where old certainties have disappeared and new purpose is hard to find. Apart from the odd campaign or charitable endeavour we are bereft of meaning. Some would say we are lost in earthly pleasures and meaningless distractions, and we need to come back to god. But for those of us who are not so easily persuaded humanist principles suffice to prescribe our day-to-day relationships and also circumvent the clash of ideologies religious belief inevitably brings.

Still the voice of our conscience nags us. Is this all there is we ask? Are we really alone in such an uncertain and hostile world? Is oblivion all we have to look forward to? Will we and all our dreams simply perish? Without a consoling sense of purpose we all sooner or later have to confront this black hole at the centre of our lives. And it is a strong man who doesn’t immediately look away.

It is this void that we truly fear. It is this dark emptiness into which we throw all that we deny about ourselves and it is this that propels us into the arms of the soothsayers and priests. The more we deny it the more we empower it and the more the world becomes a reflection of all that we detest. Religion blinds us with its light, but it is in the shadows that our demons lurk. And unless we encounter them they will continue to arise in our lives. Our dark fears manifest as wars and famines and environmental degradation where what good we do is immediately offset by tragedies elsewhere. We may set out to change the world but instead find ourselves changed by it.

For this reason it is important that every endeavour be accompanied by rigorous self-examination. Each time we act, or indeed, hesitate to act, we must take a journey into ourselves, gather the lost parts of ourselves that run from the light because they have been so long judged and condemned. Find our what gentle understanding will coax them out of their caves and listen attentively to the uncomfortable truth they bear about the reality we have created. It is from them we will learn the deeper truth, it is out of this heart of darkness that new meaning will arise, and it is from this self-healing, from this reintegration, that the healing of the planet will begin.

Aug/Sept 07

Excuse me while I contradict myself.


NOTHING MORE provokes a Daily Mail reader style muttering to myself than the issue of religious sensitivities. Last year it was the Muslim reaction to the satirical cartoon depicting Muhammad, this year it is the specious arguments around wearing religions symbols – Muslim headscarves, Christian crosses and purity rings et all. Bloody hell, I mutter, didn’t we get through all this in the Middle Ages?

Unfortunately this new millennium seems to be seeing a upsurge in religious fundamentalism that threaten the hard fought secular values we attained through and since the Enlightenment. One wonders at people who attest their ‘religions right’ and ‘freedom of expression’ to wear such a symbol or another when we well know that given sway they would make it compulsory for all under threat of torture. We need only think of the beatings meted out to women who dare not to wear the hajib under the Taliban or in Saudi Arabia.

In a recent interview I saw with Tony Benn he was quoting someone else I believe when he said, “Freedom is not something that is won or lost at any specific point – it is a constant battle that every generation has to fight.” Our present danger is that we take all our hard fought freedoms for granted and allow them to slip away under the guise of religious tolerance. Personally I believe that anyone should be allowed to wear or believe whatever they like – banning this or that just gives it more force - but if you believe in something you must be prepared to withstand ridicule for it. You can’t have it both ways.

Nothing makes me loose faith in humanity more than the profession of mind numbing religious beliefs. The ridiculousness of what people of all faiths hold to be catechism makes me wonder if mankind is actually evolving or slipping into cretinism. So many seem to have no idea that the search for meaning is a constant enquiry that we must be willing to engage in at the cost of our own petty beliefs, prejudices and superstitions. Indisputable beliefs of any kind limit that mystical search and imprison the mind.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "The test of a first rate intellect is the capacity to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. For example one should see things as hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise." And so it is with me – not the first rate mind part – just the ability to persevere when all seems lost.

Personally I have no idea whether God exists or not but I am perfectly willing to tolerate those who think either way. I just don’t think it should interfere with how we behave towards one another. For better or for worse existence has thrown up this unique species on this beautiful planet and pretty much left us up to our own devices how we deal with the dilemmas that confront us. What better experiment in ‘free will’ can there be? What greater test of our ‘worthiness’ to enter the ‘kingdom of heaven’ than whether we get at each others throats over religious dogma or manage to reason our ways to salvation?

So to those of us who eschew the banalities of conventional religion and believe that it is really up to us, our lives must contain the contradiction of living as if there were no God, even if we believe there is. For what God can there be that doesn’t want us to love one another? And what kind of God would demand we destroy those who don’t believe in him? What kind of freedom do we have that doesn’t allow us to disbelieve? And how great is that freedom if we rely on God to intervene whenever we abuse it?



AS I WRITE whole swathes of England have again been covered in water. The last time I wrote about the weather it was to warn about impending drought as by the end of April we had had an unprecedented dry Spring. Shows how much I know. Yet this pattern of warm wet summers for the UK is exactly as predicted by many climatologists as a result of global warming. Despite all our efforts to reduce or offset global warming, it is clear that we must now also be preparing to deal with the consequences as it too late to prevent entirely. Indeed it is going to get worse – a lot worse – before it gets better. It is the great challenge of our age, and the scarcities and displacement it will cause will be a test of our society’s ability to adapt and survive. Neither cynicism or religious faith in divine intervention will save us – only self-belief and a steely determination when all seems hopeless.

June/July 07

Being Green isn’t painless, but it’s certainly easier than ever.



As the eponymous BBC2 TV show states, it ain’t easy being green. The range of ethical choices we are faced with can be at times quite overwhelming. The number of times I’ve stood at the Sainsbury’s vegetable displays with a pack of organic, fairtrade carrots from South Africa in one hand and a non-organic pack from a UK farm in the other and weighed up the moral dilemma involved doesn’t bear mentioning. Is it better to always buy organic, no matter where it comes from, or is local with a few chemicals but without all those food miles better for the environment? Should I just go for the cheaper? But what if the cheapest is a non-organic but fairly traded variety from Guatemala?

And what, you may ask, am I doing in Sainsbury’s in the first place? Shouldn’t I be down the local Health Food Shop where all the produce has been pre-vetted for me? Yes well but, I spent all those years trying to get Sainsbury’s to go organic, it would just be ungrateful not to give them some of my green back as it were…

Then there are the geo-political issues to bear in mind. Should I boycott Israel entirely, or is their organic, fairtrade produce from worker’s co-ops okay? And should I be taking sides with radical Muslims who want to overthrow Western democracy and suppress women in any case? I understand that it would be better for struggling third world farmers to open up our markets to produce from developing nations, but won’t that put our own farmers out of business and end up with our orchards and fields being tarmaced over to assuage our housing shortage? And now we hear the great promise of bio-diesel will lead to land being squeezed away from food production, which will increase food prices as well as destroying rainforest to make way for palm oil plantations? What is a greenie to do?

Yes, life itself, never mind trying to lead a green ethical life, is a moral maze it is easy to get lost in. Fortunately there are a myriad of guide books constantly landing on our desk here at Green Events whose purpose is to steer us through this fuzzy moral confusion to the clear horizons of a sustainable lifestyle.

Most impressive to a klutz like me this month was the ‘Green Living for Dummies’ (John Wiley & Sons Ltd ISBN: 978-0-470-06038-4) which as well as lots of various tips (Your freezer is more energy efficient if full so fill the empty spaces with newspaper) also explains the arguments about Fair Trade and the options for Ethical Investing. To complement this there is also a recently published children’s guide on how to be green called ‘You Can Save the Planet’ (Michael O’Mara Books Ltd ISBN: 978-1-905158-78-2). This has the somewhat disconcerting tag line ‘Your parents’ generation has messed up the planet, now it’s up to you to save it.’ True to an extent but we’re doing our best! You never know though, maybe pester power will succeed were other means have failed.

More in depth and detailed advice on how to turn your home into a green oasis is contained in the newly published ‘Self-Sufficiency Handbook’ (New Holland Publishers ISBN: 978-1-84537-693-2). This contains sections on creating the zero carbon house, growing organic food, rearing animals such as chickens, pigs and bees and making cheese, candles and your own beer. Very much in the spirit of ‘The Good Life’ this is for die-hard greenies who are prepared to dedicate their lives to minimising their environmental footprint while maximising their independence. Nevertheless it’s full of useful guidance that anyone with a bit of time and space can enact to make themselves that little bit more self-sufficient.

Finally if you feel like you are in need of some practical hands-on guidance before you take on the job of turning your home and garden into a model of sustainability there are hundreds of courses taking place around the country which are admirably listed in the just published ‘Eco-Centres & Courses’ (Green Books ISBN: 978-1-903998-90-8). There are over 150 such centres listed throughout the UK from Findhorn in Moray to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Powys as well as many in and around London, including our own favourite Low Impact Living Initiative in Bucks. As well as exhibiting green technologies in action there are a plethora of courses from Natural Feltmaking to Master Composter Training that will give you the hands-on experience and confidence you need to put all your good intentions into practice.

Many such courses are of course listed in the events guide of the humble rag you are now reading, so if there is a reason you can’t make a difference by following all this available advice please let me know what it is because personally I’ve run out of excuses…

May 07 Editorial

Has Woman’s Liberation made conventional relationships impossible?


A STATISTIC I heard this month that really appalled me was that there is an average of 500 abortions taking place in Britain every day. That’s 182 thousand a year. I’d no idea it was this many. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, but why do so many have to make this choice I wondered. My wife, who comes from Vietnam, says it is far more there because of the number of unwanted teenage pregnancies and lack of a social welfare net. Here it seems it is because so many woman are unwilling to jeopardise their independence and turn a casual relationship into a serious commitment. It seemed to me an example of how the modern woman is caught between a rock and a hard place.

Another statistic made me wonder this month was that over 65% of woman between the ages of 26 and 35 would prefer to be in a relationship with a partner who could provide adequately for them to be able to stay at home and raise a family and look after the house. But with the current economic situation of it being necessary to have two wages to finance even a modest mortgage, this is simply not an option anymore. From a situation where woman wanted to be free to have careers and stand on their own two feet it has now become impossible for them not to, and yet are as dependent on men as ever. Nobody wants to return to the male dominated society of the fifties and before, but neither does it seem to me are women universally celebrating their ‘liberation’.

Releasing a vast army of housewives into the workforce has had two major effects. First of all it depressed the wages of men. Despite equal pay, men simply were not able to pressure for pay rises as confidently as before. Secondly it increased the cost of housing. Two wages were always going to outbid one, until it has become impossible to own a house without a double income.

Therefore, I have to ask - has woman’s liberation failed? Or as feminists would assert, have they simply been outmanoeuvred by clever male capitalists who exploited their desire for freedom?

It seems to me that we now need to call a truce in the ‘Battle of the Sexes’. The whole premise is wrong. For better or for worse God or nature has created us as a bi-sexual species. It is not a matter of woman competing with men. At the risk of sounding misogynist, it seems to me men compete with men, for power, status, money and women. And, when it comes to deciding on a life partner, women compete with other women for the most successful men, and the privileges that this gives them. This does not preclude women from having successful careers. In fact, the more successful a woman is the more choice she has of husbands. What we need to realise in the reality of natural selection is that sexual partners compete with other partners to pass on the best genes and best chances of survival for their offspring.

I know in the past, men have been particularly brutish and needed taking down a peg or two, and woman needed more opportunity for self expression and personal achievement, but surely the time has come for us to realise how thoroughly inter-dependent we are, as individuals, partners, communities and nation states. And if co-operation is ever going to replace competition on any level it needs to start with man and woman burying the hatchet and learning once more to celebrate our differences.

WELL, what a wonderful summer it’s been already. Except it’s still meant to be spring. As I write, the last 6 weeks, apart from a 3-day cold snap, have been of unrelenting sunshine here in the South East. In old money that used to be close to our average allotment of sunshine for the whole year. Despite heavy rainfall during the winter, I’m expecting hosepipe bans to be reintroduced any day now. We were even invited to a barbeque on the 1st of April, and it wasn’t an April fool. We had another one last weekend, and I expect charcoal suppliers are going to have trouble keeping up with demand by the time the summer really arrives.

I’m sure I’ve probably jinxed it by saying this and, as the cricket season has just started, we can probably expect May and June to be wet and dreary. I’m not complaining I have to add. I can remember attending the Gaunts House Summer Gathering in the 1st week of August 2001 under cold stormy skies. I don’t want a repeat of that particularly bleak summer. The truth is that the UK is probably one of the countries that might benefit in the short term from global warming. Mediterranean style street café’s will proliferate. We’ll reinvigorate our decayed costal resorts (and cut down on carbon emitting flights) by taking our holidays at Margate and Blackpool again. We’ll extend our lunch hour by taking 45 minute siestas. Well, maybe that’s going a bit too far.

One side effect will be that it will probably make me redundant. I don’t really have to write anymore about the dire consequences of global warming, every other news item is full of the stuff. I don’t really have to encourage people to be green any more, there’s hardly an organisation or business or individual that doesn’t believe it is doing its bit and prepared to trumpet it out loud. I’d probably be making a more effective contribution to energy saving by ceasing to publish all together. Has the success of green campaigning and the progress of climate change had the effect of turning me into a vanity publisher? But then I’d be out of a job and, what, dear readers, would you do without me?

April 07 Editorial

It's an old song, still worth singing.


A neighbour told me the other day that she’d been getting woken up by this intermittent rapping sound every morning. It had taken her nearly three weeks to realise it was a woodpecker. Admittedly she was Australian and unfamiliar with this particular species from her childhood but it was indicative, in my mind, of how in this age of being able to recognise hundreds of ringtones we are so unused to common bird sounds.

The trees along Parkland Walk are now mature enough to host woodpeckers that have spread from their familiar terrain in Highgate Woods. Parkland Walk, for those of you unacquainted with the leafy confines of Crouch End and environs is the old disused railway line that used to run from Alexandra Palace to Highgate and then down to Finsbury Park, and now provides a wonderful wooded walk and jogging path as an escape from the tarmacadamed streets for the thousands of Londoners that live along it’s route. Whenever I walk there it provides me with a vision of what the world will look like fifty years after humanity dies out.

You can still make out the old platforms though these are decaying rapidly as the weeds and trees force open the concrete and dislodge the bricks while the old rails are long gone and the embankments have become a wonderful overgrowth of chaotic natural abundance resplendent in wildflowers and blackthorns, nettles and ivy, full of nests and foxes lairs. Conservation volunteers keep the track from turning into a quagmire but thankfully precious little is done to prettify or control the rampant reclamation by Mother Nature of mankind’s former industry. In places the trees that have sprung up over the last fifty years reach over the walkway to provide a wonderful cooling canopy on hot summer days where you can imagine you are a million miles away from the concrete jungle alone in the primordial forest.

When I emerge back into the familiar streets of North London I can’t help thinking what all these well maintained gardens and orderly terraced houses will look like after 50 years of decay, after they have been abandoned by a humanity devastated by bird flu or skin cancer or famine or nuclear catastrophe, and I realise it is not really the planet we are trying to save, or even nature for that matter, but ourselves. It is we who are most at danger from the damage we wreck, it is we who will fade away as yet another evolutionary dead end unless we urgently make amends. The planet will still be here and nature will persist. She will recover from whatever havoc we leave in our wake and maybe in another million years will throw up a species capable of sifting through the archaeological evidence to find out what happened to this long perished species that had at one point so dominated the planet, that had held the rest of nature in thrall at the works and wonders it was capable of, and who had so thoroughly disappeared. Will there be a little black box dug up somewhere that will explain to them how great we once were, how ingenious and creative and how flawed and vulnerable. Will they be capable of learning from us the lesson we could not teach ourselves? Will they succeed where we failed to work in harmony with nature and extend our survival and evolve beyond our imperfections? Will they know that for all our pettiness and failings there was such great good in us, and, even though our passing predicated their evolution, will they feel sadness at our loss, will they weep for us?

I told my neighbour she should rise up early one of these coming Spring mornings, at about 5 am is best, and venture out onto the Parkland Walk for the dawn chorus. Underneath this arbour of fresh foliage with the rising sun peaking through the branches it is possible to close ones eyes and bathe oneself in the purest cacophony of birdsong. There is no better orchestra, no greater composition. Put away your ipods and ringtones and come down one early morning and hear what real music is. Just let it wash over you and stir your soul with its ancient callings. This is the sound your ancestors heard as they woke from their slumbers, not the bleatings of Radio 4. It is in moments like this, when we can humble ourselves before nature that our salvation may lie; when we realise we are not the first or last to rise and fade away in this great evolutionary quest undertaken on this particular ball of dirt hurtling through the universe, and that though we isolate ourselves in our tin cans speeding down concrete highways, and insulate ourselves in the false security of our equity, it is in reconnecting with the childlike wonder of what it is like to be an insignificant part of this wonderful creation that the lesson of humility is learned, and we find ourselves again, wondrous and vulnerable, in awe of our own existence.