Convergency

Here’s a satirical look at Britain’s nuclear power plans…

Just in case you missed it on World Environment Day…

Bees pollinate a third of the food we eat. They are essential for farming and if we wanted to do the pollinating work ourselves – it would take a workforce of 30 million. And that’s just for food – bees also pollinate most wildflowers.

In the United States over a million hives have been lost since 2006 due to Colony Collapse Disorder – a very mysterious condition. Apparently, we don’t have it in the UK yet – but even so, 2008 was the worst year for bees in the UK – with up to 30% of hives not surviving the winter.

I can’t begin to imagine a world without bees. Or some of this stuff:

Alfalfa, Allspice, Almonds, Apples, Artichoke, Asparagus, Avocado, Blackberries, Blueberries, Broccoli, Brussel sprouts, Cabbage, Cacao, Cantaloupe, Caraway, Cardamom, Carrots, Cashew, Cauliflower, Celeriac, Celery, Cherries, Chicory, Chives, Cinnamon, Citrus, Coriander, Cranberries, Cucumbers, Currants, Dill, Fennel, Garlic, Gooseberries, Kale, Leek, Macadamia, Mango, Mustard, Nutmeg, Onion, Parsley, Parsnip, Passion fruit, Peaches, Pears, Plum, Pumpkin, Radish, Raspberries, Squash, Sunflower, Tangerine, Tea, and Watermelon to name a few. Not forgetting honey and beeswax of course.

There are things we can do – the Co-op has taken the initiative and set up a campaign called Plan Bee, along with a website that provides lots more information, and a couple of videos if you prefer to watch than read. (hopefully they will enable embedding at some point)

I applaud what they are doing, and attempting to do, and strongly encourage everyone to see what they can do to give the bees a hand whenever I can, so I thought I would take this opportunity too

Through Plan Bee:
1. The Co-operative Food will temporarily prohibit the use of neonicotinoid-based pesticides on own-brand fresh produce. These are Acetamiprid, Clothianidin, Dinotefuran, Fipronil, Imidacloprid, Nitenpyram, Thiacloprid and Thiamethoxam. To find out about The
Co-operative’s market-leading policy on pesticides, please see our latest Sustainability Report (p.95).

2. £150,000 will be made available to support research into the demise of the honeybee, with a particular focus on UK farming, pesticides and gene-diversity. This is the largest ever private contribution to bee research in the UK.

3. Over three years The Co-operative Farms will trial a new wildflower seed mix that will be planted alongside crops on our farms across the UK.

4. The Co-operative Farms will invite beekeepers to establish hives on all our farms in the UK.

5. The Co-operative will engage our three-million members in a campaign to protect and nurture the bee population in the UK, with advice and tips featuring on our website.

6. Members were invited to attend one of 40 screenings of a special preview from a forthcoming film that addresses the decline of the worldwide bee population and the significance of the bee in food production. In addition, The Co-operative has also commissioned a new bespoke documentary on the decline of the bee population in the UK.

7. The Co-operative will partner with RSPB’s ‘Homes for Wildlife’ team and empower members to garden in ways that are honeybee-friendly.

8. An initial 20,000 packets of wildflower seed mix will be distributed to members free of charge at membership events throughout the UK.

9. Bee boxes are being sourced and made available to The Co-operative members at discounted prices. Find out how to get hold of a discounted bee box.

10. The Co-operative will support our members and colleagues to find out more about amateur beekeeping and will encourage links between local beekeepers and members. Find details of your nearest beekeeping association.

Also – there is a documentary worth watching called “Who Killed the Honey Bee” showing on BBC4 starting on Thu 23 Apr 2009 at 21:00, with repeat showings. It will also be available on iPlayer.

I am sure I am not the only one who found last nights episode of Natural World – A Farm for the Future incredibly important and somewhat frightening.

If you didn’t see it – do have a look – it is available on iPlayer (for those in the UK at least) until 7:49pm Tuesday 17th March 2009.

You may recall the name Rebecca Hoskins? She was the wildlife documentary maker (one of only three female wildlife documentary film makers in the UK!) who went to Hawaii and was moved to tears by the impact our carrier bags are having on the marine environment. She came back and became the ‘bag lady of Modbury‘.

In May 2007 she convinced all the 1,500 residences and traders of her home town of Modbury to stop using plastic bags in favour of more sustainable long lasting alternatives. This made Modbury the first town in the Europe to become plastic bag free.

Here’s the synopsis from the BBC:

“Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key.

With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year’s high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is.

Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.”

Are we really going to bury our heads in the (oil) sands right up till the day where we are 9 meals from anarchy? I really hope not.

There is still a chance of turning it around, but we won’t find the answer at Tesco – or even at Waitrose!

Be very prepared for change. It’s just a question of whether we can make the steps to transition before it is too painful.

The Age of Stupid: final trailer Feb 2009 from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

I often have ideas, that I mull over and never get around to doing anything about (man cannot live on ideas alone!), but in this case I am glad somebody else did it first

I was thinking… somebody (perhaps me?) should write a book, a screenplay – a full blown movie even, set in the future when the shi-shi has truly hit the fan, and have someone look back to the present day… and ask why.

A lot of societies glorify ‘the ancestors’ – if not worship them. I think our generation (regardless of ‘culture’), will be the first bunch of ancestors that are reviled and hated, if not cursed, for the legacy we are leaving for our descendants, not because of crimes against humanity, or for starting wars or stealing land or people, but because we are destroying the future of the human race and many of the other flora and fauna that we ’share’ our precariously spinning space rock and its resources with…

I am looking forward to seeing the film – but just like blog readers dislike being berated, I get the impression that the movie watching public would generally prefer to watch movies where the hero is a superhuman and from another planet/time or something… as opposed to a movie saying “it’s up to you! fix it! it’s your fault! it IS your problem” – but I hope that being proved wrong about that is part of our transition, nay paradigm shift, to becoming honourable and respected ancestors

I just saw this video which was referred to on Keith’s ‘Unsuitablog‘

I love this video – and it pretty much sums up why I feel so uncomfortable with the level of greenwash that we are subjected to on a daily basis. The whole ‘civilisation’ game is a very finite game and is defined by how long we can get away with unbridled over consumption, relentless extraction of resources and exploitation of labour. Industrial civilisation is pretty much doomed to be no more than a blink of an eye in terms of how long it will be around in the history of Homo sapiens but it could well be the very last chance we get. In our haste to convert everything to liquid assets and to extract every last drop of energy we can dig out of the ground – we are probably going to royally fisk it (it being earth) up for our unfortunate successive generations who will be forced to deal with our incredible short sightedness.

Today, some of our main arguments are whether or not it is worth our while to turn off domestic appliances when not in use, or whether we should eat food flown in from the other side of the planet, or whether wind-turbines have a place in our countryside…

If we carry on asking stupid questions like those, in the future the big question will be whether we reproduce to preserve the human race or whether not to bother in order to preserve the rest of life on earth and quite possibly the solar system and universe at large!

Time to start honing those self-sufficiency skills?

Here’s a Ferengi quote for Trekkies:

Quark: I think I figured out why humans don’t like Ferengi—
Sisko: Not now, Quark.
Quark: The way I see it, humans used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We’re a constant reminder of a part of your past you’d like to forget.
Sisko: Quark, we don’t have time for this.
Quark: You’re overlooking something, Commander. Humans used to be a lot worse than Ferengi. Slavery, concentration camps, interstellar war… we have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you… we’re better.

I have been using a great little Wordpress plug-in called ‘Quotes Collection‘ on this blog – it’s great for grabbing those quotes you see popping up over the web and adding them to your blog. It is my favourite aspect of my own blog actually – I like being inspired, challenged or reminded of important concepts and values by great thinkers.

You can get a sample of them by clicking on ‘Next Quote’ over there on the left- it doesn’t need to reload the page due to some javascript trickery (and you should see a non-javascript degraded version if you you don’t have js turned on).

Anyway – I want your quotes! What is your favourite quote? What makes a good quote?

If you have a favourite quote that covers anything in the category/tag cloud – please post them here and I will add them to my quotes collection… and others can grab them too.

Let Leo tell you a story…

Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

I want one of these, well – when it is finished anyway:

Like the 'shaguar' but greener

More about the GB electric car here on Dale’s blog

Also – here’s the first instalment of the build video:

I may get around to commenting on this soon, but the guardian seems to be doing a pretty good job at that – in the meantime here’s some video. I am hoping that there will be some daily video reports appearing, but I hear they are having trouble due to police blocking access to the site.