Climate change - truth or dare

I signed up to the climate change mantra a long time ago when the science was ‘less certain’ than it is today. As I saw it:

• The long-term trend in global temperatures was upwards

• The rate of increase was alarmingly outstripping any previous trends, suggesting this was more than just the usual cycle

• It was more than likely that human activity (e.g. gas emissions, deforestation) was contributing towards this long-term trend

• Humans therefore had a moral duty to try and repair the damage and prevent further harm

• The cost to the most vulnerable in national and global society would be worse if we didn’t invest in our mutual futures

• If we chose not to act immediately, and in 30 years’ time realised that we should’ve done, it would be too late. Prudence was the name of the game.

Nine lives later

When one goes on holiday at my time of life (think hot flushes and temper tantrums), one looks to relax in beautiful, fascinating and safe environments. One does not expect to spend an entire day in a state of stomach-churning anxiety, wishing one had packed Diazepam as well as Stugeron.

Climate change is like Brexit

The conveyor belt of storms pummelling Britain during the last few days has once again begged the question: is this evidence of climate change?

Advocates say yes. Deniers say no.

Shit Happens

The FT appears to have joined forces with the Guardian to bring down the privatised water industry because of untreated sewage polluting our rivers and coasts [i]^,[ii]. Basic journalistic principles of factual and balanced reporting are being sacrificed in favour of sensationalism, political bias and pandering to ill-informed public hysteria. Because shit sells; balance doesn’t.

The cure-all that is Mother Nature

The other day, with Monday's vile headache threatening to return, I walked about 12 miles. I’d meant to walk about 10, but I got lost, several times. I'd picked up a recommended walk from the hotel website in North Yorks where Hubby and I had decamped for a few days’ R&R (that’s Rest and Relaxation, not Rum and whatever-mixer-starts-with-an-R).

The walk’s written instructions were accompanied by a small-scale map, with the route highlighted in yellow, obliterating key visual details. The text included Yoda-style wisdom (not) such as, “Continue up the hill through the forest”, where there were two possible uphill routes – one went northeast and one northwest. Another said, “Pass through a gap in the wall by the water trough”; there were several gaps and no water troughs.

BNG - WTF?

I had one of those What The F - - k (WTF) moments recently. In the midst of reading / writing / planning stuff about the (lack of) merits of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and what a con / disappointment / travesty / gamble / meaningless hogwash it is, I suddenly thought about Afghanistan and stopped typing as if the keyboard had vanished. Poof!

John Lewis really has lost its way

The go-to store of the British middle class can’t blame Covid or deserted High Streets or Russian hackers for their current woes. I came to that conclusion after 54 minutes trying to buy something very ordinary.

It all started earlier today, at 9:31am, while delivering the Stewkley Grapevine, our brilliant-if-I-say-so-myself village newsletter. Since the lockdown in spring, as opposed to the lockdown coming up, or the mandatory quarantine currently experienced by my sister in Barnsley (Barnsley. Yes. I know) because one of her work colleagues tested positive, I’ve taken a black plastic sack with me and litter-picked the verges and hedgerows. If I were Prime Minister (which is the title of a future blog), I would bring back capital punishment for litter louts. As fast as I clean everything up, more yobs, slags and low-lifes desecrate the countryside rather than take their detritus back to the cesspits they call home.

Downright Disgusting or Pure Poetry

Every now and again, I toddle on down the lane with a long-handled grabber in one hand and a bin liner in the other, collecting the detritus that others have either dropped while out walking, thrown out of their cars while driving, or that has been dropped elsewhere and blown in the wind – Sorry, Bob Dylan, but that is definitely NOT the answer.

People who litter are themselves detritus. Trash. Rubbish. Garbage. Ugly. If you litter, do not pass Go; do not collect £200; go straight to jail and rot.

Hell-icopters, Compasses and 007

I received a few neat comments on my first posting of Hell-icopters, so I’ve rewritten it to incorporate them. It starts the same way:

Here’s a first – someone (my neighbour and good friend) has asked me to write a blog on a specific topic. Yep, I’m now taking requests – how cool is that! Except the topic that has been requested is helicopter noise (probably prompted by my previous blog inspired by Bea’s wedding). Sorry. Bit technical. Bit dry. I’ll start typing and see if the muse strikes. If it doesn’t then that’s another post collecting dust in my drafts’ folder.

And I was indeed struggling. Totally uninspired, until one of the buggers buzzed me when I was out walking last week, on a sunny day, lost in my own thoughts, enjoying the birdsong, the bees, the rustling leaves, the snorting of cattle … and then pulse pulse pulse, chop chop chop, grate grate grate.

Hell-icopters and Compasses

Here’s a first – someone (my neighbour and good friend) has asked me to write a blog on a specific topic. Yep, I’m now taking requests – how cool is that! Except the topic that has been requested is helicopter noise (probably prompted by my previous post). Sorry. Bit technical. Bit dry. I’ll start typing and see if the muse strikes. If it doesn’t then that’s another post collecting dust in my drafts’ folder.

And I was indeed struggling. Totally uninspired, until one of the buggers buzzed me when I was out walking last week, on a sunny day, lost in my own thoughts, enjoying the birdsong, the bees, the rustling leaves, the snorting of cattle … and then pulse pulse pulse, chop chop chop, grate grate grate.

Helicopter noise is different from the likes of SleasyJet and SwizzAir, because choppers generally fly lower, much lower, can hang around (I believe the technical term is ‘hover’), and I’m always suspicious who’s been flown where. If it’s an air ambulance, coastguard, police or military (especially Chinooks; I lurve Chinooks; so distinctive, so solid, so sexy) then fine. But if it’s the brash and tasteless nouveau riche heading to Silverstone or Pinewood Studios, then the finger it is. Some people make socialism a very attractive proposition.

How to lose friends and alienate people

Yes I know that’s the title of a Simon Pegg film – we watched it the other evening, which is what prompted the plagiarism. Not his best film, but it still contains some laugh-out-loud moments, like when Kirsten Dunst kicks Pegg on the shin. It doesn’t sound much but I thought it hilarious.

Talking about hilarious, I’ve had one of those anything-but weeks when I couldn’t stop annoying people. The first was during a hang-over morning, when I did not want to wake up to a half-a-mug-a-coffee-long email from a complete stranger having a go at a local project I’m leading on. We are trialling a voluntary reduction in the village speed limit from 30 to 20mph before deciding whether to go for a legally enforced limit throughout the village, for part of the village, or leave well alone. He said things like: why stop at 20 and why not 5; traffic-calming was more effective; ‘Community Speedwatch’ was even better. I fired off a polite (honest, it was) riposte that included variations on a seen-that-done-that-got-the-T-shirt theme.

I killed an ant and I liked it

Being a tad green around the edges, I respect Mother Nature’s development and defence strategy, that everything depends on everything else. The smallest microbe is essential for the survival of the elephant because of the food-chain, pollination, dependent life-cycles and so forth.

Sometimes this interdependency doesn’t appear to be a good thing – like the ‘butterfly effect’ and chaos theory, where a waft of a delicate wing can, under a series of the right conditions, lead to a hurricane. But I still wouldn’t kill a butterfly because a) they are pretty and harmless and b) they are an important component of a food chain, as predators and prey. And it has to be said that, while very destructive, hurricanes have a part to play in the greater scheme of things and are overall much less harmful than human beings.

Five Loaves, Two Fishes, and an Unintended Consequence

Growing-your-own is a good thing. Everyone knows that. But it’s more than about tastier food at (once you get going) a fraction of the over-priced, under-flavoured, not-the-freshest supermarket stuff.

The first tentative harvesting of the beetroot from our new-this-year vegetable beds proved the flavour thing. And as well as steaming the beets for dinner, I used the leaves in a salad for lunch – so fresh, so tasty, so nutritious, so waste-not-want-not. Grow more veg, eat more veg. Can only be a good thing, right? (Keep reading!)

Everyone should be so lucky, lucky lucky lucky

With apologies to Kylie, I don’t think she was singing about access to the Great British countryside. Maybe I could adapt the lyrics, because today I had the most glorious walk and it struck me that not everyone can do this. 

Environmental Justice - not everyone can avoid unhealthy trade-offs

One of the hashtags I follow on LinkedIn is #environmentaljustice. A friend asked me, in the light of the Black Lives Matter protests and pandemic hardships, why not #socialjustice? Good question.

One brief definition of environmental justice (EJ) (sometimes referred to as ‘environmental equality’) is “an equitable distribution of environmental benefits between all communities”; social justice (SJ) can be defined as “an equitable distribution of wealth (i.e. economic gains), opportunities and privileges within a society.”

EJ is therefore an integral part of SJ – without the former the latter is incomplete.

EJ is more than about the maintenance and improvement of urban and rural spaces; what truly defines the concept is how and why environmental benefits and harm are spread amongst different communities. Not surprisingly, lower income households are more likely to live in poor-quality environments, which are less expensive and more conducive to chronic lung conditions and disturbed sleep.