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.

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.

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!)

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.