I'm sure that many of you like me have thought about getting out of the 'rat race'; getting rid of most of your belongings and responsibilities and going off somewhere and enjoying yourself (for me it would be in to the mountains or maybe walking The Appalachian Trail which is the longest footpath in the world).
I often think 'I wish I had the ability/nerve/courage to just up sticks and go. Apparently there are loads of people out there who have done it. To some it's called 'living off-grid'. I fell across this website almost by mistake but it makes fascinating reading. If you have time give it a look:
http://www.livingoffgrid.org/
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Further SC actions
Since my last blog we have had an engineer around from Aga and we are thinking about having it converted to electricity so that we can turn it down overnight and use a timer for when we need it to come on. It is feasible apparently, but it comes at a cost of between £800-£1000. We are already using a green electricity supplier. We are now working out how long it will be before we get a return on the investment.
As a family we have tried reducing our meat intake for one week. We have had four vegetarian dinners and we have all agreed to try and keep this up. We listened to a debate on Radio 4 the other night and it had someone on there saying it was better for climate change if you were a vegetarian and drove a 4x4 than it was to ride a bike and eat meat! I'm not sure how true that is but at least we are trying to cut down on our meat consumption.
My two boys are forever leaving their lights, computers and other electrical 'stuff' on when they go out. We all discussed it at supper one night and they agreed that if they did it again my wife and I could 'confiscate' the item or remove the light bulb so that it was an inconvenience for them to find it or put it back. Surprise, surprise they only did it once and have been fully complying ever since.
I'd love one of those smart meters now to see how much electricity our other 'stuff' is using.
As a family we have tried reducing our meat intake for one week. We have had four vegetarian dinners and we have all agreed to try and keep this up. We listened to a debate on Radio 4 the other night and it had someone on there saying it was better for climate change if you were a vegetarian and drove a 4x4 than it was to ride a bike and eat meat! I'm not sure how true that is but at least we are trying to cut down on our meat consumption.
My two boys are forever leaving their lights, computers and other electrical 'stuff' on when they go out. We all discussed it at supper one night and they agreed that if they did it again my wife and I could 'confiscate' the item or remove the light bulb so that it was an inconvenience for them to find it or put it back. Surprise, surprise they only did it once and have been fully complying ever since.
I'd love one of those smart meters now to see how much electricity our other 'stuff' is using.
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Update on the bike issue!!
Well folks I've taken the plunge since reading your responses to my earlier Blog about cycling and possibly buying a bike. I've got hold of a second hand one and have now travelled in by bike on four days (I live 12 miles from the UEA).
Some of my reading also prompted my decision to start cycling to university. These are some of the snippets. According to The Times (online, 2009) ‘only 1.5 per cent of journeys were made on a bike [in 2008] and more than half of all journeys of less than two miles were made by car’ whilst ‘[j]ust 3% of people in Britain cycle to work’ (Guardian, 2009) with an estimated ‘4 million people...driving less than three miles to work’ (Guardian, 2007).
Now what do I do about the oil fired Aga I've got? It's keeping me awake at night!!
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Jeffrey Sachs and those Reith Lectures
Just a short one this time:
Jeffrey Sachs' Reith Lectures from 2007 are just so relevant to this module on Sustainable Consumption. I've just started listening to them again. If you have time I can really recommend them. The link is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/
Cick on 'Lectures' on the left hand side and you will find them.
Jeffrey Sachs' Reith Lectures from 2007 are just so relevant to this module on Sustainable Consumption. I've just started listening to them again. If you have time I can really recommend them. The link is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/
Cick on 'Lectures' on the left hand side and you will find them.
$1,000, 000, 000, 000
I've just watched the Nic Marks video at:
(http://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index.html)
He mentions that Costa Rica (the happiest country on the planet apparently! see my previous blog!!?) abolished its army in the 1950s so that it could spend more on social welfare. The comment got me thinking: If the USA did the same thing how much money would they have to make their country and the rest of the world a fairer more ethical place. The answer was astounding.
According to wikipedia (yes I know the pitfalls of wiki) the US military budget for 2010 is estimated to be 1.03 trillion dollars. That is about 627 billion pounds sterling. To the Americans (the British trillion is different) one trillion is a million million or one thousand billion. If you want to see what a trillion dollars looks like then go to this link:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12754
In 2006 the Stern Report estimated that the global adaptation costs due to climate change were approximately $31 billion. Is that a day's US spending on defence?
In his Reith Lecture in 2007 Jeffrey Sachs claimed that US military spending (at that time $620 billion) was 'more than the rest of the world put together'. Sachs went on to say that malaria killed two million children in Africa every year and that to provide 300 million anti-malaria bed nets which 'cost a mere five dollars and last five years - that's one dollar a year' would cost just $1.5 billion dollars. But hey the US did have a budget of $4.5 (yes there is s point in there) billion dollars for African aid in 2007 (Sachs again)!
Something's wrong - isn't it?
(http://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index.html)
He mentions that Costa Rica (the happiest country on the planet apparently! see my previous blog!!?) abolished its army in the 1950s so that it could spend more on social welfare. The comment got me thinking: If the USA did the same thing how much money would they have to make their country and the rest of the world a fairer more ethical place. The answer was astounding.
According to wikipedia (yes I know the pitfalls of wiki) the US military budget for 2010 is estimated to be 1.03 trillion dollars. That is about 627 billion pounds sterling. To the Americans (the British trillion is different) one trillion is a million million or one thousand billion. If you want to see what a trillion dollars looks like then go to this link:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12754
In 2006 the Stern Report estimated that the global adaptation costs due to climate change were approximately $31 billion. Is that a day's US spending on defence?
In his Reith Lecture in 2007 Jeffrey Sachs claimed that US military spending (at that time $620 billion) was 'more than the rest of the world put together'. Sachs went on to say that malaria killed two million children in Africa every year and that to provide 300 million anti-malaria bed nets which 'cost a mere five dollars and last five years - that's one dollar a year' would cost just $1.5 billion dollars. But hey the US did have a budget of $4.5 (yes there is s point in there) billion dollars for African aid in 2007 (Sachs again)!
Something's wrong - isn't it?
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Hope Bourne
The picture of the 'Wants' and 'Needs' factory in the lecture notes on 5th October 2010 reminded me of Hope Bourne who died recently aged 91. Hope was known as the 'Lady of Exmoor' who eschewed the materialistic lifestyle in favour of voluntary simplicity at a time when the term had probably not even been thought up.
I first heard of Hope when somebody gave me her book 'Wild Harvest' back in the 1970s. It was at or about the same time as I read Rachel Carson's polemical 'Silent Spring' (which I re-read recently and can highly recommend).
Hope lived on Exmoor in a caravan for almost 60 years and once said that the five necessities in life were "clean water, food, a roof over your head, a fire and protective clothing'. She literally lived off the land, shooting rabbits and other game and growing vegetables. She lived on £1 a week and even then managed to save half of that! When asked about people who lived in towns she said that they "all looked so miserable".
All the broadsheets carried her obituary in August this year and she readily comes up on an internet search on her name.
She lead a fascinating life.
I first heard of Hope when somebody gave me her book 'Wild Harvest' back in the 1970s. It was at or about the same time as I read Rachel Carson's polemical 'Silent Spring' (which I re-read recently and can highly recommend).
Hope lived on Exmoor in a caravan for almost 60 years and once said that the five necessities in life were "clean water, food, a roof over your head, a fire and protective clothing'. She literally lived off the land, shooting rabbits and other game and growing vegetables. She lived on £1 a week and even then managed to save half of that! When asked about people who lived in towns she said that they "all looked so miserable".
All the broadsheets carried her obituary in August this year and she readily comes up on an internet search on her name.
She lead a fascinating life.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Happy Index
Apparently Icelanders were the happiest in the world and Russians the least happy(2008).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/18/iceland
In Bhutan they have, and measure, GDH - 'Gross Domestic Happiness'!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/18/iceland
In Bhutan they have, and measure, GDH - 'Gross Domestic Happiness'!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)