For World Environment Day, which this year is on the theme of air pollution, I was invited to write a blog post on the Library staff blog about the plants I grow in my office at work. You can read it here.
My office jungle
Category: Environmentalism
Grasping at straws
Today the Government announced that from April 2020, plastic straws, drinks stirrers and cotton buds with plastic stems will be banned from sale to the general public in England. Much of the commentary I've seen on social media seems to see this as a victory for sustainability advocates, but while I've never understood the point of … Continue reading Grasping at straws
Pathetic micro-consumerist bollocks
Is it worth trying to reduce your personal impact when we need to tackle climate breakdown on a systemic level, or is it just, as George Monbiot calls it, pathetic micro-consumerist bollocks? Edit 20th May: replaced the embedded Facebook video with a Youtube one as it didn't seem to be visible to some people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-XjQhOyNQ … Continue reading Pathetic micro-consumerist bollocks
Failure Friday: coffee filter funnel
With the recent growth in interest in sustainable living I'm seeing a lot of posts of beautiful people with Instagram-worthy lifestyles sharing their clearly enviable life decisions, and I just wanted to push back a bit against the rather intimidating impression this gives that no one ever gets it wrong. I've certainly made some mistaken … Continue reading Failure Friday: coffee filter funnel
Closing the Loop for grocery packaging?
We are becoming increasingly aware of the problems caused by plastic waste, particularly single use packaging, and of the inadequacies of our methods of dealing with it as it becomes clear that recycling is not the panacea it was sold as. It's therefore encouraging to see a new scheme being launched to tackle the problem … Continue reading Closing the Loop for grocery packaging?
Ways to reduce single use
With the caveat that environmentalism is increasingly framed as a matter of individual consumer choices rather than collective action, which is bad news both for the movement's likely effectiveness and the way we think of ourselves and one another in society, I do nevertheless believe that personal environmental choices are worth making. This is not … Continue reading Ways to reduce single use
Out of sight, out of mind: the problem with balloons
The natural world is so busy and full of beautiful, remarkable things to pay attention to that it sometimes causes me problems when I help out at the bushcraft school where I was privileged enough to spend many of my weekends this summer. I frequently find myself going out to collect firewood and coming back, … Continue reading Out of sight, out of mind: the problem with balloons
Have yourself an environmentally conscious Christmas now
Whatever the spiritual significance of the Christmas period to you, the holidays are a time when our consumption as a culture goes into overdrive. With many planetary boundaries already exceeded and an increasing awareness of how resources are being depleted to manufacture products in exploitative labour conditions, and the subsequent pollution caused when these products … Continue reading Have yourself an environmentally conscious Christmas now
Tangled Bank Foraging and Fibre Crafts 