As a lifelong fan of Mary Wollstonecraft I have to admit that I was a bit dubious about the Angry Green Girl website. But the site is actually quite informative and fun in a Carry On film kinda way. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if it attracts a whole new audience to green ideas then it can’t be all bad…
Anyone living in my home-town of Doncaster may be interested in a new project that hopes to encourage Transition Town initiatives in the surrounding area. The group will work to encourage projects that enshrine the Transition Town principles set out in the TT primer. The proposed blog for the group can be found here and they can be contacted via transitiondoncaster[at]gmail.com. Let’s get this thing started and I’ll see you there 
The 10:10 campaign officially launches this afternoon at London’s Tate Modern Gallery. Thousands of individuals, companies and institutions will commit to cutting their carbon emissions by 10% during the year 2010.
Groups committed to the 10:10 cause range from Tottenham Hotspur football club, online grocer Ocado, the Tate galleries and the Women’s Institute to dozens of schools, universities and NHS trusts.
10% may sound like a huge deal, but it’s really quite easy; it just involves being more thoughtful about the energy you consume. If, like many people, you currently live your life through windows – waking up in a centrally-heated/air-conditioned home, driving to a centrally-heated/air-conditioned office in your air-conditioned car, sitting in front of the widescreen window that is your energy wasting plasma TV to relax, etc. – then you’ll find that you can acheive a 10% cut without even trying too hard. Life’s also more fun if you walk more, talk more and share a bath!
Go on, give it a go. Sign up here. But it’s also worth keeping the words of No Right Turn in mind…
“This is not a substitute for government action, for strong policies to force industrial and agricultural polluters to take responsibility for and reduce their emissions. Instead, it is supposed to spur government action, by demonstrating that there is a significant constituency who care about the issue and will act on it, either directly or at the ballot box as need be. Its about putting the fear into the politicians.”
*CB lingo for the uninitiated…
This week the Shell multinational oil company are to go on trial for complicity in Nigeria’s 1994 brutal crackdowns against the Ogoni people and the murder of non-violent activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Mr Saro-Wiwa was hanged in November 1995 after being convicted by a military tribunal in which he was denied proper legal representation or appeal. Shell subsequently faced a storm of protest and Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth. The then British prime minister, John Major, called the execution “judicial murder”.
While Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer, the peoples of the river delta where the crude is extracted have seen their homelands turned into a wasteland. The millions of dollars of oil revenue accrued every day have done nothing for the 70 per cent of Nigerians who live on less than $1 a day.
And even while the current trial gets under way the Nigerian government the Nigerian military has launched a large offensive against the people of the Niger Delta, in an attempt to “crush armed insurgent groups.” Brutal military attacks have rained down on the Western Delta from the air, sea and land since last Wednesday. Despite attempts by the military to cover up the massacres, the Ijaw National Congress, which represents the region’s largest ethnic group, has said that the attacks have “resulted in over a thousand deaths, because we dared to ask for our rights,” in the mostly Ijaw communities of Gbaramatu, Okerenkoko, and Oporoza.” According to Amnesty International they have received reports that indicate hundreds of civilians have already been killed. The military presence has made independent access to the communities difficult and claims impossible to verify. (Get the full story here)
Forget the Swine Flu pandemic, climate change remainss “the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century”, according to The Lancet and University College London.
Climate change could be the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. Effects on health of climate change will be felt by most populations in the next decades and put the lives and wellbeing of billions of people at increased risk. During this century, the earth’s average surface temperature rises are likely to exceed the safe threshold of 2°C above pre-industrial average temperature.This report outlines the major threats—both direct and indirect—to global health from climate change through changing patterns of disease, water and food insecurity, vulnerable shelter and human settlements, extreme climatic events, and population migration. Although vector-borne diseases will expand their reach and death tolls, the indirect effects of climate change on water, food security, and extreme climatic events are likely to have the biggest effect on global health.
A new advocacy and public health movement is needed urgently to bring together governments, international agencies, non-governmental organisations, communities, and academics from all disciplines to adapt to the effects of climate change on health. Any adaptation should sit alongside the need for primary mitigation: reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and the need to increase carbon bio-sequestration through reforestation and improved agricultural practices. The recognition by governments and electorates that climate change has enormous health implications should assist the advocacy and political change needed to tackle both mitigation and adaptation.
The major difference between Climate Change and Swine Flu is that a flu pandemic is inevitable; climate change is not – yet!
An interesting article in The Independent today helped to remind the Greenjacker that beyond shelter, a full belly, comfortable shoes and good companionship there is only entertainment; who suffers for yours?
Gadgets alert over environment impact
Charge your iPod, kill a polar bear? The choice might not be quite that stark, but an energy watchdog is alarmed about the threat to the environment from the soaring electricity needs of gadgets like MP3 players, mobile phones and flat screen TVs.
In a report today, the Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates new electronic gadgets will triple their energy consumption by 2030 to 1,700 terawatt hours, the equivalent of today’s home electricity consumption of the United States and Japan combined.
The world would have to build around 200 new nuclear power plants just to power all the TVs, iPods, PCs and other home electronics expected to be plugged in by 2030, when the global electric bill to power them will rise to $200 billion a year, the IEA said.
Consumer electronics is “the fastest growing area and it’s the area with the least amount of policies in place” to control energy efficiency, said Paul Waide, a senior policy analyst at the IEA.
Electronic gadgets already account for about 15 per cent of household electric consumption, a share that is rising rapidly as the number of these gadgets multiplies. Last year, the world spent $80 billion on electricity to power all these household electronics, the IEA said.
Most of the increase in consumer electronics will be in developing countries, where economic growth is fastest and ownership rates of gadgets is the lowest, Waide said.
“This will jeopardize efforts to increase energy security and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases” blamed for global warming, the agency said.
Existing technologies could slash gadgets’ energy consumption by more than 30 percent at no cost or by more than 50 percent at a small cost, the IEA estimates, meaning total greenhouse gas emissions from households’ electronic gadgets could be held stable at around 500 million tons of CO2 per year.
If nothing is done, this figure will double to around 1 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2030, the IEA estimates.
Televisions are one area where much improvement could be made, Waide said.
The IEA estimates the world will soon have 2 billion TVs in use — or an average of 1.3 televisions for every household with electricity. In addition to becoming more numerous, TVs are also getting bigger screens and are being left on for longer each day. The group predicts 5 percent annual increase in energy consumption between 1990 and 2030, just from TVs alone.
Waide said simple measures, such as allowing consumers to regulate the energy consumption of their gadgets according to the features they actually use, should be adopted to counter this growth.
He said governments also need to encourage minimum performance standards and easy-to-read energy labels, so consumers can take energy efficiency into account along with price when buying home electronics.
This morning, the police in Manado arrested Berry N. Forquan, , director
of WALHI (Friends of the Earth Indonesia) and Erwin Usman from WALHI
(see Torry´s mail below).
Please send your protest against the arrest of Berry N Forqan and Erwin
Usman to
- Police of Manado, fax 0062-431-852916
- Headquarter National Police in Jakarta, fax 0062-21-7207277
- Parliamentary Commission for Human Rights, fax 0062-21-5715532
and send text messages (sms) to
- Bekto Suprapto Di, police of North Sulawesi, mobile 0062-81618844950,
0062-813-40579332, and to the
- police of Manado, mobile 0062-811-432586.
Thanks, Marianne Klute
Watch Indonesia!
As the Western World waffles on about energy saving bulbs and ‘greener’ cars the residents of the Carteret Islandsoff the coast of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, have become the first people to undergo a complete evacuation of the populace due to human-induced climate change. The following report by Dan Box originally appeared on The Ecologist blog site…
The Evacuation Begins
Dan BoxDan Box is on-site to witness the world’s first climate refugees being evacuated due to rising sea levels
The evacuation of the Carteret Islands have begun. This morning I stood on black volcanic sand, pressed up right against the jungle, and watched a small white boat powered by a single outboard engine run in against the shore. On board were five men from the Islands, the fathers of five families, who have come to finish building houses and gardens already begun in a cleared patch of jungle at Tinputz, on the east coast of Bougainville. When these homes are ready the five will return to the Carterets, to fetch their wives and children back. Life, they hope, will be better for them here. On the Carterets, king tides have washed away their crops and rising sea levels poisoned those that remain with salt. The people have been forced to move.
The men climbed silently from the boat and into the shallows. They splashed towards us, carrying almost nothing. From beside me, others who had come to meet them walked out quietly in welcome. The air was still, both sad and happy, which seemed to suit the moment. That single boat carrying these five men is the first wave in what is, as far as I can tell, the world’s first official evacuation of an entire people because of climate change. Some say they will be ready to bring their families here next month when the houses are completed. Others that it will be June, when the first crop of sweet potatoes will be ready to feed them.
It was a combination of a little planning and a lot of luck that allowed me to be among the very few to see this. I heard the evacuation was beginning only yesterday, a day after arriving in Buka. It has been on again and off again many times over the past year, but Papua New Guinea seems to like throwing surprises. Given the chance to be there when it finally began, I leapt and travelled to Tinputz this morning, first by boat across Buka passage, which separates the island on which I am staying from Bougainville, and then through the jungle in the back tray of a Toyota Hilux 4-wheel drive with a crowd of local people. Some were from the NGO the Carterets established to broker their own move. Others were from the Carterets themselves, who had travelled to Buka on trading boats and wanted to be at Tinputz to welcome their friends. There were also a Kiwi and an Aussie, Kim and Kirsten, who have spent months as volunteers working towards today. We arrived only minutes before the boat itself.
After the arrival, the men sat in the shade of two unfinished timber frame houses among the trees – the beginnings of the homes they are to complete. The women cooked; clams and corned beef sandwiches, greens, rice and cassava wrapped in palm leaves. After hours the two parties came together to eat, to pray and to formally welcome the newcomers to Tinputz. There were speeches in Tok Pisin, only a little of which I followed. The five fathers sat in a line and nodded their heads in silence.
On the ride home, hundreds of children streamed along the road, in bright white shirts above blood red skirts and trousers, proving completely false my first thought that the dense forest on either side must be uninhabited. The only bitter taste to today came also on this return journey, riding high on the tray of the Toyota. We hit and killed a pig and then a dog that scampered out into the jungle road; fortunately our driver had no licence plate, or the call for retribution would have been swift (this is a country that puts a pig on its 20 kina note). A full beer-bottle also came screaming at us from a passing truck, but shattered harmlessly on the road. Possibly it was aimed at me, the only white guy in sight. At least that is what the others with me in the Toyota thought. On the other hand, I saw a man carrying a stone-tipped spear along the road, which is also something you don’t see every day.
The Greenjacker is not a big fan of the car. Every morning dedicated pedestrians have to listen to the same old crap from moaning drivers, “Ooh, the traffics a nightmares”, “It’s gridlock outside little Johnny’s school”, etc.; and yet car drivers never seem to realise the blatantly obvious…
…YOU ARE THE TRAFFIC!!!
But after coming accross the following Toyota pick-up on AfriGadget even the Greenjacker’s getting in the mood for a drive…
If you’re a fan of chives and are just getting started with wild food then you’ll find May a really wonderful time of year for the nettle connoisseur.
One of the main obstacles facing would-be (some might say ‘budding’) foragers is self-doubt. From an early age we’re ‘warned’ (rather than educated) about the dangers of eating wild food and with modern supermarket produce being grown for appearance and shelf-life rather than taste we can often be dubious of nature’s somewhat less vain demeanour. There are some amazing guide books available to the amateur, but they wouldn’t be worth their salt if they didn’t warn of the dangers of mistaking wild parsnip for hemlock. Fortunately for the faint hearted (and we include ourselves in this description) actual foraging is a multi-sensory extravaganza which mere words can barely hope to describe in full. Of all the clues which help the forager in their quest (understanding seasons & habitat, a good eye, etc.) smell remains one of our greatest aids (Hemlock smells, to be perfectly frank, like mouse piss).
May is a great time for amateur foragers because plants are easier to identify when they’re in flower. Apart from our old friend the nettle, there are two easily recognisable white flowering plants around this time of year who’s smell is unmistakeable, Ramsons (Allium ursinum) and Jack-by-the-Hedge (Alliaria petiolata); the clue to what they smell like can be found in their alternative common names – Wild Garlic and Garlic Mustard. This time of year you can often catch a whiff of garlic as you walk by either plant (though Ramsons are far smellier), if in doubt simply rub a leaf between your fingers and enjoy their hunger-inducing aroma.
If you’re a fan of stronger flavours, like garlic, onions or chives (to which Ramsons are related), then Ramsons are for you. They can be found in woodland and shady spots throughout the UK;
the elliptical, rich green leaves look like Lily-of-the-Valley (Convallaria majalis), but the white, starburst flowers are very different from C majalis’s delicate bells.
Ramsons leaves can be used as salad, boiled as a vegetable, or finely chopped as a flavouring in lieu of chives or basil. The bulbs and flowers are also quite tasty. This being a Nettle Diary, we’re going to use them as a flavouring.
If you’re not a fan of big flavours then go for the Jack-by-the-Hedge. As the name suggests Jack can be found by hedgerows, but he can also be seen by walls, kerbsides (though we wouldn’t recommend eating anything that grew near traffic) and – luckily for the following recipe – in nettle patches. In fact the leaves are very much like large, rounded nettle leaves making the plant look a bit like a bloated dead-nettle.
Unusually this is one of the only plants to smell like garlic that is not a family relation. The leaves, flowers and fruit are edible as food for humans, and are best when young. They have a much milder flavour and are good with spring lamb.
There are a huge number of Nettle Soup recipes available in books and online and we recommend you play around with various recipes. We love old ‘Roadkill’ himself, Fergus Drennan, but we made the following ‘Wild by replacing the garlic with strips of Ramsons leaves which we think makes it more ‘authentic’.
Seasonal Recipe: Nettle and Wild Garlic Soup (serves 10 ish)
1 rectangular veg.stall wicker basket full of young nettle tops. (wash well) -
or between 500g- 1kg
1 large leek (roughly chopped)
2 medium sized onions (roughly chopped)
2 very large potatoes (peeled and chopped quite small)
1-2 cloves of garlic (chopped/crushed) – or 2-3 shredded Ramsons leaves for the Greenjacker version!
vegetable stock to taste (cube/powder etc)
3 pints water
2.5 pints milk
4 bunches (of approx 50gs) wild garlic (Alliun ursinum) (finely chopped)
a little olive oil
cream (single or double)
salt and pepper
a few garlic mustard leaves for garnish (Alliaria petiolata)
METHOD:
Place all ingredients in a large saucepan except the cream, 1 bunch of the wild garlic and 1 pint of the milk. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes, then liquidize. Also, liquidize the remaining pint of milk with the chopped wild garlic. Swirl some of this and a little cream into the soup once you have put it in a bowl. Garnish with a couple of garlic mustard leaves – only a couple though, as this is the food plant of the beautiful Orange Tip butterfly’s caterpillar.
The following recipe from Denniblog was also quite nice, but we didn’t find any need to ‘denature’ the nettle leaves as cooking does this anyway…
Wild Garlic & Nettle Soup
About the hardest bit is picking the nettles (with thick gardening gloves!). I advise to do it just after a good shower has washed away any potential bird shit, then stick the wet leaves in the microwave for 2 minutes to denature the toxin (or boil them, but note that most of the flavour will be lost to the water) before washing them briefly and stripping off the tough stalks. Only the young shoots or tips of the plants are tender enough to bother with.1 onion; 2 cloves garlic; 1-2 tbsp olive oil; wild garlic: about 125g or 10-12 large leaves; nettles: about 1 cup worth after heating to denature the stinging poison; 1 raw potato, cubed; nutmeg; salt & black pepper; crème fraîche;
Sweat the finely chopped onion and crushed garlic then add the shredded wild garlic and wilt quickly. Add the nettles, potato and enough water to just cover. Simmer until tender (15-20 minutes) and add seasonings. Cool slightly, pureé with a soup stick (careful to keep the thing submerged unless you want to end up looking like the Green Giant) and add water to the desired consistency. Re-heat gently, adding crème fraîche and more seasoning to taste. Serve with a dollop of cream and finely chopped wild garlic leaves or chives or croûtons.
One final ingredient vital to any recipe you try is a good wholemeal crusty roll – enjoy!
