Small Revolutions: Voluntary Simplicity in Devon

Extinct.

I've just seen on the news that after a major survey of the Yangste river, scientists are ready to conclude that the freshwater dolphin, which had been in existence for 20 millions years, is now extinct.

The news report cited China's expansion, need for oil and power etc. as one of the defining reasons, as if they were being inveteratelt selfish. Which made me angry.

The Chinese government only wants have the same quality of life for its inhabitants as we get in the UK. And furthermore, it is the west's thirst for cheaply made consumer goods of all kinds which has fuelled their economy and expansion.

We, who buy twice as many clothes because they're now twice as cheap, we who live in a throwaway culture, are complicit in all of this.

So who's to blame?

I've always thought that ecology is a lot more than just buying the right things. It's about more than buying organic food and fair trade coffee. Because everything we buy has impacts.

Voluntary simplicity is, for me, about taking just what you need from the world and giving back what you can to the world. It's about satisfying needs simply and ethically. And by living a more modest way of life, we help use resources more responsibly.

If you were to ask me what made these mammals extinct, I would hold consumerism to account. What else has fuelled the boom in  the chinese economy? The dolphins may have died because of the great increase in fishing nets, but the fish were required for people who were working as part of a large economic system. If you trace it back, there is consumerism.

It is not about finding someone to blame, but rather understanding the inter-dependence of our actions. I dread to think how many cheap goods I have in my room from China.

I'm complicit too, and that makes me sad.

It's not about retreating into a shell and never buying anything, but it's understanding that we only need so much, and if we require too much then ultimately we're taking part in destroying the world with our own greed.

We just killed the last freshwater dolphin.

Buddha

I just won a bid on ebay for a buddha mould.

When I look at this guy, he looks a lot like how I've been feeling a lot over this summer...

Speaking of which, I found a new buddha joke yesterday:

The lord Buddha goes into a pizzeria. The waiter asks him what he wants and he says "make me one with everything."

I wet myself.

My last 6 months

I've been trying to find the words for how I have felt about the last 6 months. This morning at the library I found a book by Pema Chodron where she expressed exactly what I want to say.

So I'll quote her instead.

"In 1995 I took a sabbatical. For twelve months I essentially did nothing. It was pretty much the most spiritually inspiring time of my life."

The 11th Hour: Documentary

I don't know when this is coming out in the UK, but the trailer makes for compelling watching, and its premise is not just a call to action, but a call to immediate action.

We won't know for sure when the planet has truly gone past tipping point until after the event. But leading scientists think we're not only near it, but that time is right now.

In their own words, the 11th Hour describes the last last moment when change is possible.

I think it will be released in the US on 17th August, but I haven't been able to find a release date for the UK yet.

When the energy goes...

Looks like Gazprom is trying to cut the gas supply to Belarus again (reported in Business Week). Belarus apparently have not paid their bill after the price hike last year and if they don't do so, the volume of gas going through will be cut by 45%.

This was after Gazprom more than doubled the price of each unit of gas from $46 to a punitive $100 in 2006 which, of course, Belarus naturally balked at until it's arm was twisted by the spectre of the gas being cut off.

Most of Europe's gas also comes through pipelines through Belarus too, though the flow will apparently be unaffected (unless Belarus does something to it).

I expect over the next 15-20 years there will be a lot more of this sort of thing as our natural resources dry up in some parts of the world and remain abundant in others.

Those who control the energy, the oil and the gas, will have the upper hand in all of this. Which for the western developed world in particular, doesn't look rosy since we're running out of our own. And it will play havoc with geopolitics and what is commonly referred to as 'the world order'.

Did I say that one teaspoon of oil can push a car 100 metres? As my friend Sarah said, we are absolutely spoiled because of oil. Without it, and of course all this hinges on 'peak oil', we will be living very different lives.

I think market economics will act as a big buffer. As the price of oil goes up, the price of commodities made with oil (fertilisers, anything plastic, anything metal or glass which needs smelted - actually quite a lot of stuff) will go up too in order to reflect their true cost. And if they are too expensive, we just won't use them any more. I think car driving will be a case in point.

Politicians are always telling us that biofuels will solve the problems, as will the hydrogen economy. Well, indications are that bio fuels will track the price of oil sky high, make it economically preferential for commercial farmers to grow fuel and not food. With less food being grown, and soaring global demand, the price of food will rise massively.

As for the hydrogen economy, it got a lot of interest and was bouyed with venture capital with the brief exuberance of the markets, but nothing viable on a large scale has been created so far which can mean we can sustain the same way of life. The predictions are a bit like those of the 1950's where by 2007 we would have colonised the moon, lifing a life of eternal leisure with robots to do all our work. Excuse me while I guffaw and snort at that... 

But I think that over the next 20 years, with prices of fuel and food going up as a result of emergent energy shortages (and I know how dangerous it is to say that, because I have read books from the 1970's predicting that and it hasn't happened yet...), that I really want to be able to grown our own food, and raise my own meat (rabbits, chickens, etc.) Quite apart from the pleasure of growing things, I reckon it could well end up cheaper than working for the money to buy it...

Where does my rubbish go?

I'm setting myself the challenge of finding out exactly what happens to my rubbish when it is dumped.

Inspired by the last post and the question, I really want to know about how far it's transported and what happens to it once I have forgotten all about it.

Given the idea that 'we are all downstream' and there is no away, I want to see how I feel about the rubbish I produce when it leaves our doorstep.

A Green Teaser for you...

I got a really interesting question through from Lint yesterday.

He asked which is greener - a 1 litre plastic bottle of Amstel beer, or a 1 litre glass bottle of Amstel beer.

Here is what I reckon:

I reckon the plastic bottle because of the following factors:

• How far it has been transported (glass is a fair bit heavier so takes more energy to move distances)
• If the plastic bottle can (and will be) be recycled (if not, will end up in landfill)
• What energy it takes to recycle (plastic needs lower temperatures to be recycled) or if it is dumped, how much energy it costs to take away (again glass is heavier adding to transport costs)
• Whether the glass bottle is on deposit (re-using is better than melting down and making into something else)
• -How much energy it takes in the first place to make the bottle and what kind of pollution it creates (plastics though made from oil need lower temperatures to make than smelting glass)

I reckon the plastic bottle wins by far because glass is heavier than plastic and takes more energy to recycle. Given the distance it would have travelled to Spain, I reckon this mounts up.

Have you tried weighing the difference between a full average glass bottle and the amstel bottles and working out what distance it might have travelled? Whatever % it is heavier, that might work as an estimate of the increase in transportation costs very roughly.

The really hard one is whether a plastic bottle from Holland would beat a similar glass bottle from Spain.

Any ideas?