Archive for the ‘Laughing in the face of climate change’ Category

Someone just asked me, “If you were Prime Minister for one day, what would you do?” This is what I said: Getting solar panels onto the roof of every…

Trawling the web, I see The Daily Green suggests we all switch back to corded phones… remember them? Cordless phones, they say, are energy vampires. Plus there’s nothing more frustrating than being in a house on fire and discovering your DECT phone battery has gone flat…

Read more old-fashioned phones and new-fangled eco ideas…

What is it with bears? There have been a lot around recently. In Sudan there was the teddy bear teacher, while at the Tate Liverpool Mark Wallinger won the Turner Prize by dressing up as a bear - though actually he won it for his installation Sleeper, a recreation of Brian Haw’s one man protest against the Iraq war in Parliament Square.

Read on about George Monbiot’s bear protest…

Greenpeace asked the internet public to name a whale, to publicise its Great Whale Trail, following the migration of the magnificent humpback whales.

Read why it’s not going well…

In turbulent times, we could all use a bit of extra emotional and spiritual advice and encouragement.

As the planet, and the human race, goes through some pretty hefty stuff, the challenge we’re all facing is to move from an unsustainable way of life to one that is more ethical, organic, tolerant, peaceful, sustainable and eco friendly.

To help in the understanding of ourselves and the bigger picture, we asked leading…

Eco-Worrier puts me in mind of Thurber’s grandmother who “lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house,” and went round placing electric plugs in empty sockets…

Laurie David is one of the American eco-movements stars. She co-produced An Inconvenient Truth, runs the influential website stopglobalwarming.org and has worked with dozens of pop stars to help plug the message. She recently toured with over-enthusiastic eco-evangelist Sheryl Crow, whose determination to spread the message resulted in her famous toilet paper “joke”. In the US, Laurie David is - next to Al Gore - the ecology movement’s number two figurehead.

This just in from The Onion is funny:

New Eco-Friendly Packaging Triggers Boom In Guilt-Free Littering

ROCKFORD, IL—Nick Sundin used to be neurotic about littering. The 37-year-old pediatrician admits he kept trash bags in his car, and would even pick up and throw away garbage he found on the street. Since boyhood, Sundin said, he was keenly attuned to the environmental degradation littering caused, an attitude triggered by the famous Keep America Beautiful “Crying Indian” public service announcement he saw on television as a young man.

Not anymore.

Read more …

I’ve heard so many good things about this book I really should give it a read. If anyone really popularised environmental activism in America, it was Edward Abbey; he was cantankerous, misanthropic, but often very funny.

What are your favourite songs about the environment?

I can think of a few:

“Vampire Blues” by Neil Young… about our love of oil.
“Cuyahago” by R.E.M. - about the Cuyahago Indians of Ohio.
“The Earth Dies Screaming” by UB40… about, er, the earth dying.
“Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” by Marvin Gaye… see above.
“Never Turn Your Back On Planet Earth” by Sparks… ditto.