international downshifting week 19 - 25 april

“If you are looking for a little help to slow down your pace and enjoy life more, this is the place for you!

Our campaign was formerly known as ‘National’ Downshifting Week. This year, as a result of the strong support we’ve received from around the globe asking if other countries can officially ‘join in’, we’ve simply decided to rename it
‘InterNational Downshifting Week’!

Now everybody can get involved and form a united and global movement that supports living and working more sustainably and strives for a proper work / life balance!

Our campaign remains packed full of really simple ideas that will help you ’slow down and green up’ and it’s almost time for her 4th outing. I cannot wait to get my teeth into it and this year I’ll be working hard to keep my carbon footprint down to a minimum. I hope to enthuse you with ideas on the many ways you can slow down and green up in your home, community, business and school.

So keep an eye on our website and Green Family Blog for further details and good luck with your own personal downshift!”

Tracey Smith

Creator of InterNational Downshifting Week

why aren’t all bikes like this ?

On the streets of India and China these types of bike are common place. Cheap utility vehicle options are born more out of economic reason rather than an ethical or environmental one, thats understandable but why have we not adopted the same route?

I must admit I’m a bit bias because I love these things, but also I can’t see why more bikes arn’t built this way over the conventional bicycle style. I want to see a larger range of utility bikes on the market at affordable prices. It’s not just that there useful the environmental impact speaks for itself. Being a non car person I still often have to rely on car owners to move anything bigger than what will fit in a rucksack, which is very annoying but one of these would make life much easier as well as giving me back a sense of independence.

What bothers me most is that it’s probably the western fear of looking odd. The last thing most people want to do is stand out. How many times have you heard people say “I’m not walking down the street carrying that!”

I know you can get trailers and panniers for conventional cycles, which from a permaculture point of view I have to say is better than having to scrap an old bike for a new one but I want custom built utility cycles to replace conventional cycles. I’m sure the environmental impact would be staggering. I know that I don’t go shopping on my bike for two reasons, one is that everything on my bike is quick release so it’s easy to pinch bit’s off it even when it’s chained up. Two I’ve nowhere to put my shopping! A trike with a box on the front would solve all my worries and it would’nt fall over!!

Here are the ones I like that are on the market at present. I’ve not posted links as this is not an advertisement.

I want to make one similar to this one above.

The main hurdle at present is that they are on offer but not at an affordable price, most start at the £1000 mark! The solution then is to customize existing bikes to what you need. Last month I was given a lift through the centre of london on a customized bike. It had a seat on the front which could also double as a box and a smaller seat at the back, so you could have two passengers. I’m in the process of doing this myself, any tips are welcome and I’ll post the results, even if they are a shambles!!. I see so many scrap cycles just dumped and they are always going on freecycle.

turning an old demijohn into a cloche

I discovered this method by accident a few years ago while trying to clean an old bottle. I found an old demijohn outside and well past being able to clean it and more wanting to try this out!!

It’s dead simple, get a washing up bowl and add really cold water enough to cover the bottom of the demijohn, about a couple of inches. Leave it in there for a while to make sure the base is nice and cold. Then just boil the kettle and pour in the boiling water. If your lucky it should crack instantly and the bottom just drop out. If not give it a twist.

There you have it instant mini green house, the best part is you recycle something thats otherwise useless and it won’t blow away like plastic bottles.

Escape the Fantasy April 21 - 27

The idea is simple: take your TV, your DVD player, your video iPod, your XBOX 360, your laptop, your PSP, and say goodbye to them all for seven days. Simple, but not at all easy. Like millions of others before you, you’ll be shocked at just how difficult - yet also how life-changing - a week spent unplugged can really be.

check out the website before next week!!
http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mdw/

Eating nothing but wild food for a year

Fergus Drennan is a broadcaster, writer and educator on the delights of food foraged from the wild. Best-known for his BBC programme The Roadkill Chef. Fergus is attempting to live for a year solely on wild food and road kill.

keep an eye on his progress here
http://www.wildmanwildfood.co.uk/index.html

Eco house video

Nottingham Eco-Home - Penney Poyzer

check out her TV program no waste like home too.

today is buy nothing day

http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/

Saturday November 24h 2007 is Buy Nothing Day (UK), It’s a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life. The rules are simple, for 24 hours you will detox from consumerism and live without shopping. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!

It’s buy nothing day and I can say that I will not be buying a thing not because i agree with the whole idea but more for the fact that I don’t have a penny!!

cheap school clothes?

So it will be soon time for all the little monsters to go back to school so all us parents realise that in the course of six weeks they have all grown out of everything and everything has a hole in it some how. This can cost a fortune especially when you have a few kids at school age. Most people therefore are pleased to see that many shops and supermarkets are selling school clothes at a record low price £2 £3 for trousers for example.

On the face of it it seems great but at what cost do we benefit from such cheap prices? We save a little cash but on the other side of the world somebody takes home around £18 a month to keep our kids clothed on the cheap. Don’t get me wrong if you are a single parent with kids on benefit you want to get the cheapest clothes possible, even if you are struck by the ethical dilema.

Whats the answer then? Nobody wants to see familys struggle to buy expensive fair trade clothes but we also don’t want to think that somebody is suffering just so we save a few quid. Would it not be better to abolish uniforms altogether? thats not to say that it would solve the problems in the sweat shops of Bangladesh etc. but it might stop supermarket price wars which force lower and lower prices, which is the main problem. Kids might also gain a bit of individuality aswell.

trees for the future

50 Million Trees and Counting: Trees for the Future

safari concession threatens Hadza tribe

This is not directly to do with me but it is something that is close to my heart so if you hav enever heard of survival international then shame on you, no you should really check it out, give it a look and see what you think.

Hundreds of Hadza hunter-gatherers face eviction from their ancestral lands if a foreign safari company is given a hunting concession on their land.

Tanzania UAE Safari Ltd, which is reportedly backed by members of the United Arab Emirates royal families, is negotiating with the government of Tanzania for a concession of 3,975 sq kms in the Yaida Valley, where Hadzabe (‘Hadza people’) have lived for millenia.

If the hunting concession is approved, the Hadzabe will lose access to crucial food sources such as game and wild tubers. They are likely to become destitute, with devastating consequences for their life expectancy and general wellbeing.

Last month two Hadzabe activists were arrested when they attended a meeting with local officials to voice concerns over the deal and its impact on their tribe. They were later released.

The Hadzabe are reported to be trying to seek a sustainable solution with all parties concerned, which respects the tribe’s land rights and way of life.

The Hadzabe number between 1,500 and 2,000 people. They are one of Africa’s oldest tribes and speak a click language like the Bushmen.

As they are hunter–gatherers, adequate land and natural resources are essential to their survival. Until the 1950s they survived entirely by hunting and gathering. Living in small mobile camps, they had no ‘chiefs’ or formal political organisation.

Tanzania’s government has made repeated attempts to settle the Hadzabe in villages and get them to take up farming. Today, most Hadzabe people live in settlements, inside their distinctive grass huts, but they still move off into bush camps to find food.

No Hadzabe farming has been successful, unsurprisingly, since the hot, dry climate is unsuitable for it. One Hadza elder told Survival, ‘No Hadzabe ever died of hunger when we had our land. But now that so much of our land has been taken and is still being taken, many Hadzabe are hungry.’