Guilt and penance

Off-setting our carbon footprint has become a most mathematical endeavour (just when I thought I had escaped that dreaded subject when I embarked on a humanities path of study). It’s not that I’m not bothered to sit down with a calculator (not just any old calculator, mind, but a carbon calculator!), it’s just that I feel it somehow misses the point. Do you need a calculator to know you’re being wasteful? Getting all happy because you’re carbon neutral, because you plant enough trees to off-set your fast car obsession, just seems to miss the point of attempting a real life-style overhaul. Our current problem is not simply one that can have trees thrown at it.

Lies, damn lies and statistics?

Statistics can you wake you up to stark, shocking realities but they can also obfuscate, and sometimes they do both at the same time. For example, this one cited in the independent, ‘800,000kWh provide all the electricity needs for 153 families’, makes one wonder what era of family they mean (the nuclear family with 2.4 children, the catholic family with 11.4 children, the ethnic minority family with 4.4 children, or the hippy commune family with innumerable children?) Anyway, I’m not going to bother calculating my carbon as it won’t tell me anything. I would insulate my loft if I had a loft to insulate. Do the carbon crimes of landlords implicate their millions of tenants who can’t afford their own homes? What’s more, I have a very dirty secret (which is not in fact a secret as I’m about to tell you what it is). I still use incandescent light bulbs, because I am under the impression that, for some reason, they are better for my already poor eyesight and that they emit less radiation of some sort. It is a heinous environmental crime, nonetheless- using energy saving light bulbs is considered being in the dark ages of environmental consciousness as even the average Joe and unconscientious celebrity are doing that much. But let’s not lose site of the bigger picture here. How often do those celebrities fly back and forth for birthday parties and shopping trips? How many cheap long-haul holidays does the average Joe take? I, in comparison, take zero. I’ve only been on 4 air flights in my whole life and I don’t drive a car, and this is alongside a general low energy-consumption lifestyle. Isn’t that enough penance for my guilt?

The green carpet

I have always believed that celebrities are weapons of mass distraction, ingeniously put in place by big media moguls to pray on the stupidity of the masses in their voyuerisitc love of inanities in the lives of people who are essentially inconsequential.

But something recently has shaken this conviction somewhat.

It turns out that hollywood hearthrob Leonardo DiCaprio has been an environmentalist for the past ten years. That's right, even before he starred in his big hollywood hits. Who would have thought that that smug italian soft-featured face illumined by a deluge of paparazzi camera flashes had a brain ticking behind it? Not just a pretty face afterall!

Well, Mr DiCaprio has decided to fund and feature in a new film called the 11th hour that aims to ask the most profound questions about the environmental agenda of our age. (At the age of 25 Dicaprio had interviewed the then president Bill Clinton about climate change). The documentary film, which involves DiCaprio interviewing key environmental figures and experts is said to be a commercial suicide. I doubt it would be very popular, but the mere fact that it has DiCaprio in it will be sure to attract hordes and introduce them to something completely new. The only problem is that the commerical value of DiCaprio extends to the mainstream of people who know very little even about climate change and thus wont be too receptive to the philosophies of human ecology, the finer points of which this film delves into. However, I still believe it's a positive step and a great way to attract the masses. Celebrities showing genuine concern can only be a weapon weilding enormous power- power to win the people.

I leave you with a quote from former World Bank Economist, Herman Daly, which is featured in the film:

'The most basic thing to understand about our global economic system is that it's a subsystem. The larger system is the biosphere, and the subsystem is the economy. The problem, of course, is that out subsystem, the economy, is geared for growth; it's all set up to grow, to expand. Whereas the parent system doesn't grow; it remains the same size. So, as the economy grows, it displaces, it encroaches upon the biosphere, and this is the fundamental cost of economic growth. It's what you give up when you expand'.

Wow.

Second hand stories

I think I need to merge these two blogs into one. It's silly having two very scant blogs when you can have one fat one, so if anyone is reading this, please refrain from commenting on 'the philosophy of green' as your comment will be sucked into virtual oblivion soon, unless there is someway to transfer posts from one blog to another (is there? Please don't hold back if you know anything).

Anyway, back to the topic of this post. I've always found buying things second hand a useful form of way of conservation. Now we live in the dawn of the amazing freecycle, it's not even about buying anymore, but the concept is a very old one. Second-hand things have always sold so cheaply because they were that one step away from being incinerated or dumped in a big hole in the earth, but thankfully the thoughtful owner thought that someone else might want it, and someone else usually does. Second-hand items have traditionally served as the resort of the poor. But despite this, the ethos of scrap heaps, flee markets, jumble sales and the rest, has always been about not wasting. I'm not only amazed by how easily people throw things away these days, but how unresourcesful people are when it comes to purchasing goods. Everything has to be brand new. I come from a culture that especially derides second-hand things- possibily because of their traditional association with poverty, and horrifically too, their association with dirtiness. But this attitude is still all too prevalent everywhere else, too.

I have already started in this strange new nascent trend of buying second-hand, not because it's cheaper, but because it's more environmentally sound. The money incentive has even been reversed as some second hand things are becoming more expensive than their brand new counterparts. This would be the case for any mass produced item and second hand item trying to compete economically- there is simply more of the mass produced item. This is happening alot with books, where the case for conservation is especially acute- the raw material we're conserving in this case is something we all know and love- well at least most of us. The other day, my brother was ordering a book from Amazon. He went to the Amazon market place to look for the cheapest offer and I suggested he buy a second-hand one despite the price difference of 1 pound. He looked at me like I had just uttered the most absurd sentence in the history of absurdity. 'Why would I want to do that, when the new one is cheaper?' He asks calmly but with brimming mortification. "To save trees" I said. "TREES??? Who cares about Trees?!?". Well at least he was honest.

Really though, buying all your books second-hand can be a great and easy alternative to planting trees. Happy reading!

And it's even harder when you're Muslim

No really it is. Why, you ask? Oh that one's easy. I went to the Icount march some months ago in London, a very large environmental protest which convened in Trafalgar Square. I remember I came right at the end and squeezed into the crowd that had gathered. After the rudimentaty speeches, I stood there in the middle of a bunch of hippies, listening to the latest in British Rock music being performed on the stage, whilst the crowd swayed and sang along. Did I feel out of place? Possibily, although I found it interesting to be witnessing my first mass live music performance as if I was at Glastonbury. Imagine that, A hijabi at Glastonbury! Whether I felt out of place or not didn't in the least change the fact that I LOOKED out of place. No, I didn't look out of place- I STUCK OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB. I am pretty sure the hippies were looking at me and thinking "whaaaa? What the hell is she doing here? This is not a Palestine march, hmm she must have gotten confused, or taken a wrong turn, or just plain misunderstood, she probably doesn't even speak English." The only people who made me feel remotely welcome were the communists who were only trying to convert me, and were happy because I was the only one who actually stopped to listen to them. Some of those communists didn't even know what the march was about. When one girl wrote in chalk on the tarmac floor 'disposable cups are for mugs' a communist guy at a nearby stall said 'Yeah I love disposable cups!'.

I tried to look in vain for the only Muslims who I knew would be there, the ones from IFEES, and even they had come as part of an inter-faith contingent. Inter-faith! As if two people have anything in common just because they both happen to have a 'faith'. But that is as much as the modern world cares to cater for religion. Ever notice how public prayer rooms are now stressed as 'inter-faith' prayer rooms? Like the one in heathrow airport, for example, where once a Sikh guy took over the women's side because he wanted to pray in privacy, leaving the Muslim men and women to pray in the same room, right after they had to do wudhu in the shared toilets, of course.

Anyway, I digress.

So I left the Icount march embittered and lonely, and went right back to my mosque where everyone chucks away disposable cups without a care, and stares at me as I drink from the mug I have brought from home.

I'm Farm Fresh

I woke up this morning like I usually do in the mornings, as the morning is want to make you do.... and I noticed I was a bit low on groceries. As I was about to set off to the miserable dank cornershop down the road to buy low brand groceries that try to pose as big corporate ones, or at least emulate them, I remembered the weekly Farmers' Market at Finchley road that takes place every Wednesday. I thought, 'what the hey', I had a few extra monies in my purse, I could afford to pay a bit extra and make up for it by being more frugal. It was a lovely day, although the sun was very strong, and I made the brave trek across the many kilometres of hot concrete and rode in a stuffy carriage of the london transport system to support what I think is a great idea.London Farmers' Markets (LFM) was started in 1999 by Nina Planck who was only 28 at the time. An american journalist who had come to work in London and the daughter of fruit vegetable growers in virginia, Nina was shocked at the stark lack of fresh food available in London.Thanks to this ambitious young woman, there are currently 16 farmers' markets running weekly in the greater London area and they are a smallholders' dream. The markerts operate on a strict policy; you are only permitted to sell food grown 100 miles within the M25, and what's more, you are only allowed to sell what you yourself have produced- no middle men or rogue traders. This way the customers know exactly where their food is coming from: from the hands that farmed it. This is local food in its truest form. The humble smallholders found they were able to increase their meagre incomes by 75 per cent by selling at farmers' markets. It is evident that LFM has the local economy at its centre of priorities, and not in a parochial sense. It is inevitably based on a philosophy of economic localisation the world over.And so I found myself once again in the car park of Sainsbury's- where Finchley Road Farmers' Market is held. The timid stalls in the shadow of big corporate power are like a slap in the face, but economically speaking, more like a tickle. Nonetheless, its brave and defiant, and I can buy honey from a beekeeper! Today I bought my usual muddy potatoes, spinach leaves, asparagus, strawberries, bread, butter and cheese. Do I ever get bored of the food? Well its not the only food I eat, but it may be interesting to see what kinds of recipes Nina Planck has in her book, 'The Farmers' Market Cookbook'- recipes which are, of course, based only on the ingredients that can be bought at British Farmers' Markets. Undoubtedly, there will always be a need to import food, there always has been- but this is a great move towards a food production process which has a minimal impact on the environment and which will encourage socio-economic and hence political localisation. It is a move towards creating a direct lunk between grower and buyer- you know what you're buying because you can see who produced it (that's a fairtrade guarantee for you!) It's just that one step away from growing it yourself, and as I'm not going to be growing nearly half my food myself, at least anytime soon, it's the closest thing I have to a connection with the land. When I walk amongst the stalls of a farmers' market, in the outdoors, on a beautiful sunny day, I really feel like I'm buying food.