The master at work

I mentioned George Monbiot's blog page in a previous post - got my first mail today, and was hooked. Here's a guy who writes as brilliantly in a short article as he does in his books. I was really bowled over, and (as per last week's post on his archive) now really interested in older varieties of fruit trees! You'll have to take a look to get what I'm talking about:

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/09/02/strange-fruit/

I'd mentioned the list at the back of Heat for organisations committed to combatting climate change:
www.foe.co.uk
www.greenpeace.org.uk
www.wwf.org.uk

were the obvious choices, but also liked:
www.transport2000.org.uk

Complete Muppet

Being a complete muppet, I still haven't sorted out making a will. It's the single most important thing on my list of things to do, but keeps getting put off. So a poster in the Help the Aged shop prompted me to go to (and sign up with) willaid.org. For a suggested donation this November, a qualified solicitor will draw up your will and the money will go to one of a number of charities you can choose from a list of participating charities. Since 1988, the scheme has raised over £7m for good causes.

Looks like the government's coming in for a pounding today over its refusal to provide some sort of one-off payment to cover the rise in fuel costs for the most needy people - Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary argued for improvements in energy saving measures such as insulation etc rather than a one-off payment or a windfall tax on energy companies. But surely this is just avoiding the root cause of the issue - namely that we cannot guarantee energy security in the current climate (economic, political &, hey, why not climate change too), that a deregulated energy market cannot prevent speculation, and that energy companies may not always be working in the public interest, despite what their PR says. Until we tackle those things, energy is always going to be a social issue.

On a more cheery note, Planet Earth interviewed a chap called Johan Eliasch, a businessman who "put his money where his mouth is" and bought a huge chunk of rainforest from a logging company to prevent its destruction. Lo and behold, I wikipedia it and come across http://www.coolearth.org/. What a great idea - and it provides jobs for local people at the same time. And even James Lovelock approves!

Debt Week 2008

Again, from the Jubilee Debt Campaign's email - I did this one last night (though I've got a funny feeling I've mailed him before!)

Pick up the pace in Debt Week 2008
From 12-19 October 2008 it will be the second Global Week of Action Against Debt and the International Financial Institutions. In the UK we’re using the opportunity to keep up the pressure on the UK government to Pick Up the Pace on debt cancellation.
With lots of grand talk expected at upcoming summits about tackling poverty, we need to make the case that more debt cancellation is urgently needed if countries are going to be able to emerge from the poverty trap. TAKE ACTION: Email Douglas Alexander, International Development Minister, and ask him to drop much more debt.

50 crucial days

From the Jubilee Debt Campaign:

Today is the first of 50 Global Days of Action Against Poverty and Inequality, taking place in more than 100 countries around the world. After several years of drifting and inaction, the rich world has a series of opportunities in the coming months to take serious action to tackle global poverty - and we have to make sure they take them.

Make aid work and drop the debt
Rich country governments are gathering in Accra, Ghana, from tomorrow for a summit to discuss the effectiveness of aid. Jubilee Debt Campaign supports the global aid campaign’s efforts to ensure that new, concrete targets and indicators come out of this summit for rich countries to deliver on their aid promises. But we have also joined our voices with other movements and civil society organisations to warn that unless unpayable poor country debts are cancelled, it will be very difficult for aid to work effectively.
Click here to read more.

Ethical Superstore

When I used to travel to York quite a bit with work, there was a supermarket where I'd buy lunch on the way to the office; can't remember the name of it, but everything in it was "ethical" in various ways. They used to do amazing Tamil Curry pasties! Sadly, the store closed down, but when I saw ethicalsuperstore.com advertised, I was pretty impressed. They don't sell Tamil Curry pasties, but they do sell a whole range of stuff - I particularly liked their eco-toaster! Our toaster's still going strong, but as soon as it packs up, you know where I'll be heading. They also sell in bulk - I'm waiting for them to start selling huge boxes of ecover dishwasher tablets (they sell a lot of ecover in bulk, but not those!) and then I'll be converted.

Heat

No! Not Heat, that crappy magazine about celebrities (sorry, I just have a thing about celebrity mags and probably celebrities in general!), but the book by George Monbiot. Finished it on the train going up north this week - I think he succeeded in his mission - I was stirred, impressed and deeply worried all at once by his book. Monbiot argues that targets set by governments are not really workable in that they're based on targets that won't achieve what they're set out to achieve. Add to that, the fact that despite what people say, they (we?) don't actually want our governments & representatives to push too hard on these aggressive climate targets.

Despite this, his views seem both incredibly reasonable, and also would bring about the kind of world (at least in Britain) that must be a step forward for the one we have now. His chapters on integrated transport policy and energy policy actually make you excited to think what could be possible if we just put our minds to it.

Heat? Get a copy and see what you think.