Use 10 Percent Less

All things must change when the consumer changes

Nature

The Power of Less – from Good Energy

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The Power or Less – a video from Good Energy

I’ve been a customer of Good Energy for about 5 years now and I have to say they appear to be a good, responsible, renewable energy company. I don’t have any affiliation with them at all, and I’m receiving nothing from them for writing this article (they have no idea I’m writing it). When I saw that they had recently released this short, one-minute video, “The Power of Less”, and that its message was so closely aligned with the sentiment of “Use 10 Percent Less“, I just had to post the video here. It’s only one minute long – please take a look. [Read more…] about The Power of Less – from Good Energy

250 potatoes

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I was watching a episode of “Countryfile” on BBC television a few weeks ago (Nov 10th, 2019, it was their Autumn Special, originally aired on Nov 3rd, 2019) and was stunned to learn a surprising fact about 250 potatoes. Let me explain.

First, the programme showed a farmer who was cultivating his field with a large tractor with a large array of angled, metallic discs behind it, rapidly cutting through the soil and turning it over. Across the whole farm and as far as I could see, there was only bare soil that had been turned or was about to be turned. I was wondering what happens to any wildlife in the soil when this tractor comes through slicing everything up and why nature hasn’t had to do this sort of thing in all of history until now.

But then I learnt the first surprising fact. This farmer was preparing to sow a crop of barley, not for any food purpose, but in order to make beer. I was amazed at the size of the fields being churned up just so we can drink a glass of beer and I felt a little sad. All those trees had to be cleared and all of nature has to be sliced with rapidly moving metal discs, so we can drink beer (I like a glass a beer, but I still felt sad).

Next, they went to a farm that was harvesting potatoes. Again, it was a huge farm with rows and rows of mounds under which were potatoes ready to harvest. There were truckloads after truckloads of potatoes going back to the sheds.

And now the second surprising fact is that these potatoes were, once again, not being used to feed anybody, they were being used to create vodka! [Read more…] about 250 potatoes

Reforestation is working!

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This is great to see. It looks like reforestation is working!

I read an article in forbes.com by Trevor Nace that explains how NASA says the Earth is greener today than it was 20 years ago. That’s a real surprise, but a very pleasant one. But an even bigger surprise that a lot of the thanks has to go to China and India.

Why is this a “Use 10 Percent Less” issue? Well, simply because humans use too much of the Earth’s surface. We have destroyed large amounts of forests, and this is not just a recent phenomenon. All of the farms that we see in the countryside, that may have been there for many generations, were naturally forests and woodlands. The human use of natural land for profit growth is putting too much pressure on the world. We have to use less of the Earth.

The following map shows, in green, areas that are greener today than 20 years ago and how large parts of China and India and much greener. [Read more…] about Reforestation is working!

The Natural World is Disappearing

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I saw this article in the news recently and it caused me to pause and take stock. The article was in The Guardian and it was called “Our natural world is disappearing before our eyes. We have to save it.” by George Monbiot. Some of the comments in the article that had the most impact on me were;

  • natural world is disappearingThe swift decline of the swift (down 25% in five years)
  • I have lived long enough to witness the vanishing of wild mammals, butterflies, mayflies, songbirds and fish that I once feared my grandchildren would not experience: it has all happened faster than even the pessimists predicted.
  • The cause of this acceleration is no mystery. The United Nations reports that our use of natural resources has tripled in 40 years.
  • The great expansion of mining, logging, meat production and industrial fishing is cleansing the planet of its wild places and natural wonders.
  • What economists proclaim as progress, ecologists recognise as ruin.
  • the rush to carve up the last intact forests; the vanishing of coral reefs, glaciers and sea ice; the shrinkage of lakes, the drainage of wetlands. The living world is dying of consumption.
  • We have a fatal weakness: a failure to perceive incremental change.
  • Watching the cutters being driven at great speed across the field, he realised that any remaining wildlife would be shredded… he went to investigate, he found her fawn, its legs amputated.
  • The merger between Bayer and Monsanto brings together the manufacturer of the world’s most lethal pesticides with the manufacturer of the world’s most lethal herbicides.
  • We forget even our own histories.

[Read more…] about The Natural World is Disappearing