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Nanabozho was fishing

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I’m half-way through reading a wonderful book by Robin Wall Kimmerer called Braiding Sweetgrass, and I fell in love with this story about Nanabozho. It’s the perfect story for use10percentless.com as it warns against taking and using too much. I hope Robin doesn’t mind me copying her story here and I hope you enjoy it.

Nanabozho was fishing - fish in the lake
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Nanabozho was Fishing

Nanabozho was fishing in the lake for supper, as he often did, with hook and line. Heron came striding along through the reeds on his long, bent legs, his beak like a spear. Heron is a good fisherman and a sharing friend, so he told Nanabozho about a new way to fish that would make his life much easier. Heron cautioned him to be careful not to take too many fish, but Nanabozho was already thinking of a feast. He went out early the next day and soon had a whole basketful of fish, so heavy he could barely carry it and far more than he could eat. So he cleaned all those fish and set them out to dry on the racks outside his lodge. The next day, with his belly still full, he went back to the lake and again did what the Heron had showed him. “Ahh,” he thought as he carried home the fish, “I will have plenty to eat this winter”.

Day after day he stuffed himself and, as the lake grew empty, his drying racks grew full, sending out a delicious smell into the forest where fox was licking his lips. Again he went to the lake, so proud of himself. But that day his nets came up empty and Heron looked down on him as he flew over the lake with a critical eye. When Nanabozho got home to his lodge, he learned a key rule – never take more than you need. The racks of fish were toppled in the dirt and every bite was gone.

Cautionary stories of the consequences of taking too much are ubiquitous in Native cultures, but it’s hard to recall a single one in English. Perhaps this helps to explain why we seem to be caught in a trap of overconsumption, which is as destructive to ourselves as to those we consume.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 2020, Penguin Books (first published in 2013, Milkweed Editions)

I love Robin’s comment that we’re “caught in a trap of overconsumption” and that hurts us as much as “those we consume”. It’s true – everything we do consumes some other form of life, which is fine but we should do it with respect and gratitude, and not take more than we need.

Robin’s book, Braiding Sweetgrass, is such a joy to read with so many examples of indigenous wisdom (makes it obvious that we don’t have a lot of wisdom in our current culture). When I’ve finished the book, I’ll write a full review on my other blog – lifeintherightdirection.com – but I can already tell that this is a book that I’ll be highly recommending.

The front cover of the book Braiding Sweetgrass

References and Links

Climate Change – what can we do?

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I often get asked be people if climate change is real. Wow, that surprises me and it highlights how much poor information is being spread around. When I explain why climate change and global warming are real and it’s very clear that human activity is definitely the reason for the rapid change, then they ask me “What can we do?”. That’s a really good question because in general, our world’s political leaders are not doing what’s needed. That’s really sad (more on that later). Anyway, for each and every individual in the world, the solution is very simple and very clear. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised what the single, simple, most impactful thing you can do to arrest climate change is…

climate change what can we do?
Photo by rupixen.com on Unsplash

Spend less money!

Yes, the single, simple thing all us can do to have an immediate, positive impact can be summed up as “Spend less money!”. Now you probably think I’m crazy, but give me a minute to explain.

A quick apology…

I know that many people are absolutely struggling to find enough money to live, and the concept of “spending less money” might come as an inconsiderate insult. I certainly don’t mean that and am full of compassion for people in this predicament. If that’s you, rest assured that you are not the problem when it comes to global warming and climate change.

It’s pretty much 100% true (not quite, but almost) that every time your spend money, you’re creating carbon emissions. Let’s think through a few examples.

  1. Fuel for your car
    • This is an easy one. Everything you spend on fuel ends up directly creating more carbon emissions. Buy less fuel and you’d create less emissions.
  2. A holiday flight
    • Another easy one. When you spend money on a holiday flight, you’re creating a lot of additional carbon emissions, even if it’s a cheap flight. Plus you have to spend money on clothes, luggage and getting to the airport, all things that create more emissions.
  3. Food from the supermarket
    • For this one, let’s even ignore the carbon emissions that were created in the growing and production of the food. Every single thing in the supermarket had to be shipped there which creates carbon emissions. Then the supermarket needs electricity for lighting, and cooling. Then there’s driving to the supermarket to get the stuff. The list could go on and on.
  4. A coffee from a coffee shop
    • Really? Even a coffee? Yes, of course. The coffee beans probably came from somewhere else in the world, needing to be shipped. The beans have to be roasted and even the coffee machine in the shop uses significant energy and creates emissions. The shop needs lighting and heating or cooling. The disposable cup needed to be manufactured, creating more emissions. And more.
  5. New clothing
    • Most clothing is made in another country and needs to be shipped. The material used to make the clothes probably didn’t even come from that country. Sometimes the material is synthetic (made from hydrocarbons even) and had to be manufactured in a factory. Even the process to colour the material generated carbon emissions. Then it had to make its way to you through a shop or home delivery, even more emissions. When you hear people talk about a “supply chain”, think “carbon emissions” instead.
  6. A Netflix subscription
    • Surely a Netflix (or equivalent) subscription doesn’t create emissions? Sorry, it does. All of those movies and TV shows have to be stored on large arrays of computers all over the world. These computers use up a large amount of energy to run, creating emissions, and they have to be running 24/7/365. You could then get into the emissions needed to build the computers, or the emissions created in making a movie or TV show, and things get even worse.
  7. A mobile phone
    • To make a mobile phone requires a whole lot of minerals from mines in various parts of the world. Big earth moving machinery is required. Then minerals need to be processed and shipped to factories to make the phones. Then run a production line inside the factory, ship the products all over the world and sell them in shops to you. Carbon emissions all along the way. A simple mobile phone is the result of a huge carbon intensive industry (like almost all industries!). This article “iPhone 13 release date: How much energy will you save by not buying the new model?” says each iPhone 13 releases 64 kg of additional CO2 to the atmosphere and that the worst thing you can do is trade in your functioning old phone for the new model. Want to help the environment? Don’t buy that new phone.
  8. A mobile phone contract
    • And yes, even the mobile phone contract creates carbon emissions. There’s a network of communication towers and computer systems covering the whole world. It’s a big deal, sucking up energy and emitting carbon and making our atmosphere warmer. It’s not a free ride.
  9. Your internet subscription
    • Same thing goes for your internet subscription (the one you’re probably using to read this article). Just by using the internet you’re creating carbon emissions. The internet is really a vast array of computers connected to each other, covering the whole world. The big thing is that all of these computers have to be powered on all of the time. Carbon, carbon, carbon!

These examples show why it’s almost always true that, when you spend money, you’re almost certainly creating carbon emissions. But the amount of carbon is not linked to the amount of money that you spend. Sometimes, you can spend a little and create a lot of carbon (like a cheap holiday flight on a low-cost airline) and sometimes you can spend money and not emit much carbon at all (like buying a veggie box from a local farmer).

climate change - what can we do?
Photo by John McArthur on Unsplash

When spending money, make the best choices

In today’s world, we can’t just stop spending money, so we know that we’re going to causing more carbon emissions and hence climate change – what can we do? Not every dollar spent creates the same amount of carbon, so we can make smart choices. We can avoid spending the money altogether (the best plan where possible!) and we can deliberately choose the option that emits the least carbon when we need to spend.

Here are just a few examples of positive choices we can make.

  1. Buy less processed foods
    • The more processing that is done to a food, the more carbon that is emitted from the factories that are doing the processing. Go for the least processed, least preserved, least packaged options and you will be reducing your carbon emissions. Unfortunately, the rise of convenient supermarkets has also heralded the rise in processed food where the cheapest ingredients are processed until they’re unrecognisable, preserved so they’ll last a long, long time and intricately packaged to attract you to buy them – adding more emissions every step of the way.
  2. Choose a renewable electricity supplier if you can
    • Contrary to popular belief, renewable electricity doesn’t mean zero emissions. Just imagine all the energy and materials needed to build and deploy solar panels and wind turbines. Nothing is a free ride. Even nuclear electricity creates enormous amounts of emissions to build a nuclear power plant. However, over a long period of time, renewable electricity creates vastly less emissions than other forms like coal, gas and biomass. Best to spend your money on renewable electricity and then use a little of it as you can.
  3. Drive a little slower and less aggressively
    • Simply driving a little slower and less aggressively uses significantly less fuel. This saves you money and reduces the carbon emissions into the atmosphere. It’s a winner all round and easy to do (just takes you a bit longer to get places). I wrote a full post on this some time ago – Use Less Fuel – easy and guaranteed
  4. Take longer holidays less frequently
    • Let’s say you regularly take one-week holidays and use low-cost airlines. You could simply halve your airline emissions by taking two-week holidays at half the frequency. This is a simple way to cut emissions quickly and still do what you like doing.
  5. Eat less meat
    • The meat industry ends up emitting lots of carbon pollution. Land has to be cleared for the animals to graze. More land has to be cleared to grow grain to feed to the animals (sounds crazy, but true). Farm machinery is needed to handle all of this. The animals emit methane (a powerful greenhouse gas). Meat processing centres are needed. Packaging, refrigerating, selling though stores – it all adds up. Buy less meat and you’ll be reducing the overall carbon emissions.
  6. Buy things designed to last a long time
    • buying things that have to be replaced regularly creates a lot of carbon emissions. At the time, they may be cheap, but over time you’ll spend a lot on replacements. Imagine an item that costs £200 but you have to replace it every two years, compared to an item that costs £1000 but last ten years. Over the ten years, the same money has been spent, but the carbon emissions are much lower if you only needed one item. A while ago, I wrote a post about a mobile phone designed to last a long time – Fairphone – a better phone option?

Our economy is a carbon polluting economy!

If it’s pretty much 100% true that everytime we spend money we cause carbon emissions, then we have to conclude that the economy that we have constructed is a carbon polluting economy. Also, look at many of the ultra-rich people in the world and consider how much pollution their companies have created. It seems that the people who have polluted the world the most have become the richest. This is because abusing the natural resources of the Earth is maybe the most common way to make a large amount of money. Our economy rewards the abuse of the Earth’s natural resources and the people who have made a fortune doing so are now in the positions or the most power.

What can we do? The only answer to change the economy. The current economy is a big part of the problem. But the people in power will not want any change to a system that has rewarded them so handsomely.

This is our biggest problem.

A radical way forward

Here’s a radical way to change the economy to support the reduction in carbon pollution. How about we remove all income taxes, company taxes and VAT? Let’s remove all current taxes and introduce a single new tax which makes everyone pay purely for the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the money they spend. Such a new tax scheme would mean that everyone would be implicitly worried about how many emissions they were causing, because they’d be worried about the amount of tax they’d have to pay.

Doing this would completely align our economy with what’s needed to slow and halt global warming and climate change. I feel it’s the only way to make quick, rapid progress in a fair way. Of course, governments and the powerful, rich people (is there really a difference between these two?) will not want to do this, so it’s unlikely to happen. Very sad indeed.

To answer the question “what can we do?” regarding climate change and global warming, the simple answers are first, to spend less money (consume less) and second, to make smarter, less polluting choices when we do spend money and third, send the message to our politicians that the only real solution is to reform our economy by making a tax system that penalises carbon emissions. Politicians need to realise that this is the only way to a long-term future for life on Earth.

Related Links – Climate Change – what can we do?

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

Concerns about HS2

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The new high-speed rail link in England, HS2, has recently been given the go ahead by politicians. For some reason I feel deep concerns about HS2, and I thought I’d better investigate it properly. Even though trains are a less polluting way to travel than cars or airplanes, the new rail line will cut a new swathe through the English countryside and contribute even to more to the continuing destruction of natural environments that we can’t afford. When I have concerns about HS2, I keep hearing Satish Kumar’s call to “tread lightly” on the Earth and I believe this is a goal we must pursue with conviction.

In the spirit of “Use 10 Percent Less”, you could say that building new train links would be a good thing overall as these might lead to less road transport. But then we can also ask, do we really need a train that can move 1,100 people at a time between Manchester and London in 45 minutes? It would actually be better if we could devise ways that reduced the need for people to travel so much. We’ll also see below that the HS2 project does not stack up well on environmental grounds.

I’m concerned that HS2 is going ahead for two main reasons, (1) politicians need a highly visible project to demonstrate their commitment to people in the north of England (to help ensure being re-elected, even though the money could be well spent upgrading transport services along existing routes with little additional damage to the environment), and (2) pressure from the construction sector to keep a high value project alive with the threat of losing jobs (some companies are going to make a lot of money out of HS2).

In reality, of all the concerns about HS2, we should be first examining its effect on our environment. [Read more…] about Concerns about HS2

Just don’t waste – Sir David Attenborough

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The amazing Sir David Attenborough gave us the very simple message of “Just don’t waste!” a couple of months ago at the BBC launch of the series “Seven Worlds, One Planet”. Here is what he said.

…the best motto to think about is not waste things. Don’t waste electricity, don’t waste paper, don’t waste food. Live the way you want to live but just don’t waste. Look after the natural world, and the animals in it, and the plants in it too. This is their planet as well as ours. Don’t waste them.

It’s such a beautiful summary of the sentiment behind the Use 10 Percent Less initiative. Modern life is very wasteful and we have been getting more and more wasteful, and more disposable, over recent decades. It’s really good to see that the disposable culture is being challenged very strongly now and that we might actually be able to start reducing our waste. [Read more…] about Just don’t waste – Sir David Attenborough

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

UK Climate Debate and Pollution

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On Thursday, November 28th, the leaders of most of the political parties in the UK took part in a “Climate Debate” (unfortunately the leaders of the Conservative Party and the Brexit Party did not accept the invitation). If you haven’t seen the debate, you can see the whole thing right here below, as Channel 4 has released it on YouTube. I’ll make my comments further down in this post. For me, what the political parties are planning to do to make us rapidly reduce pollution and environmental destruction is the key issue in this election.

From my point of view, focussing on “climate” is not as good as focussing on “pollution” and “environmental destruction”. The real problem is the amount of pollution that humans are creating and that includes carbon dioxide, methane and lots of other gases, as well as plastics and discarded junk in land fills. The pollution also comes from our eating habits and our need to clear natural land to feed our habits. Once you talk about “climate” it’s easy for people to point out that the climate of the Earth has changed often during history, even before humans were around. It’s certainly true that the change now is more rapid than it has ever been before, but we still get stuck on the issue of whether it’s really humans causing the climate change. It’s easier to stick to the most obvious fact that humans are polluting the Earth really badly at the moment, as well as blatantly destroying the natural environment to create profits in our financial system.

 

If we’re really going to tackle pollution strongly, politicians need to take a strong stand on issues like additional runways at major airports, specifically Heathrow, and cheap flights. It’s not good to be promoting cheap flights because of the benefit to the economy while, at the same time, these flights are causing enormous pollution to our atmosphere. We have to begin reducing flights, especially short haul flights (so much pollution from take-off and landing for a short flight), right now and quickly. This issue came up in the debate but it wasn’t fully covered to my satisfaction, so I downloaded all the political parties manifestos and examined them for their policies in this direction. This is what I found. [Read more…] about UK Climate Debate and Pollution

Plastic and shale gas from the US

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A couple of weeks ago, I watched the BBC’s programme “War on Plastic with Hugh and Anita, Series 1, Episode 3” and was shocked by many things, but none more than the fact that the UK is shipping in US gas (from US fracking) so that we can make more and more plastics in the UK. I didn’t realise there was such a strong link with the plastic we use every day and shale gas. Now I feel quite sad, and I wonder if people are aware of the connection between plastic and shale gas.

US Gas from fracking in the UK!

Firstly I’m shocked that US gas from the fracking of their own land is being shipped to the UK. Even as the Scottish government is strongly debating whether to implement a complete ban on fracking in the country, they are allowing gas fracked in the US to come into Scotland. The UK has areas like the North Sea and the Norwegian Continental Shelf right near by, so why don’t we take advantage of that? I’m sure it’s all because it’s cheaper, but cheap is not always good (see – Is “cheap” the right direction?). Cheap means somebody is making more profit out of it, but doesn’t mean that the value of humans and the value of the environment are being adequately taken into account.

INEOS is the company that was highlighted in the programme on BBC, and they seem to be proud of bringing in US gas to their Grangemouth facility in Scotland. In the links and quotes at the bottom of this article, you’ll quickly get the impression that the owners of the company are making big profits out of plastic and shale gas and they’ve convinced the government to keep their hands off by talking about preserving jobs and supplying UK manufacturing.

[Read more…] about Plastic and shale gas from the US

An evil plot to pollute the world

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Let’s imagine we live in a beautiful world without pollution, with plenty of fruit to eat and clean running water in beautiful streams. Everyone is happy in this beautiful place. Now, enter an evil mastermind who wants to ruin everything. What plans could he hatch to pollute the world and ruin it? Well, pretty much what humans have been doing for the last 100 years would work. Sounds like a plot for a 007 movie, and it would be amusing if it didn’t feel so true.

The plot to pollute the world

The evil mastermind hatched a plot to pollute the world. He wanted to bring the world to an end and have everyone else in the world help him do it without knowing. His first plan was to dig up enormous amounts of coal from under the ground and start burning it in large furnaces all over the world, and have people pay for it! He started industrial and technological revolutions and convinced people that all this new technology will make their lives easier (it won’t! – he loves it when he can fool people). The real reason he wants them to desire new technology is because it requires extra energy and they’ll need more and more coal-fired power plants.

Next he invents the “steam” engine. This is brilliant marketing because “steam” sounds clean but, in reality, this is an engine that burns more coal. In every possible situation, people all over the world are now wanting steam engines so they can be part of the industrial and technological revolution. More and more coal is being burnt and the skies are getting more polluted. [Read more…] about An evil plot to pollute the world

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!