Doctor Who and the Vanishing Bees

Where have our bees gone? Honey bees, bumble bees... you name it, they're disappearing faster than Pooh Bear's honey. Now, I thought maybe there were some fairly simple explanations for this worrying phenomenon, like the damaging effects of Pestilential Pesticides or the loss of wildflowers due to intensive agriculture.

But I was wrong. I now know that the bees have gone off to their mother planet out in space because the Earth is about to be stolen by Daleks and hidden one second in the future along with twenty-six other planets so that Davros and his band of tinpot baddies can take over the universe.

It's a much more satisfying explanation altogether, and it fits the general Dr Who approach to our current eco-woes. What? you may be thinking. Surely Dr Who is just a fanciful adventure series - no one really believes that the bees are from outer space, do they? Do they? I don't know. But Dr Who has always reflected the fears of the age, and in this series the images of apocalypse (the stars going out, unknown terrors coming from the sky) seem to mirror our very real anxieties about climate change and its effects.

Dr Who is great. It's scary and fantastic. But the thing about the bees is keeping me awake at night. The disappearance of bees isn't part of some grand conspiracy of aggressive oversized saltpots. It's much closer to home than that. It's our problem, and one we could maybe solve if we put in the sort of time and effort it takes to make a TV series.

The trouble is, we're not going to get ten million people glued to the sofa of a Saturday evening for bees. Are we?

Sunshade World? No! No! No!

Now and again people send me press releases they think I'll find interesting, but this one made me want to run upstairs and hide under the bed. Actually, to start with I thought this report, from a respected university not a million miles from my door, must be an April Fool that had got lost somewhere in the www. It began:

Sunshade World - a global warming solution?

I read on, and it became clear that this was no joke. Instead, a team of scientists had just devoted hatfuls of time and energy to creating computer models designed to help us understand what the world would be like if a giant sunshade were placed between us and the sun. Apparently such a scheme could be put in place in 25 years or so for so many trillions of pounds, so obviously we need to know what it will be like.

The good news is that, compared to the 'sky falling in' doom-monger's scenarios of runaway climate change, life under the sunshade would be quite pleasant. A bit less ice at the poles than at present. Rather drier in the topics. Possible catastrophic effects on plankton with potential global repercussions.

As I read and digested this, I tried to imagine these scientists going about their work, chatting over coffee and comparing notes, then I thought about all the other scientists all over the world who spend their time modelling futures and extrapolating data, which then gets turned into fabulous stories by the media and so makes its way into our tiny brains, where we try and come to terms with it.

And no doubt somebody, somewhere, is busy monitoring all these scientists, studying their carbon footprints and coming up with ingenious ways to make their future-mongering more efficient. And these people also issue reports telling the world how vitally important their work has been in cutting the climate impact of the climate impact studiers. And after a while someone says, you know, this Sunshade World really sounds pretty good, and then we're all in trouble.

You know what they say: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Turning the Parents Green? It's Eco Child's Play!

Thanks to Jennifer Lance for this thoughtful review on ecochildsplay.com:

http://ecochildsplay.com/2008/05/20/eco-kids-books-how-to-turn-your-parents-green/

Funny to think of Jennifer sitting in the wilds of northern California, in her off-grid, self-built house, surrounded by kids running about and playing American versions of the universal child games, reading this odd little book. Which was written, incidentally, in a south Bristol terrace built a year before Victoria died, with a view over the trees and rooftops and lots of sky in the window. In the summer evenings a sound like a cow snorting tells us a hot air balloon is overhead, the pilot turning on the burner to get that balloon over our hill.

It isn't what you'd call wilderness round here. Our wildlife is as urban as we are: the frogs in the pond and the swifts in the sky are city-dwellers, so are the herring gulls which started moving in when the Clean Air Acts were passed forty-odd years ago. The gulls are big, aggressive and unafraid, and they love it here. No one has any idea what to do about them, though the city has tried some strange and wonderful ideas, such as stealing the eggs and replacing them with fakes. They've tried introducing predators like peregrine falcons to scare them away, but the gulls are used to predators and don't take any notice. They've tried culling them, but more just arrive to take the vacant rooftop apartments.

We're entwined with nature, even here in the city, and all of our actions will have consequences we could never imagine.

Bin Tax: Pay the Kids not the City

We might not like the idea, but it won't be long before we're all paying for our rubbish to be taken away.* Of course we already pay for this service through local taxes, but new technology will soon enable rubbish collectors to weigh our bins and charge accordingly.

So what to do? Have a tantrum? Or become better binners? As readers of How to Turn Your Parents Green will know, most of the stuff we throw away can be recycled, so it's mostly just a question of doing this properly. If you sign up to the Glorious Green Charter included free with every copy of the book, you can put your kids in charge of monitoring bin usage. They will fine you for misdemeanours such as chucking drink cans in the wheelie bin** but these pennies will seem like money well spent when the real Rubbish Inspectors come to call.

Let's face it: kids like detail. They like yucky stuff. They're perfect for the job.

The book also provides handy tips on how to avoid creating rubbish in the first place, so why not save a few bob*** and peruse a copy? (preferably one you've purchased beforehand)

* Note for American reader(s): rubbish = garbage or trash; bin = trashcan; potato = potarto (should we call the whole thing off?)
** Trash can on wheels. Can perform 'a wheelie' but this isn't necessarily a good idea
*** No Robert here: 'bob' is an arcane word for 'shilling', a now obsolete bit of British currency

A Few Words from Mr Angry (or is that Ms?)

It's always nice to get a little feedback, and this morning a message arrived from someone bravely identifying themselves as Anonymous. Describing me as a **** idiot, my correspondent went on to explain that I knew nothing about anything and, in particular, that by mentioning the possibility of oil becoming more expensive I was effectively acting as a mouthpiece for the great liberal global warming conspiracy.

To back up their argument that I am a **** idiot (which I no doubt am, at least some of the time), Mr or Ms Angry pulled out an old chestnut called the abiogenic theory of petroleum formation. This theory, which was put forward in the nineteenth century and has since been rejected by everyone except a couple of rogue Russians and an astrophysicist, suggests that oil and gas are not fossil fuels, but that they derive from magma squeezed up through cracks in the earth's crust and transformed by complex chemical processes into oily hydrocarbons.

In other words, in the view of Anonymous, supplies of oil and gas are continually being replaced from below, and will never run out. There is no evidence for this whatsoever, but that doesn't matter with this sort of bogus science. Which would be funny except that people who know even less about the subject than I do tend to grasp at theories like this and cling on to them, and we don't need people's heads to be full of muddled ideas. We need people to be well-informed, and to think carefully about subjects like wind energy, nuclear power and so on.

The earth is rich with many forms of energy. Let's think about this in more interesting ways, not just make stuff up.

Adventures in Cleaning

It's all very well thinking and talking about this Green business, but what about getting stuff done? I have to admit that I'm more of a thinker than a doer, but my better half, the lovely Ms Peapod, likes to get her hands dirty. While I'm trying to think of something witty to say about Carbon (not very easy) she's toiling at the allotment, fighting slugs with her bare hands.

Cleaning is a subject I am certainly much happier pondering than doing something about. I think the world would be a better place if we all cleaned less, but the unkind might suggest that I just want to bring everyone down to my slovenly level. My argument is that our cleaning products are often dirtier than the dirt they're supposed to get rid of, because they're full of bleach and similar poisons. We wage chemical warfare on ordinary dirt and germs, and there is a lot of - what's it called? Collateral damage.

Because whatever you squirt around your house ends up either down the sink or drifting about as dust, and if the stuff is poisonous it isn't going to be doing you or anyone else much good. Is it?

Enter Ms Peapod, bearing a lemon. She had discovered somewhere that a lemon isn't just for squeezing - you can use the skin as a handy cleaning utensil, a kind of citrus scouring sponge. And to demonstrate she tackled a set of copper saucepans we got from a car boot sale. Just set to with that half lemon and the dirt fell away.

So successful was this experiment that she's now threatening to revolutionise our cleaning regime. There's talk of home-made washing powder - all you need's some borax and a few other bits and bobs, for heaven's sake! We already use vinegar for glass and stuff and new applications suggest themselves on a daily basis. Who knows where this will lead?

Are You Greenish?

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I don't think all that many people would describe themselves as Green. I think the quiet majority of people are wary of Green politics and not very keen on carbon-crunching. They're not really convinced by the fire-and-brimstone sermons of Monbiot and co.

But many of us have Green tendencies. We love nature documentaries and walks in the country. We grow things. With a bit of encouragement we easily become fiendish recyclers. We'll turn the temperature setting down on the washing machine, so long as we know the clothes will still come out clean.

In other words, we're Greenish. Unfortunately professional Greens sometimes give the impression that anyone who hasn't sent their car to the crusher and vowed never to eat a carrot that has travelled more than 200 metres is a carbon criminal responsible for the imminent destruction of the world. Which is hardly encouraging.

Instead, let's give ourselves a pat on the back for saving those cans or for trying to bike to work, or even for noticing the first swift of summer.

Can You Really Make Paper From Elephant Poo?

Yesterday I went to the opening of an extraordinary new building at the Green Shop, near Stroud. It's a funny sort of place, hidden away behind a petrol station on a B-road. You'll be driving along and there's this Murco gas station, then you look again and behind it there's a funky wooden building with a grassy roof and more solar panels than you could shake a stick at.

The Green Shop has been going for twenty years or so, and when you walk in from the garage you can see this evolution. First, there's a typical garage shop, with sweets and newspapers - only the herbal tea selection is unusual. Then you go into a bigger space with lots of Green goodies on display, from books and gadgets to washing up liquid and wholesome beauty products. They have solar battery chargers and little machines for making logs out of waste paper. It's pretty cool.

Then you go through a doorway and into the Glorious Green Future. The new building is light, airy, super-efficient and all the rest. There are displays of Green paints (other colours available) and rainwater harvesting gadgetry and solar gismos.

The Great Green Jonathan Porritt snipped a ribbon to open the new building in front of a happy crowd of future-makers, and he said A Few Words. He talked about other people around the country who were in a similar line of work - finding exciting new ways of doing things and laying the foundations of a low-carbon economy.

By coincidence I was reading something last night about Greens and the economy. I've already said that I'm not a great shopper, and the writer of this article seemed to be talking straight at me when he said it was our duty as citizens to shop a lot and keep the good old global economy going.

It's true that in the old days Greens tended to be a bit sniffy about shopping, but those attitudes are disappearing fast, along with droopy sweaters and Compulsory Muesli. Nowadays it's about where you choose to shop. Do you trail around Toys-a-Saurus or pop into your local toy shop? Do you follow the herd around Tuskos or get a veg box/visit a farmer's market/buy what you can find in the High Street?

At the Green Shop and places like it shopping isn't a chore - it's a joy! You can discover new ways of doing things, find brands you've never heard of and get inspired. I bought a little notebook with paper made partly from elephant dung. Elephant dung! Every time I look at it I picture a great big pooping pachyderm, and my day is made that little bit brighter.

How One Kid Turned Their Parents Green

I couldn't quite believe this when I read it. Someone at the Exeter Express and Echo had the brilliant idea of giving a fourteen year old a copy of How to Turn Your Parents Green and the licence to use it. Sure enough the kid set about doing just that, although it seems as though the poor parents were already doing better than most.

I'd love to reproduce the whole article here but I don't want to interfere with anyone's copyright so here's a little bit:

"Next, I am going to look at the water. I think we all do things like leave the tap on while we do our teeth. This is probably the only thing that I can think of we do that really wastes water.
"As I can't exactly watch my parents when they are in the bathroom, I have to take their word for it that they aren't leaving the taps running.
"My mum is the worst culprit for leaving the tap on when she cleans her teeth. The book says to fine anyone 25p if they leave the tap on while brushing their teeth. I think it came to £2, before she got it into her head that tap off good, tap on bad. So a miracle happened when she turned the tap off when she brushed her teeth. Well done, mum."

Unfortunately the author of the article isn't named (perhaps because he or she is under sixteen), but it's fantastic. For now you can read it at:

www.thisisexeter.co.uk (enter "turn your parents green" in the search box)

Rainy Week at the Seaside Anyone?

I keep coming back to this rather gloomy thought: many people still think that Greens want to take the fun out of their lives. Too many Green scribblers seem to take pleasure in the thought that our civilisation is on the verge of collapse. They love to tell us that unless we stop doing everything we like RIGHT NOW the sky's going to fall on our head.

Maybe this is true. Maybe we're all doomed. Ho hum.

Greens aren't the only ones who think like this. There are people holed up in cabins in America waiting confidently for the world to end. We think they're crazy, but that we're right. As I said, maybe we are, but why bother being Green and talking about these things if you don't have anything positive to add to the human experience?

Too often activists try to sell the Green message as if they were selling the world's worst holiday. Come and have a week in the rain, in Weston-super-Mare, with the tide out all the time! I think the Transition Man says this in his handbook, that we have to offer people a vision of something better than they have now - a sunny week in Weston, maybe, with the tide in.

Here's a great example: my kids' primary school is on the edge of a lovely city park, but until recently the playground was the traditional expanse of tarmac - easy to maintain and unlikely to make anyone muddy. Then some Greenish parents got together and dug up a corner and planted a funky little willow tunnel and some little bushes. It really isn't an Eco-anything, but it's a patch of non-tarmac and the kids love it. They play in it is if it were an enchanted wood.

There was a story in America recently about an insurance company cancelling an advert that showed a man forced to ride a bike because petrol (gas) was too expensive. Basically all the joy had gone out of this guy's life because he couldn't drive. Lots of Greens protested about this and the ad disappeared. BUT THE ATTITUDE HASN'T. Most people still think that bike-riding is a stage of growing-up between riding a scooter and driving. They will do anything to keep their car on the road, even if it means turning all the world's food into Biofuels. Yet riding a bike is usually much more fun than driving. You get the buzz of exercise, the thrill of zooming about, and in most cities these days you get where you're going quicker than you do in a car.

How to change the attitude, though, that's the question.

Pester for the Planet!

Anna Shepard just wrote an article in The Times about teenage eco-nags:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3681607.ece

Apart from painting a rather endearing picture of her younger self wearing an unfashionable Elefriends jumper, it has one important quality - the teenagers interviewed are all happy to admit their mistakes. Let's face it. We're all making this up as we go along, that's politicians and Green experts as well as you and me. Does anyone have the 'right answer' to all our eco-woes? No. Can anyone predict the future? Of course not.

Ms Shepard rightly points out that children's greatest asset is their ability to pester, nag and generaly bug their Groans (Grown-ups).

Here's a snippet from the book:

You may have heard of Pester Power? It’s the reason companies put adverts between your favourite TV shows. They’re not expecting you to rush out and buy the latest Playstation game or DVD, they’re relying on you to bug your Groans until they buy the stuff for you. And it works, doesn’t it? Groans can’t resist it, because deep down they think that buying you stuff will make you happy.

Now imagine if every child in the country channelled their Pester Power in the service of the Glorious Green Future. Imagine if, instead of whining for DVDs, everyone griped and grumbled about organic carrots or environmentally friendly washing powder. You can change the way your parents shop, and that in turn will change the world. Pestering for the Planet! You read it here first.

Caps and Climate Change

Fear is a beastly thing, especially when you're a kid. I remember being about seven and losing my school cap. We were supposed to wear our caps at playtime for some weird reason, so for about a week I didn't go out. Nobody knew I was harbouring this secret terror of caplessness, but it was the centre of my existence for long enough that I remember it vividly.

I know it was just a cap, but thinking about it helps me imagine the kind of fears kids have about climate change. If I was eight or nine I know I'd be lying awake worrying about the weather, and a report last year suggested that lots of children are worriers like me. This same report said that when children got to talk about eco-troubles at school and started doing things to change THEIR environment they worried less.

That's sort of the point of this book. I don't want my kids or anyone else's losing sleep over global warming. Instead, let's talk about it and start making some little changes. Even as an adult I find myself thinking, OK the world is huge and out of control, but I get milk from the milkman now which means no more plastic bottles. and that's A Good Thing.

Toys-a-saurus Adventure

I'm not a great shopper. In fact I'm probably on some list of terrible non-shoppers, people who aren't doing their bit to keep our fabulous consumer economy going. The rest of the family shop slightly more than me, which is probably a good thing, but they prefer to leave me behind because I moan too much. Actually I do like some shops. There's a greengrocer's near our house where one of the staff calls out into the street, all day long, 'come and buy your strawberries, your lovely fresh strawberries' in this wonderful sing-songy voice. But anyway...

Today Fate took me to Toys-a-saurus, a store the size of a small planet - you know the one I mean. When we walked in it smelt of warm plastic, and though there were only one or two humans around there was a constant chirruppy hubbub. It was like a nesting colony of electronic birds. It was as though we were naturalists and had stumbled into a forest full of rare creatures, only these were all trapped behind screens or sealed up in plastic. A lot of the creatures were talking, saying chirpy little phrases over and over again in cheery little voices.

Somebody somewhere had designed all these things so they would move about or flash or chirp, and presumably they had designed them because they thought kids would like them. There were no kids there, though, no people at all apart from us and a couple of workers who looked a bit bewildered by it all. It crossed my mind that maybe all the kids were out playing in the park or in the woods. Maybe they were playing cricket or learning how to sew. Their mums and dads would be searching for them, shouting 'We're going to Toys-a-saurus! Right now!" and they'd be hiding, shushing the younger children, waiting for the grown-ups to go away.

Adam's Review from Life Goggles

How To Turn Your Parents Green is written by James Russell, illustrated by Øivind Hovland and was supplied to Life Goggles by Charlie at Green Books.

Aimed at kids ‘from 8-80′ How To Turn Your Parents Green is a book for a future generation of eco warriors. Presenting the challenge to be green as a battle of the Greens versus the Groans (ungreen adults) the book urging children to become green by fining their parents if they’re not environmentally-friendly.


But it’s more than that, it tries to put the pester power that kids have to good use - turn it away from sweets and candy to switching off the tap and buying local food. And it does this with the help of humorous phrases and great drawings by Øivind Hovland.

Although I make the ludicrous age range for this book, I’m admittedly quite a bit older than those it’s really aimed at. So at first the phrases ‘Ghastly Global Warming’, Hellish Halogens’ and other similarly alliterate and capital lettered ones got on my nerves. But after a while I got used to it and ‘Lazy Train to Chubville’ got me smiling.

While humorous, the book is also informative and it does this cleverly by asking questions but then often making up one of the answers just to make you smile. It nicely explained what a leachate is (rubbish sludge mixed with rainwater) and other facts are presented simply and in a way that a child could easily relate to a parent.

The explanations of subjects like importing fruit from abroad or having a standby button on the TV show how ridiculous they are and that the reader shouldn’t stand for such practices. Luckily it then tells you what you can do about them and gives examples of things done in the past - such as the boy who saved the Severn Beach railway line. Practical examples, goals and checklists make it almost an activity book and even inspired me to do more.

Apart from my initial problem of getting into the book, once you’re used to the style it makes an enjoyable and informative read for all ages. Aimed at kids changing their parents’ habits (fining them for using carrier bags etc), it also has useful tips for turning teachers green and also becoming a green citizen yourself.

Available at Green Books, How To Turn Your Parents Green costs £6.50, is 91 pages, is printed on Nine Lives recycled paper and published by Tangent Books.

The Times: Let the Kids Set Green Taxes

Times blogger John-Paul Flintoff has an interesting take on the government's predictable failure to set a Green budget. Refering to How to Turn Your Parents Green, he suggests that kids take matters into their own hands by levying taxes at the household level:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/environment/2008/03/green-tax-payab.html

I was really thinking in terms of fines rather than taxes - 20p for throwing a can in the wheelie bin, stuff like that - but I'm not going to argue with a man from The Times!

The main point is, don't wait for the Government to go Green: we need to get on with it ourselves.

What Happens When Oil Isn't Cheap Anymore?

Yesterday I woke up. Well, I suppose I wake up most days, but this was different. This was like an alarm clock going off and waking me up EVEN THOUGH I WAS AWAKE ALREADY. Hmmm. Tricky concept. Anyway, what woke me up was a man called Rob Hopkins, a tall, mild-mannered sort of chap with sticky-out ears and a nice sense of humour. He was talking about something called Peak Oil - no, not oil pumped out of mountains, but something altogether different:

The moment at which the oil waiting quietly in the ground for us to pump out is less than the amount we've already sucked out and burned up.

My grandfather worked for an oil company and I always thought of oil as something that was THERE. When one lot was sucked up, you just went and found more. There had to be more, because in our Groanish world we can't imagine less. Things aren't supposed to run out or close or end in our world, so the oil had to keep flowing.

More recently I began to realise that oil would one day run out, but I imagined that we'd have found some other wonderful source of energy by then. Nuclear fusion or cosmic rays - I don't know. Until yesterday I didn't understand that oil is special. Oil is like having a whole room full of cash you can just pull out and spend. Oil is like pickled sunshine. It's like the richest chocolate brownie you can imagine, only instead of butter and sugar and chocolate it's full of energy.

Over the past 150 years this chocolate-brownie-sunshine energy has made the modern world what it is. Cheap oil is the difference between a modern Western city and a poor city in the developing world. Look around you. How many things that you see were either made or brought to you using oil?

But once oil starts to become scarce, it will be expensive, and expensive oil is an altogether different creature. Expensive oil is a luxury. Expensive oil means no more cheap plastic, or cheap computers or TVs or clothes. Expensive oil means that only rich people will be able to drive or fly. It means having to live WHERE YOU ARE and eat food that is grown nearby.

In fact expensive oil could make life a whole lot better. It will stop people rushing around, trying to be in seventy-two different places at once. It will stop people getting fat. It will force people to spend their time living instead of shopping or watching TV. Provided people are positive and make good decisions, expensive oil will make our lives healthier, Greener and less stressful.

What happens when oil isn't cheap anymore? That's up to us.

Coconut Jet Fuel and the Icarus Moment

The idea of a plane powered by coconuts sounds quite funny, but when I read about this in the papers the other day it didn't make me laugh. Instead it made me think of Icarus, the unfortunate flying boy. He tried to fly too high and melted his wings, confirming the view that people ought to stay put on terra firma and not act like gods. The Greeks had a word for this sort of behaviour: Hubris. In their myths people who put on airs and graces were guilty of hubris and generally came to a sticky end. Prometheus is another example.

Cut to 2008 and people are concerned about the environmental impact of cars and planes. We want to go wherever we want quickly, but oil is getting more expensive and our journeys are releasing ever-increasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. I don't claim to be an expert Carbon-cruncher, but wiser heads have pointed out that carbon released high in the atmosphere causes more trouble than the same amount released at ground level. Yes, we're back with Icarus...

Airlines are attracting more and more customers but they're not enjoying the bad publicity. So a certain British businessman, who owns an airline, hit on the idea of putting biofuel in the gas tanks of a 747. Of the jet's four tanks, three contained ordinary jet fuel, while the last had a mixture of 80% jet fuel and 20% fuel made from coconut and babassu palm oil. Apparently 150,000 coconuts were used, along with an unspecified amount of palm oil. I'm no mathematician, but that sounds like an awful lot of coconuts to provide a small percentage of one airplane's fuel.

The entrepreneur in question described the flight as 'historic', and perhaps it is. Perhaps this was the moment when the human race finally took leave of its senses. The Icarus moment.

Biofuels are made from living plants, which absorb carbon as they grow. The idea is that, on balance, a car or jet running on biofuel emits less carbon than one using ordinary fuel. Groans point to this and say, Here is the future of transport! And that future is bright leafy Green!

What they never mention is that all these plants - oil palms, rape, wheat - have to grow somewhere. Land which might have been used to grow food or left alone for wildlife has to be cleared and planted with biofuel crops. These are not cosy little farms but vast plantations run by big companies that want to make as much money as they can - what they do is called Green because people have this obsession with carbon, but isn't even remotely Green. It's hugely destructive. Oil palms grow in the tropics, which means rainforest is being cut down and burned to make way for them. The oran utang is losing its home so that people in Europe can put biofuels in their petrol tanks and feel all virtuous and Green.

And now people want to power jets with coconuts! This isn't Green, this is Gruesome, Grisly Groanishness of the first order. It's unbelievably stupid. By contrast, Icarus was just a kid who forgot where he was.

Green Freedom

How to Turn Your Parents Green is going places. Copies should be appearing in Greenish shops near you, and could well be heading across the Atlantic soon. More importantly, we were attacked by one of those blogs that aims to protect the good citizens of the world from a Government-backed Green Conspiracy. We're obviously doing something right!

But this kind of reaction is a good reminder that the Green world is still small and quite self-contained. Most people have some idea of what global warming is, and many people love nature and want to help birds and animals. But those same people tend to react badly if you make practical suggestions that don't fit with the Groanish philosophy of MORE CHEAPER and MAKE LIFE EASY.

It's the principle of the guy stuck in rush hour gridlock, complaining about the traffic. He hates the traffic, but he'll defend his right to sit in it because it's what he does and what he knows. Changing the way he travels might involve changing his whole life, and who wants to do that?

Greens have a habit of knowing better than everyone else what's good for them, and nobody likes a know-all. Especially a know-all who is also a party-pooper. It's always amazed me that a movement which is all about promoting happiness should have such a reputation for being worthy and not much fun. It always seems to be about having less and doing without. There's a sort of Puritan ethic that most people don't like at all.

To turn parents and others Green I think we need to stop making people depressed with Carbon Footprints and all that, and start making them feel that Green is a better alternative, for them, personally. Not just for future generations or people in far-off lands or creatures that live in ponds, but for them and their families.

As you read this, brilliant Green minds are at work, trying to work out how to do this. But for now, perhaps we could spend less time telling people how to live and more time demonstrating - like someone showing off a new hoover - the pleasures of a Greenish life.

Review from Obviously.ca

Book Review: How to Turn Your Parents Green
By Kayley. Posted on 7:00:00 am - Wednesday, January 30, 2008.

Presented in a poignant and witty way, How to Turn Your Parents Green tells the tale of the Greens versus the Groans in explaining the effects of Ghastly Global Warming. In targeting an often-forgotten, but very powerful, audience, author James Russell reaches out to “kids age 8 to 80” and shows them how to take control of the state of their current and future environment, namely by influencing their parents, caregivers, and teachers to change their behaviours.

How to Turn Your Parents Green begins by discussing the current state of the Groans, and comparing them to the Greens. The Groans represent those people in today’s society who fail to think about the environment when making choices, whereas the Greens are environmentally-aware individuals, whom we should all aspire to emulate.

“Look at Dad. He’s obviously been enjoying some festive cheer. Now he doesn’t feel too great. His feet are cold because blood scarcely reaches them, so he demands more heat and chomps another packet of chocolate digestives. Green Dad keeps trim by raking leaves, walking to the shops, and riding a bike to work. His heart pumps happily, so his feet are warm and he doesn’t need the heating on.”

In this UK-based saga, Russell teaches kids how to become Eco-Warriors and to hold the older generation responsible for their actions, by having them sign the “Glorious Green Charter” and imposing necessary fines while acting as “House Rubbish Inspector” and keeping an eye on “Water Wasters”.

How to Turn Your Parents Green covers all the range of areas in which environmental choices can be implemented, including travel, shopping, the importance of buying local, electronics, and how to influence your teachers to become more environmental. With a sense of humour that pervades How to Turn Your Parents Green, Russell provides many examples of Groan stupidity when it comes to the environment.

At one point he writes, “Once upon a time, a TV was either On or Off. Then someone invented Standby and now TVs and all our other appliances burn energy twenty-four hours a day, wasting millions of pounds a year. But for what? Surely a TV which is Off is just as ready for action as a TV on Standby- all you have to do is push a button, for Heaven’s Sake.”

At another point made is that, “[p]lums grow like crazy in Britain, but nobody wants them. Blueberries don’t grow here at all, and everybody loves them. If Blueberries were meant to fly, they’d have wings. Welcome to the world of Groan logic”.

These witty lines make sense on many levels and teach kids environmental lessons without talking down to them. Russell does a great job of breaking down often hard to swallow environmental information into chunks that are easily digestible. He provides simple solutions for big problems and teaches everyone can be a powerful instrument of change. Readers are asked to “imagine if every child in the country channelled their Pester Power in the service of the Glorious Green Future. Imagine if, instead of whining for DVDs, everyone griped and grumbled about organic carrots or environmentally friendly washing powder”. He also highlights the power of new communication, stating “Email is a wonderful thing. Nobody will guess your age from an email. You can write to newspapers, complain to Council, take part in planning protests and express your opinions on consumer websites and forums, just the same as an adult.”

Russell’s final lesson resonates with Kermit, children and adults alike: “It isn’t easy being Green. We’re only human, after all. But if you follow Groan philosophy you’ll be unhappy, stressed, overweight and, quite probably, under water.”

How to Turn Your Parents Green is great if you have parents, or friends, or happen to know people. I certainly learned a lot and enjoyed a hearty chuckle at the same time!

Patio Heaters and Smoking Groans

Do you understand Europe? I mean the government-type thing, not the continent. Europe has a parliament and it has elected members of parliament (MEPs), who are a bit like ordinary MPs - except that nobody knows who they are. Most MPs and most governments are super-Groanish. They bend over backwards to do things they think people will like, such as building new roads and airports or putting more people in prison. The European parliament, on the other hand, doesn't care two hoots whether people like what it does. And the European parliament is surprisingly Green.

The only reason we recycle in this country is because Europe makes us pay fines if we don't. Groans love to grumble about Europe and now it looks like they're going to have something new to gripe about, because Europe is planning to ban patio heaters.

I have to say I'm not too keen on banning things. When you stop people doing something they like it makes them resentful, and it's hard to be Green when you're petulant or cross. So do we need to ban patio heaters? How does the amount of energy a patio heater wastes compare with, say, the amount used to keep imported fruit cool for months in a giant warehouse?

Groans are very attached to their patio heaters because it feels special to be outside at night or when it's cold. People do it in other countries which aren't so cold and damp, so Groans think we should be able to do it here. Especially Smoking Groans, since they're not allowed to smoulder indoors anymore. Once upon a time Smoking Groans hid away in pubs and cafes, but now they're all outside, on the patio, enjoying the 'en plein air' experience and the warmth of a patio heater. They're under the stars, like cowboys round a campfire...

The real problem isn't so much the patio heater as the typical Groanish attitude: I feel good and that's what matters. Will banning patio heaters change this? Probably not.

So here's the real question. Should Green mean laws, bans, restrictions and fines? Or should it mean something more positive? How about:

Colourful ponchos for Smoking Groans!
Geothermal under-patio heating systems!
Pedal-powered patio heaters!

Let's have more freedom, not less. Let's have some vision.