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.

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.

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.

Confessions of an IMBY

You know what NIMBY stands for? Not In My Back Yard. It's a very handy expression used to describe people who are all enthusiastic and excited about, say, wind power, but turn against it when someone suggests building a wind turbine up the road from their house. There are lots of Nimbys in the world.

But for today I'm an IMBY, and I have a sort of confession. Our back garden is tiny. It's miniscule. In fact it wouldn't look out of place if you unpeeled it and stuck it on an envelope in place of a stamp. It's the kind of garden you have when you live in an old terraced house on the side of a hill and most of it is hidden by an enormous tree. Whereas all our neighbours have nice little flowering cherry trees or funny shrubs covered in red dangly things, someone sometime decided to plant the world's hugest apple tree in our back garden. Left to its own devices it would probably be ten metres tall and just as wide. It's like an oak.

You can see where generations of desperate homeowners have hacked branches off this monster. I pruned it pretty severely a couple of winters ago and in the meantime it has grown and grown. Last summer the tree's dense foliage shaded the whole garden, more or less all day. On the plus side, though, it was a happy hang-out for our small local population of streetwise bluetits and blackbirds.

So I was torn. I venerate the tree - we've even wassailed it - but having written a book about orchards (Man-made Eden, published by Redcliffe Press) I know you shouldn't be sentimental about such things. I thought about having it cut down, then hit on a compromise, and instead gave it a really good pruning, I mean more or less a pollarding. It's about quarter the size now, but still alive, and the garden is light again.

The only losers are the bluetits and blackbirds. Of course I could say, well, it's just one tree, there's plenty of other places for them to go, and it could be true. But then I think of my neighbour who hacked down and burned every green thing in his back garden and turned it into a sort of box, with decking that stretches its length and breadth and a patio heater for decoration. And I think of all the other people in the city, and the county, and in England and over in Amazonia, people who need or want to tame their bit of nature to make their lives better.

But at least I didn't cut the tree down completely. It will grow back. The bugs are still there for the bluetits. Perhaps I've stumbled on a happy medium between the needs of nature and the desires of people. In My Back Yard.

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.

Look out! It's the Carbon Weevils!

One of the aims of How to Turn Your Parents Green (how I wish I'd given it a shorter title!) is to inject a bit of humour into the global-warming-mass-extinction-oh-no-we're-all-going-to-melt thing. And I'm happy to say we're part of a growing trend. Yes, there are still plenty of tedious books and websites where people drone on about lightbulbs and recycling without so much as a smile, but some great comic minds are at work dreaming up wonderful new ideas.

My favourite is the Carbon Weevils, a short film made by madcap theatre troupe Forkbeard Fantasy. It's shown as part of their hilarious show Invisible Bonfires, which is about global warming, but you can also see the film by itself on Youtube or You Tube or whatever it's called - you probably know better than me.

The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEuUDmwZ8a0

At least it should be. Sorry if it's someone doing a silly dance instead.

Viva Greenpeace!

It's hard to be positive when you come across stories like Goodbye Froggie. That doesn't mean you shouldn't read them. You just have to read them, think a bit and then do something. No one's expecting you to go charging around the Southern Ocean like the rainbow warriors of Greenpeace are doing right now. There is, as they say, more than one way to save a whale. Or a frog, come to think of it. This is what 'How to Turn Your Parents Green' is all about: direct action you can do at home.

Take the poor frog. In this green, wet country of ours there used to be lots of frogs, toads and newts. Witches didn't have to look far when they needed a bit of amphibian for a spell, they just looked in the nearest patch of weeds. There were ponds and streams everywhere, full of green, slippery creatures.

The modern witch has to look much harder, because there are less amphibians, and there are less amphibians because there are fewer places for them to live. Our growing towns and cities cover land with tarmac and bricks and concrete. We use strimmers and weedkillers to get rid of vegetation. Even in the countryside you have to look quite hard for a pond because people have filled them in.

So what can you do? Here's a clue: in our tiny city garden we have anything between five and ten frogs. They live in the flowerbeds around the world's smallest pond, feasting on the thousands of slugs that live in the garden. They're protected from local cats by the thick, messy foliage that we never cut back. We don't use any poisons. In fact a lot of the time we don't do much. It's a bit of a jungle, but paradise if you're a snail, a slug or an urban frog.

The gardening chapter of 'How to Turn Your Parents Green' has lots of tips for the greener gardener, so why not check it out?

What does Green mean?

It's a tricky one, isn't it? We're always telling each other we should be Greener, but does anyone really know what this means? I have an idea in my head, but I doubt it's the same as yours. For instance, my Green vision isn't limited to worrying about Carbon. I'm not sure that all our attention should be focused so narrowly on this one element, because it allows accountants and technical people and marketing whizzkids to dictate how we think about changing the world for the better.

If you're obsessed with Carbon you can't think rationally about nuclear power or dams across the Severn. Of course this suits big corporations just fine, because a thinking public is not good for business. After all, if you think in broad terms about being Green you soon realise that the most important Green qualities are THRIFT (ie not wasting stuff), MODERATION (ie not consuming too much), SELF-RELIANCE (ie doing things for yourself) and CRAFT (ie making and doing things rather than passively consuming them). If you have these qualities you will have a small Carbon footprint. You will have lower Carbon emissions than other people. You won't need to waste any of your precious time thinking about this incredibly tedious subject.

But can you think of a business that wants its customers to be thrifty, moderate, self-reliant and crafty? What about the government? Our leaders want us to be healthy and reasonably content, but they also want us to consume. They want us to buy a lot of everything. For the economy to keep booming we have to buy more this year than we did last, and if we're Green we won't.

Carbon is a good get-out for government and business. Think about it. If you're a business person you want people to keep buying stuff, but there's only so much a person can buy. So you keep creating new products and new markets, and this is what's happening with Carbon. Instead of buying less, people are buying more, only they're buying stuff that seems to be Green because it involves less Carbon floating about the place. Biofuel is a classic example of this, as discussed in How To Turn Your Parents Green:

Don’t be Fooled by BioFuel
Car owners, manufacturers and petrol companies are always looking for ways to seem Green, and biofuels are the New Big Thing. Instead of powering cars with the energy from long-dead plants (ie oil), biofuels are made from plants grown for the purpose – crops like wheat, oilseed rape and oil palms. The idea is that the growing plants consume as much CO2 as the car engines will emit, but does this make biofuels Green? Not in the slightest. So how can you be a Green driver? By riding a bike instead

Don't get me wrong. I'm nervous about Global Warming and I know that we need to change our ways. But when you're thinking Green, have some imagination. Have some vision. Conjure a great life. The future needs hard-working, thoughtful, creative people, not a bunch of Carbon-crunchers.

Thank you, Treehugger.com

Well, news of 'How to Turn Your Parents Green' seems to be spreading. It's a curious fact of modern life that a book should be impossible to find in our biggest local bookstore (but try finding anything at Borders without a pirate's treasure map), yet instantly available online.

Treehugger.com posted a fantastic review yesterday, which is now doing the rounds. Here in Bristol, England, I'm beginning to find that parents aren't quite so friendly... Apparently some of the pushier kids are holding them to ransom for low energy light bulbs. I guess it's quite unusual for an adult to arm children against other adults, but these are desperate days. While the news is full of stuff about international summits and all that Al Gore-type blather, our everyday lives are becoming less and less Green.

Everything that comes in the mail is now wrapped in plastic. Weekend newspapers have their insides similarly packaged. As supermarkets compete with each other for the badge of Most Organic, the amount of packaging on their products keeps increasing. People keep driving more, flying more, wasting more.

This isn't just about global warming, this is about environmental destruction on a casual, everyday scale. Everyone's talking about global warming as this single issue that technology can fix, but what use is a cool desert? 'How to Turn Your Parents Green' is about life choices. Here's a bit of the last chapter:

Live Green
The future of the world is in your hands. OK, so there are a few billion other people with a say in it too, but your choices and actions will affect the course of history as much as anyone else’s.
However your parents live their lives, you are free to choose your own course. Which is it to be: Groan or Green?
1. Do you want to use up the planet’s resources, or conserve them?
2. Do you want people to suffer in the cause of your cheap stuff, or to live comfortably like you?
3. Do you want to watch life on TV, or take part in it?
4. Do you always want to listen to music on an MP3 player, or learn an instrument and play it yourself?
5. Do you want to experience the world through a car window, or at your own pace, under your own power?
6. Do you want hedgehogs and bumblebees to disappear, or to flourish?
Of course 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.

So instead of More, Cheaper! try

LESS, BETTER!

Instead of Make Life Easy!

MAKE LIFE FUN!

Interview from Venue Magazine

What's 'How to Turn Your Parents Green' all about then?

It’s about a war that’s being waged in sitting rooms, bathrooms and kitchens up and down the land. In gardens and patches of wasteland. In supermarkets and on the streets. On one side we have our heroes, the Greens. On the other their enemy, the Griping Grumbly Groans.
Your Groan is the average-to-lazy modern adult human, who lives according to two simple rules: More, Cheaper and Make Life Easy. Your Groan moans about the traffic but insists on driving. Your Groan hacks down every weed in the garden then wonders why there are no butterflies. Your Groan slumps about the house in a T-shirt with the heat blasting. Sound familiar?
The aim of the book is to encourage the young and the young at heart to confront their Groans (parents, teachers, housemates) and force them to turn Green. There’s a Glorious Green Charter backed up by a system of fines established on the same principles as the old-fashioned swear box.

Where did the inspiration come from?

My daughter brought home a poster about saving Siberian tigers, which she’d made at school. Her painting showed a kindly, sad-looking tiger that reminded me of Bagpuss. I thought, this extinction business is making her sad and wistful, but her generation need to be angry. They need to be cross. They need to get us adults by the cojones and say, OK, that’s it, enough’s enough!

Who's it for?

Do you have parents? Then it’s for you. Our obvious target audience is kids aged 8 and up, plus their long-suffering parents, but there’s a lot in here for people who care about global warming and want to do something for themselves. There are some sophisticated ideas in the book as well as a few facts – one or two might even be true!

What do you hope people will get/experience from the book?

I hope they’ll chuckle. I hope they’ll get a kick out of Oivind’s cool illustrations. I hope they’ll feel as though they can seize a bit of control over what’s happening in the world. I hope they’ll choose Green over Groan.

Isn't there a bit of a surfeit of preaching, eco-championing books on the market at the moment? What makes yours different?

I hate preaching. I have a big problem with your puritanical, humourless Green. This book looks at the classic Green subjects from unusual angles, and from a slightly mad perspective. You’ll read about pedal-powered TVs and discover why teachers love to laminate. You’ll fall in love with your milkman and run away from growbags.
Best of all, ‘How to Turn Your Parents Green’ encourages younger readers to take action - to hit parents where it hurts by making them pay for Groanish behaviour. Come to think of it, the more eco-warlike members of any shared household could draw up a Glorious Green Charter and fine people who chuck cans in the wheelie bin.
The truth is, most Green books rely on the good will of readers. This one is built on much firmer foundations.

Was it hard to research? What was you starting point?

I’ve been writing about Green subjects for a long time, so it wasn’t so difficult to get hold of the information. There are books and websites packed with facts and figures, dos and don’ts, and ways to change your life. What I wanted to do was present the information in a way that was accessible, fun and surprising. Doing that was difficult.

Which bits were hardest/easiest/most fun to write?

Getting the tone right was tricky. Then I read ‘Matilda’ and thought, I know, I’ll take some tips from Roald Dahl! The most brilliant moment was when I hit on the character of the Groans – overweight, hedonistic, self-centred adults whose overwhelming laziness and desire for an easy life lies at the heart of our social, economic and ecological woes.
For some reason the section about Energy was the hardest, I think because it involves Carbon, which is not an easy subject to be witty about. Just the word Carbon makes me want to rush out and drink lots of cider.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed doing the chapter on turning your garden Green, because it gave me the chance to rant about the hideous blight of decking and promote Low-tech Gardening Solutions.

There is a serious message behind it all isn't there?

The book starts off talking about global warming but develops into something much wider in scope. There’s a very important connection between environmental troubles and social problems like obesity, but we tend to talk about them as separate issues. I’m interested in the wider subject of ecology, not just global warming.
But ‘How to Turn Your Parents Green’ is primarily a call to action. Yes, sabotage that patio heater. Stand guard over nettle patches. Give packaging to the supermarket manager. Make a fuss about those cycle lanes that squirt you into heavy traffic when you least expect it. Don’t eat blueberries. Flush less. Dance more. Pester for the Planet!

It looks beautiful - are you pleased with the illustrations? Where did they come from?

When I saw Oivind Hovland’s pictures for the first time I had to rewrite half the book because my text didn’t do them justice. Oivind is Norwegian but lives here, so I suppose that makes him a Norstolian, and he has a peculiarly Norstolian vision of the world that comes through in his strange and wonderful pictures.
He did the most fantastic cover illustration for the Bristol Review of Books, showing Chatterton and a wrecking ball, so the Esteemed Publisher signed him up. Which was rather brilliant.

Are you a Grumbelicious Groan, an Eco-Worrier or a Lean Mean Green Machine?

Like many people, I’m a bit of a mixture. Yes, I’ll squidge rotting cucumber out of its plastic sheath into the brown bin, and yes I ride a bike whenever I can, but in other ways I’m quite Groanish. I refuse to buy products which are vastly overpriced because they’re being marketed as Organic Chic, and I can’t bring myself to give up having a car. As for being an Eco-Worrier, I’m afraid that’s my natural condition.

What's next for you?

I’m going into hiding to escape the mob of angry parents outside my front door. To placate them I suppose there’s always the sequel: Parents’ Revenge – Now it’s the Kids’ Turn for the Green Treatment! (the title needs work).

Interview by Joe Spurgeon, November 2007

How to Turn Your Parents Green

It's horrible and it's happening - How to Turn Your Parents Green is about to hit the shops. Parents - run and hide! Kids - prepare to save the planet!

Here's the Introduction:

The weather’s gone weird. The polar bears are anxious. Ghastly Global Warming is here. Every day there’s some new thing to worry about, but don’t panic. Help is at hand. Yes, someone’s about to save the planet and guess what? It’s you.

Only you can do it, because only you can make the culprits change their ways. Only you can nag, pester, bug, torment and punish the people who are merrily wrecking your world. And who are they? Who cranks the heating up so you can hardly breathe? Who drives everywhere? Who chucks out mountains of Revolting Rubbish? You? Your friends?

Meet the Groans. They may grumble about the traffic and gripe about heating bills, but grown-ups have got us into this mess and they’re too busy goggling at the TV and booking exotic holidays to sort it out.

Only you can make those Groans behave because only you can make their lives a misery if they don’t. We’ll help you draw up a Glorious Green Charter for them to sign, and show you how to punish them – oh yes – if they refuse to change their Grumbelicious ways.

So don’t be an Eco-Worrier, be an Eco-Warrior. And turn your parents Green.

How to Turn Your Parents Green
by James Russell
illustrations by Oivind Hovland
edited by Richard Jones
published by Tangent Books
ISBN-13: 978-0955352096
price: £6.50, and Amazon has a deal on it right now!