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It’s fairly easy to garden normally, you wander outside & see what needs doing then you either do it or else find a reason why you don’t have to do it right now. You plant stuff, you water it, get rid of the weeds & then it either grows or it doesn’t, it’s not rocket science & is a pleasant way to pass a nice afternoon, however when faced with a blank sheet so to speak things are different. It’s okay at first, or at least it is if you live on my estate since whilst the house is empty all the neighbouring houses seize the chance to dump all their awkward rubbish into the garden so that by the time a new tenant shows up it resembles a landfill site. Once the clearing of mattresses, abandoned wheelie bins & assorted household appliances has been completed though you’re left with a kind of crappy gap between a fence & a hedge & not a clue as to what to do with it. You immediately cut the grass but whilst in a tended garden this immediately lifts the scene positively in a neglected scrap of waste ground all you really achieve is flatter, although it’s something to be able to strim away in the certain knowledge that no damage will be done to any plant worth keeping. (continue reading…)

It may seem an odd time to bring this up what with the continuing lack of progress on climate change & BP trying yet again to plug up the hole they so patiently drilled in the sea floor but there you go. All the encouragement to be part of nature & the whole circle of life thing is quite sweet but mostly meaningless in the general scheme of our lives. Even after years of arguments & rabid tales of ecological doom there’s hardly anybody who’s really prepared to alter their lives to the grim prospect of a carbon neutral future. There are of course many reasons for this, firstly we all see little point in living in an age of technological miracles if we’re then supposed to deny ourselves the advantages of these miracles. Secondly there’s nothing all that shiny & attractive about sprouts & this counts a great deal more than the Green brigade are giving allowance for, there’s a reason that Apple makes a profit. I’m not saying that it can’t be done, just that it can’t be done in the ways so far being suggested, to succeed it would have to be cool & Green may be many things but cool isn’t & never will be one of them. (continue reading…)

It’s not looking good folks, all those countries, all those commitments to change & all those huge meetings & between them they can’t seem to get a damn thing done. Whether you’re a fan of man-made global warming or believe that it’s just a natural process that has happened before & will again this hardly bodes well for humanity as a species. There may be those islanders who know for sure that another few metres rise in sea levels will mean that they’re hoovering underwater but they haven’t got the clout to force anything through & should look to abandon their rocks rather than expecting the international community of procrastinators to assist them. There’s talk now of an agreement to agree some stuff being planned but this isn’t anything except a ruse to prevent another washout like Copenhagen occurring again, by itself it’s not going to put a legally binding anything on any

Global warming was solved, just as soon as we agreed on where to plug it in...

table & unless it does it’s useless. That’s the thing with quangos of whatever variety, whatever they do manage to achieve it’s hardly ever whatever they were set up to achieve in the first place, this is why whales are still hunted & why tuna will still be in tins next year. The systems in place can’t work because they are subordinate to the individual governments wishes & they’re always going to be subordinate because no-one trusts them to not abuse their powers should they not be, in short this means they’re screwed. (continue reading…)

It may be that the snow  brought out the shyer inhabitants of the woodlands or maybe it just makes them easier to spot & they were there all the time, whichever it is there does seem to be a lot more life around here these days, the trend is continuing as Spring takes hold but sadly the evidence, whilst plentiful is reliant on deceased individuals. Squirrels are a happy exception to this rule & there seems to be more of them about than ever, rabbits seem to be in good numbers also although unlike the squirrels they don’t appear to have grasped road sense with any degree of success as yet. It is perhaps inevitable that as humanity spreads out & takes up almost all the available room that our choice is to either get used to living in close proximity to nature or else that there will be much less nature. We should possibly be slightly grateful that there’s any nature left to live close to but this is another story, living in an urban setting means that the balance between us & the wildlife is generally tipped generously in our favour but with perks to be had for those animals that have learnt to adapt. This system is undergoing some adjustments at present oddly due to our becoming more environmentally friendly, the generations of foxes that have grown used to the bounty of our bins may have to learn new tricks as we throw less away & do it more securely, they may yet have to resort to KFC leavings. (continue reading…)

It may be that faced with the passionate screams of the Greens they’re feeling a bit guilty over the whole destroying the planet thing but I’ll state it as a fact, no-one recycles like a pensioner who’s embraced the cause. There may be many who couldn’t care less & wish to spend their twilight years pottering about doing as they please but for those who take an interest it’s not something they’re prepared to stint on, they are implacable. Really, they become possessed & end up as wrinkly ninjas in the fight for Mother Earth, God help anybody who tries to throw anything away before it’s been examined in detail as to its’ construction & chemical make-up, they know more about plastic than toy manufacturers & there is nothing in their bins, nothing, the tea-bags are composted & as far as I can tell they just don’t buy anything that isn’t green. It’s not all of them of course & I don’t even claim that it’s a majority but I’m finding more & more of them & I’m not looking, it’s the ‘phone calls that are the worst when you’re desperately trying to avoid being given something you don’t want in order to prevent the dreaded crime of adding to the landfill mountain. (continue reading…)

The science hasn’t changed & the predictions are still dire but there’s a sense that some of the urgency is lacking now as people all over are more interested in double checking what they’ve been told than actually acting on any of it. The mistakes made in presenting the data & the tribulations of alleged faking of data have definitely damaged the united & concerted effort to get the world involved & to some extent played into the hands of those who believe it all to be a con. They’ve been saying that it’s all hogwash for years & they’re not going to let it go now, the scientists & journalists in question have done the movement no favours at all, & it is becoming a movement as well in an almost religious sense. If things continue the way they are now then there’s a fair chance that at the extreme edges there will be violent green activism along with conspicuous consumptionists, this may sound a bit far fetched but the views are polarising & it’s going to take some nifty footwork to get us all back to the point where it’s worth listening to again. (continue reading…)

It may mean little to those of us who are simply waiting for Winter to go away but when you’ve got a garden to rebuild & planting to arrange it’s a thorny problem, especially since the harsher the Winter the later the Spring. As for an arbitrary date defining the beginning of Spring it’s not much use, I may be able to see a couple of crocus spikes braving the snow but I need a lot more than that before I’m convinced. The fleeting sunshine is very welcome but with the place looking unkempt & dilapidated I need to be able to get out & about, the few green shoots that haven’t been late up Daffodils are being remorselessly destroyed by the harsh frosts that don’t seem to be giving up. Guessing when Spring has sprung in the UK is never that easy & the further north you are then the later it is, they may be moaning down south but until they’re up & running we might as well all stay in bed up here. (continue reading…)

It seems cut & dried at first, even taking into account the accusations of dodgy data the overwhelming evidence suggests that for whatever reasons the Earth is warming up & that without radical intervention the consequences will be dire. Despite this the message is being half-heartedly addressed & only the die-hard supporters remain convinced that more needs to be done faster in order to have an effect, everywhere else the response is lukewarm, why should this be when this affects us all? Well, in some ways this is an easy question to answer, people are fairly selfish when it comes to their own lives & acting in the best interests of our species as a whole isn’t all that popular if it means that we as individuals have to have less. The time scale isn’t helping either, if you tell people that the planet is in terrible trouble then they’ll listen, right up to the point where you say ” In fifty or so years ” when they immediately stop listening because they’ll probably be dead by then & it wont be their problem. Being Green, when you get right down to it, consists of changing your life now in the hope that people who you’ll never meet wont have that hard a time at some point in the future, this is not a great selling idea however noble it sounds, most people don’t care about those they’ll never meet now let alone those they’ll never ever meet at all. (continue reading…)

Okay, so it’s possibly more accurate to say that Americans don’t do green, or that they would but that they’ve got more important things to think about right now, or that they would but some greens support stuff they don’t like etc. Whatever the reason it’s going to be a huge problem for environmentalists everywhere should this state of affairs continue, even with Americas’ influence on the wane without America onboard many countries will refuse to play ball so long as the US doesn’t play too. There may have been some progress from Copenhagen on carbon emissions but without legislation & up against powerful industries there’s no way that at the moment anybody could make any claims that things are improving, the talk is good but so far all it is is talk & so long as that remains the case then many countries will reast on their laurels & do nothing. (continue reading…)

The outside of my house look like a bomb site, the weather has been wet for so long that I can only hope it all freezes up soon so that I can at least get the grass cut, the winds have fatally damaged my arch but the clematis is still alive which is something. After the depredations of the kids & various animals it’s all looking a bit tired & in need of attention, there’s a lot of cutting back & tidying up to be done before any major alterations can be thought of let alone started. It’s all a bit dull & uncomfortable at this time of year, doing anything outside when it’s raining is a bind & it’s all too easy to find something to do in the warm, having kids that break their stuff effortlessly also helps a lot but it remains a lot of work that needs doing & I’m beginning to tire of waiting for the dry to arrive. (continue reading…)