Green (Living) Review

All the right in.gredients

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Here in Britain, in London, we have had a wonderful shop called “Unpackaged” for around 5 years now. It is a brilliant place to buy your food without all the unnecessary wrappings and cartons and packaging; very much like it used to be in the old days and even still in the days of my childhood.

While some stuff already, such as breakfast cereals, of the Kellogs' corn flakes and such, came in cardboard packages, a lot of other stuff, such as dried goods, tea, and even milk, was bought “loose”.

“Unpackaged” is a little like that in that you pop along with your old jam jars, Tupperware, paper bags, shampoo bottles and even hot water bottles and fill them up with flour, raisins, pasta and well...anything that you want from the store.

If I am not mistaken there also was a similar store some while back on Borough Market but I have mislaid, so to speak, the information and it does not appear to be traceable as to whether and whatever.

Finally America is now following suit and the first packaging-free, waste-free store called “in.gredients” of the new era will open in Autumn in Austin, Texas. They will work with local businesses and farmers to encourage its shoppers to adopt the reduce, reuse and then recycle way of life.

The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW wishes the “in.gredients” store and operators the very best of luck and we hope to hear lots more about them when they open.

Domestic energy use up 18% since 1970

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

British household energy use increased by 18% between 1970 and 2009, according to new statistics but I really hate to ask how much this study has cost that could have been answered without a study.

Information, revealed by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), show domestic energy consumption increased from 37 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 1970 to 44 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 2009.

The statistics, published in the latest chapter of the Social Trends, also show in 2008, 5.6% of all electricity consumption in the UK was from renewable resources. While this marked a considerable increase compared to 1990 when it was a lowly 1.7%, but the UK still lags behind the European Union's average of 16.7%.

In 2008 UK households paid environmental taxes of £20.9 billion, more than half of the total collected in the UK, with the rest being paid by industry. But, what did they all get in return and what did the government do with those taxes? Use them in the normal running of things, like financing a war or two, I should think.

Other highlights in the report cover issues related to the environment such as emissions, pollution, environmental taxes, household waste recycling and attitudes to the environment.

Including the fact that recycling, composting or reuse of household waste has increased considerably in England from less than 1% in 1983/84 to 40% in 2009/10. Unfortunately we still have no system of deposit of bottles or a system where they get returned in another way for a refund, as it is done in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, for example.

As far as energy usages, I am sure it does come to no one's surprise that it has risen since the 1970s, especially since so many more electrical and electronic appliances are now on – mops of the time – in British households.

Much of this energy usage could be reduced if households would have a renewable energy system at home with 12v DC and manufacturers would stop having to make the expensive and power hogging power supplies that have to transform 240v AC to low-voltage DC.

We have met the enemy... and he is us!

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

When it comes to the Planet, Mother Nature, then the enemy certainly is us and we are on the best way of destroying ourselves because we are in the process of destroying the Planet upon which we depend.

There is only one Earth but we are behaving as if there were thousands of those planets about and as if we could just use and abuse at will without any consequences.

The Native American, and that also though some bad experiences, has learned much earlier than have we that we must create a symbiosis with Mother Earth in order for us to be able to thrive on this Planet.

The original philosophy of the Romani, the Gypsy people, also has been to take only as much as we need for whatever, whether food or craft, so that there is something there for others coming after us.

The “White Man”, however, does not seem to understand this profound truth and by purposely mistranslating and misinterpreting his “Holy Scriptures” he tries top justify his actions.

Christianity especially likes to use the phrase “and G-d gave man dominion over all Creation” to claim a G-d-given right to use, as he pleases and wants, all of Creation in a way as if there is no tomorrow. In fact, if we continue on this path there will be no tomorrow, for the future looks very bleak indeed.

We are the enemy for sure... and now that we have realized that it is up to us to do something about it.

Gypsies targeted in west German arson attack

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

An apartment block housing Sinti and Roma families was the target of an apparent racial arson attack in the west German city of Leverkusen in the last week of July 2011 and prosecutors have, in fact, put a 5,000 Euro bounty on any information leading to apprehension and conviction of perpetrator(s).

Unknown assailants threw several Molotov cocktails into the ground floor apartment of the building, where a well-known Gypsy family of Leverkusen had their home. Luckily the occupants managed to escape unharmed.

Witnesses have spoken of four perpetrators who drove off in a car and minibus.

Police do 'not rule out a radical right-wing background' in the fire-bombing of the four-storey building.

Sustainable picnics

Sustainable picnics in parks, open spaces and forests

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We all – well most of us – love a picnic in the open, in a park, open space or forest land and those that work in the parks and forestry services really do want you to have a good time, but that does not mean that everything has to be left behind.

Far too many people, however, do not consider what happens after they leave and how their rubbish is going to be disposed off or before anyone gets to it how it affects wildlife.

Time and again the next day after picnics staff at parks and forestry encounter the disaster that are the leftovers from such events, with ripped black bin liners and content spilled over, at times, literally miles.

You rubbish from a picnic can have a serious impact on wildlife and the countryside.

Until everything is picked up it all looks very untidy and this could be for some time depending where this picnic has happened and, in addition to that, any remains attract wildlife which could also be harmed by what may be left in the bags or just strewn around.

Large scale organized picnics at open air concerts and other events also present a challenge when participants are on the inconsiderate side and assume that the rubbish can just be left by the side of overflowing bins or even simply left, even though maybe tied up in bin liners of what have you, in the location where the event took place.

We must look at sustainability in everything that we do, whether at home or in the outdoors and a couple of considerations will go a long way towards sustainable picnics and events.

Do not use disposables. No paper plates, cups or napkins. Bring real stuff and take it home again with you. The same goes for cutlery (flatware to you American cousins). Bring real metal cutlery or wood or bamboo. The latter will happily decay in the great outdoors or the compost heap. Best advise for sustainability: bring stuff you take home again, that is to say picnic plates of plastic or metal and real cutlery.

Don't leave your rubbish behind. You carried it all to the location therefore you should be able to take it home with you as well. At least dispose of it properly in the proper locations. Don't just leave it behind.

It is amazing though even with people who bring real plates (plastic, metal, china) and real flatware how many of them still throw everything into the rubbish bins (or leave it besides the bins because their bags are too big to fit) including the flatware and plates they brought.

Not very sustainable and we must rethink our ways in the case of picnics like in so many other issues.

It is not sustainable to waste food and neither is it sustainable to waste cutlery and plates, etc.

Plastic cutlery is not sustainable and neither are polystyrene plates and cups. Nor, however, is using real cutlery and real plates and glasses and leaving them behind after a day in the parks or forests.

We really need to rethink how things are being done.

Record-breaking green spaces

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

On July 25, 2011, a record-breaking 1,288 parks and green spaces throughout the UK have been receiving the Green Flag Award or Community Award. This is a certain sign that even in these challenging times, the value of green space is widely acknowledged as vital to our communities.

The record number of sites that have been receiving an award this year ensures that even more of us now have access to well-managed, high-quality green spaces. Many of those award-winning sites will have been raising their flags throughout Love Parks Week, which ran from the 23rd to the 31st July.

In recent years, research has proved that quality parks and green spaces play a vital role within local communities. They are assets contributing to the local environment, the local economy, individual’s health and well-being, and in bringing the community together.

This year alone has seen even more value placed on our green spaces. A major new study by The UK National Ecosystems Assessment (NEA) shows that the health benefits of living with a view of green space are worth up to £300 per person per year, though as a parks professional I would actually consider the price to be higher still.

The Natural Environment White Paper published by the government in 2011, highlights further the importance of our green spaces and the benefits our natural environment has to us all – strengthening the significance of the part we all have to play in developing and protecting it.

Investment in parks and green spaces has the potential to impact on many aspects of the local environment. The increase in the number of Green Flag Award and Community Award sites this year is testament to the value and significance local authorities and the community as a whole are placing on their green spaces.

Communities and Local Government Minister, Andrew Stunell said: “This year, a record of number of parks and green spaces across the country have been awarded a Green Flag – a testament to all the hard work that local authorities and communities put in to maintaining them. The announcement of this year’s winners also acts as a timely reminder to communities everywhere that there are hundreds of top-quality parks out there to enjoy.

“Given the important role parks and green spaces play in all our lives, I would like to thank all this year’s volunteer judges for their efforts. I share the joy of communities that, through the scheme, see their local areas flourish.”

Green Flag Plus Partnership chairman Phil Barton said: “The importance of good-quality green spaces cannot be overestimated. They are central to the growth of our communities, both socially and economically.

“The Green Flag Award Scheme, and its growth, is essential in driving up the standards of our parks and green spaces. Access to quality green space is something we all desire and the scheme plays a key role in providing it.

“In these challenging financial times it is heartening that the number of Green Flag and Community Awards continues to grow. As the value of green space and the role it plays in our communities strengthens, we must ensure these high standards remain.”

But, many parks and open spaces do face serious problems due to government cutbacks that seriously affect service delivery on a local level. Park staff everywhere, and the management teams, will do their very best do keep the standards up as far as possible with the every dwindling resources.

Looking after your local parks and open spaces may be something where the Big Society could come into its own as well with volunteer groups assisting the park keepers and grounds maintenance teams everywhere.

Canada clamps down on criticism of Israel

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Canada, in an affront to free speech, government committee declares that criticism of Israel should be considered anti-Semitic.

Thus Canada is taking it further even than the way things are done in the USA when it comes to criticism of the Zionist State in Palestine, called Israel, where, basically, any such criticism is suppressed, unless it is published in Blogs and such. In the land of the maple leaf the mere criticism of the Zionist State might be regarded soon as anti-Semitic hate crime.

It seems that in both North American countries, Canada and the USA, nowadays one may not say anything at all against the Zionist entity that occupies Palestine if one does not wish to be hauled before a judge.

Nearly two years after the first hearings were held in Ottawa, the Canadian Parliamentary Committee to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) released a detailed report on July 7, 2011 that found that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Canada, especially on university campuses.

While the CPCCA's final report does contain some cases of real anti-Semitism, the committee has provided little evidence that anti-Semitism has actually increased in Canada in recent years. Instead, it has focused a disproportionate amount of effort and resources on what it calls a so-called "new anti-Semitism": criticism of Israel.

It would appear, indeed, to all intents and purposes, that the real purpose of the CPCCA committee is to be to stifle critiques of Israeli policy and disrupt pro-Palestinian solidarity organizing in Canada, including, most notably, Israeli Apartheid Week events. Many of the CPCCA's findings, therefore, must be rejected as both an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of protest, and as recklessly undermining the fight against real instances of anti-Semitism.

Simple being critical of Israel and it actions in the country and the occupied territories already is being considered as anti-Semitic by especially the B'nai Brith, the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies and similar entities.

Being anti-Semitic once meant being against the Jewish Religion and ethnic group called Jews – Jews are NOT a Race to be precise – it now seems to be translated to mean that someone is anti-Semitic if he or she does not agree with the that Zionist entity – called Israel – in Palestine. I have problems with Israel for sure but none with individual Jews or Jews per se. But I do have problems with them when they make claims on their ethnicity and claims to rights as Jews to simply steel the land of another People.

It is entirely stupid and against all traditions of freedom of speech – and it is not just thus in Canada and the USA – to make criticism of the Zionist entity in occupied Palestine, called Israel, into Anti-Semitism.

Criticism on Israel has nothing to do with Anti-Semitism in the same way as criticism on, say , an African country, has nothing to do with racism. It is criticism on the action of a country, a state, and in the case of Israel one that was born out of terrorism and the dispossession of other people.

So, let's get real and not drift into the realm of absolute stupidity.

Is email dead?

Personally I do not think so in the same way as the letter has not died as yet and hopefully never will

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The announcement of the death of email, I think, is very premature indeed for who, in their right mind, wants to use the likes of LinkedIn, Ning, etc., as sole means of communication.

Recently the Net was awash with claims that email – direct proper email – was about to meet its demise and was going to be replaced entirely by communications via social media and social networking sites. I must say that I very much doubt it.

Email could do with improvement and the style should be brought back of a proper letter for a great many emails. The way some people clobber together emails and reply to them just is very much without style and it would be very sad if we lose the style of letter through email.

An email is an electronic letter and, in my view, should be laid out and styled in the same way as would be a letter, and the style, obviously, differs from whether it is a private or a business electronic letter (email) but both should keep to the style that a letter would also be, unless it is just an SMS kind of quick message being sent for this or that reason.

Communicating via social media in any serious way I cannot imagine ever to really take off and that very simply for the fact that you do not have a way of keeping such messages for “posterity”, so to speak, in the same way as you can emails.

While I do like a proper letter and proper letter style for sure email, in the proper form, as far as I am concerned, has become, as far as possible, my favorite choice of communication, and that simply for its speed.

Sending a letter of even three of four pages with attached pictures and documents, half way across the world in seconds beats the postal service for sure and with an exchange of read receipt you also know, almost instantly, that your letter has been received on the other end.

While I do use Twitter and Facebook (and also forums) as for discussions with friends and acquaintances, etc., I cannot see such forums and applications replacing emails (and proper letters), and that simply for the fact that you don't have a way of keeping a record properly of the conversations.

Social media has its place and it will go forward, of that I am sure, by leaps and bounds and while there is hardly going to be anything new coming up as far as email is concerned email is here to stay and may even become more important in time to come.

For business and private use social media just does not have the security of the email either and thus, I am sure, very much like the desktop PC, it is here to stay and rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

US cutting military aid to Pakistan

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Ever since the US military action that led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden and which was done without the knowledge of the country of Pakistan in that country relations between the USA and Pakistan are more than strained.

The United States have accused the Pakistani secret service to have been in the know as to where Bin Laden was hiding and, in fact, protecting him. This may not be all that far fetched for it is somewhat unbelievable that he was living so plainly in Pakistan without the knowledge of someone high up in the Secret Intelligence Service of Pakistan.

In addition to that Pakistan recently threw out US military and is, as far as the USA are concerned, a little on the recalcitrant side at present.

If this act of cutting military aid, though most likely very much welcomed by the ordinary American, could make relations between the USA and Pakistan worse what then? Take out Pakistan?

This may not be all that far fetched, dear readers.

The way some American officials seems to be talking that is exactly what they consider to do. The Af-Pak war and an occupation of Pakistan would have Iran fully in a pincer. Is that the aim? It would appear so.

We must note that the Afghan conflict became, in the last year or so, the Af-Pak war, or conflict. However, since when is there anything happening in Pakistan, other than the Taliban having bases there and the US attacking them, illegally, with drones.

However, and I am sticking my neck out here somewhat and playing the devil's advocate and some might say that I have been reading too many wrong books.

Looking at the area of the former Ariania – of which Iran retains part of the name – then the only thing needed in order to get Iran (Persia) into a pincer proper, as we already have the -stans above, is full and unhindered access and operational permission in Pakistan, especially in the province(s) that border Iran.

If that can be achieved then Iran is surrounded by American and “allied” forces and can then put pressure on Iran to change its political structure so as for the US and others to get their hands on the oil.

And oil is the only reason any and all of those “wars” are being fought, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan – bugger “Enduring Freedom” and human rights, etc. – and latest Libya. If it would really be the rights of the people we would be interested in, our governments that is, then we would be in Syria right now and would have been in Rhodesia a long time ago.

Far from bringing any enduring freedom to Afghanistan, or to Iraq, or to Libya, the aim is to “liberate” the oil supplies of Iraq, Libya, and via a pincer attack from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and the -stans of the former USSR, Iran.

That black sticky stuff makes people do awful things and often under the guise of humanitarian action.

Japanese Prime Minister calls for nuclear-free future

Naoto Kan says Fukushima crisis has convinced him to aim for a society not dependent on nuclear power

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan said on Wednesday, July 13, 2011, that the Fukushima nuclear crisis had convinced him that Japan should aim at a society that does not depend on nuclear energy and eventually has no atomic plants.

The unpopular leader denied he was considering calling a snap election over energy policy and sidestepped a question on when he would keep a promise to step down, saying he wanted to do his best to work on nuclear policy and rebuild the country from the devastating 11 March earthquake and tsunami that triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.

“Given the enormity of the risks associated with nuclear power generation, I have realised nuclear technology is not something that can be managed by conventional safety measures alone,” Kan told a news conference.

“I believe”, he said, “we should aim for a society that is not dependent on nuclear power generation."

Though he did say that it was premature to set a time frame for achieving that goal.

Kan also said Japan would be able to avoid summer and winter power shortages because of energy conservation efforts and companies' in-house power supplies, despite the large number of reactors now off-line for inspections or other work.

The unpopular Prime Minister has become increasingly sensitive to growing public concern about nuclear power, but whether he oversees an overhaul of energy policy is in doubt since he has promised to resign, although he has not said when.

Nuclear energy accounted for about 30% of Japan's power supply before the 11 March disasters crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima plant 240km (150 miles) north of the capital and that ratio slipped to 18% in June.

Although he is being referred to again and again as an unpopular Prime Minister, which he, n o doubt, is, he seems to be one of the few leaders in the developed world who has understood the dangers of nuclear power and the fact that we cannot afford the stuff.

I am old enough to remember – I was a child back then – when in Britain the claim as to nuclear power was made that it would produce energy too cheap to meter and that is also the very reason that in the 1960s homes, whether houses or flats, were built all electric and were then, later, refitted with gas heating, and gas for cooking, as electric turned out to be too expensive.

The “too cheap to meter” never materialized. In fact nuclear power is the most expensive form of energy in Britain today. Still the government is going to be building (or more precise “bringing on stream”) some eight new atomic power plants with all the risks and problems associated with them.

The British government seem to be very firmly, regardless of which party, in the pockets of the nuclear power industry. Time the people reacted and told the powers-that-be where to get off.

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