Changing the world through art

Impressive talk from French art activist JR, shown at TED

reluctant enthusiasm

edward abbey

Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast … a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators.

I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.

Thanks to fellow Do Village blogger Maxine Perella for this lovely reminder of Edward Abbey, writer, activist, inspirer



Incredible Edible

There's an excellent project in the north that's showing how a bit of fleet-footed, well directed activity can enthuse people to make a difference. In Todmorden, the Incredible Edible food project is step by step signing people up to do more and eat better. Here's their starter for 10:

1) Build schools for the future that have the living edible world at their heart.

2) Transform health buildings with edible plants and trees as an integral part of the design and workplace.

3) All public bodies to release land for food growing.

4) Plan for food – Support local food production through the planning system with all local plans identifying places for growing.

5) Tick all the boxes – Make growing a performance indicator for ‘wellbeing’ for all Public Services.

6) Insist all new homes to have ready-to-grow spaces.

7) All social landlords to allocate space for growing.

8) Charter for truly local markets – support local food producers and farmers and campaign for the reallocation of subsidies.

9) Make sure public bodies like schools and health authorities have as a priority to procure local food.

10) Invest in food skills for the future. We need incredible degrees and diplomas, cooks and technologists, farmers and fabulous food producers.

Click here for more information

Peak Oil - raising the challenge bar

George Monbiot, writing in today's Guardian, points out the risks and relative importance of peak oil, on one hand, pushing investment towards ever-dirtier sources of oil - shales and coal, for instance, balanced against the soothing sounds of 'it's OK - we've found more oil'.

In terms of finding more, it's the scale that counts, as Monbiot says:

"In terms of total global supply, the trade body's [Oil & Gas UK] projections  don't make much difference...[they] suggest that the possible extra reserves are split roughly equally. This would mean an extra 2.9bn barrels of oil, which equates to around one month of global consumption"

Once again, the question for us to ask is 'so what?' or 'now what'. If you didn't write a letter following my last post, write one now.

Cool toons from 1%

We're proud to be members of 1% for the Planet, giving one percent of all sales to environmental charities. A bunch of musicians are doing the same too. Click on the link below to find out more, and download the first 1% album