So this is the last post from Green Guys Global for now. We are taking an indefinite break from our blogging here to work on all the other things that busy green guys & girls do.

Here’s a great big thank you to all of the editors for their brilliant writing over the past few years and to guest contributors who have brought their news, views and ideas into the mix. Of course the biggest thanks is to our lovely readers, whether they are new ones who have just discovered us or those from back in the day. Thank you!

We’ve had lots of fun running Green Girls Global and Green Guys Global and we’re really proud of the things we’ve achieved in such a short time. Some of the highlights include having features in the Times Online and Marie Claire, being involved in the fabulous Eco Chic Weekly and selling our own stylish organic t-shirts, created by the very talented artist and Green Girl, Lee Tracy.

What’s next for the girls and guys of GGG? Well we all have our own businesses, projects and blogs that keep us very busy. Take a look at our editors page to see what we’re all up to. Mine & Jez’s Green Hosting company will continue to host the site as there’s just too much good stuff here to take it down and Green Guy Gareth will be back again soon with an exciting blog of his own – so watch this space!

For now please do keep enjoying the articles here on the blog and thank you again for all your support.

Love from GGG x

I have an alternative but equally radical solution, which could help end war and poverty, whilst improving the livelihoods of millions. At the same time it will deal with climate change. Sounds impossible? Read on.

Africa’s deserts were once forested paradises, and so they must return. Using large scale desalinisation plants on the coast, fuelled by concentrated solar power, hydroelectric, and wind, water will be pumped across the land, to turn this arid landscape into a green paradise. The excess salt will be sold to the rest of the world, where amongst other things it can be used for assisting in extreme cold weather events. Where sand once existed plants will grow, fuelled by clean water, and it is these plants that must start to form the basis of a new strong economy. The biomass acting as a as carbon sink will also supply food, ecological services and anthropogenic resources. The clean water will be a keystone to improving health and fuelling economic development, just as it did for all the developed countries before.

The construction of such a large scale irrigation project will create thousands of jobs, and it must be the entitlement of all Africans to be able to provide their labour. Other than the benefit of employment, they will benefit from contributing to their continents development knowing full well that the water will improve the lives of their own people. Power tensions arising from low water reserves will diminish, and gradually the continent will transform. Enterprise from forestry will start to boom, and as it does more and more carbon will become locked away. Wealth will be made from helping the rest of the world lock carbon up in biomass, and as it does wealth will take on a new meaning. But here is the difference, Africa will have to show the rest of the world what a sustainable economy really looks like, and along the way the politicians will have to work out what is the most efficient and equitable political model to make this all happen.

This has the potential to be one of the greatest legacies of our civilisation.

To keep checking that things are not damaging the environment is no easy feat, but then again it’s probably easier to do if your slate is relatively clean to start off with.

Once the water is flowing, some of the greatest challenges can start to be overcome at a faster pace. Sustainable economic development, healthcare, climate change, poverty and technology will all advance at a quicker pace. Of course some will be jealous, it’ll threaten corrupt institutions and change power relations, but surely the long term reward for all generations is greater than the short term reward for the few? In the words of Nelson Mandela S., African black civil rights leader ‘Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation’.

The speed of the development need only be constricted by all our greatness and the speed of positive collaboration, co-ordination and competition.

Of course I don’t pretend to have all the answers, I’m only one person. Only together as humans could we make such an idea work.

If I won the lottery, I know what project I would start…. and it wouldn’t be a big car. I’d plant an acorn to start this green transition.

Take care

G

The fact of the matter is, they do not have too many children when taken in context. I will use Africa as an example, but this argument can be used against any such claim.

Look around you today and you’ll see many examples of families with several children. The average number of children in the UK used to be much higher (National Statistics, 2010).  It is a well known fact that the number of children people have across the world correlates with healthcare and sex education.

If I lived in poverty, travelling 5 hours a day to find water, scrapping through, day by day trying to survive, no schools, no hospitals – I would be called ‘optimistic’ if I thought my children would survive.  In the absence of sick pay, maternity benefits and all the comforts developed countries take for granted, I would look to my children to help the family. Quite frankly the more of them to work the land and provide security the better.  Some of them would probably die, and I’d grow weary with the heavy emotional burden, that I had not been able to beat poverty and drought, to allow them all to succeed.  So in it’s basic form, one reason people have a larger number of children in the developing world is simple a matter of survival.  Much like it was in my grandparent’s day, children frequently died of diseases like tuberculosis and polio.  Life was harder – but no where near as hard as most of the world.

The ecological footprint of each country is another angle.  Footfrints are much smaller in developing countries than those that are developed.  Independent think-tank NEF estimate it takes around 2-5 planets to support developed countries (NEF, 2010). Most under-developed countries use less than one planet.  It’s easy to see that with only a small number of children ecological footprints for families in developed countries would still be larger than those in under-developed world.  If anything, it is us that should be making bold moves like China to restrict population growth, especially if we can’t control our over-consumption.

Still believe there is not enough to go around?  Then just think of all the food we chuck away on a daily basis and think of the food mountains we keep for our security while the rest of the world starves.  The population of developing countries is not the problem my friend.  We are.

Links

Population Action – Average Number of Births per woman in Africa (UN)
http://www.populationaction.org/Publications/Reports/Africas_Population_Challenge/Average_Number_of_Births_Per_Women_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa.shtml

NEFs Happy Planet Index 2.0

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/explore/global/index.html

National Statistics – Total Fertility Rate in England and Wales

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=369

Frustrating and annoying as it is, we have learnt that when it comes it the environment you can’t use self-reference criteria. In other words, not everyone thinks and acts like us!

People who don’t currently recycle are not likely to be swayed by environmental arguments. If these people pay exactly the same as their neighbours regardless of whether or not they recycle then they simply won’t bother. No amount of education or persuasion will work. Period.

That’s why we were pleased to hear that people who recycle household waste could get up to £130 a year in shopping vouchers under plans outlined by the shadow chancellor. The Conservatives have been piloting the American-style scheme in Berkshire and say they would help roll it out to councils across Britain. In a speech George Osborne said the Tories would pay people to recycle, not “punish them” with “bin taxes”.

Whilst this may be no more than a political gimmick, these murmurings are a step in the right direction because they signal a greater willingness to tackle the appalling lack of recycling in the UK.

The focus of previous attempts to encourage people to recycle have typically revolved around punitive methods, such as the threat of fines and even putting spy cameras inside bins. These approaches can lead to resentment and claims of Big Brother snooping, prompting calls for a different approach based on reward not punishment.

Differential pricing on Council Tax bills is one possible solution. In the same way a household qualifies for a discount for a single person, a discount could be applied to households who recycle waste in different bins. This could be funded by proportionately increasing the Council Tax bills of those who choose not to recycle. It’s also fairer because it recognises each household’s impact on the environment, the amount of waste they send to landfill sites and the cost to the local authority. Those who choose not to recycle are not forced to do so through punitive measures, but instead pay more in recognition of the extra cost to the local authority of processing their waste.

Yes, this would add some complexity to billing but it would lead to a more equitable charging system which more closely aligned financial contribution with environmental impact.

Clearly, differential pricing on Council Tax bills is just one possible solution amongst many different incentives that could be considered but the general principle remains the same. That is, those who recycle must be given a financial benefit over their non-recycling neighbours if we are to have a credible and workable system of recycling in the UK.

Since then I’ve noticed several companies, just like M&S, claiming to be greener by reducing their packaging. Great! I hear you shout. On the surface of it yes it is a good thing, but I’m worried that more and more companies are using this message to convince their customer base that they care about the environment. Oh yes, the figures stack up, and their auditors approve them, but I’m not convinced less packaging always correlates with less environmental harm. The situation is much more complicated than it seems on the surface.

Let’s use a carrier bag as an example. Most carrier bags are made from plastic. Plastic is a derivative of oil. Oil is pumped from the ground and the whole process from extraction to conversion uses lots of energy perpetuating environmental impacts that are well documented. How much does the carrier bag weigh though? I’m not sure on this, but pick up an empty bag, let go and there’s a good chance it will float off in the wind. Contrast this to a Hessian bag. The bag is unbleached, made from plant fibre and sewn together. There are environmental by-products don’t get me wrong, I doubt there is a process on earth that does not have some measurable environmental impact. There will also be social economic factors to consider, but the weight of the bag is heavier, there is more product. I think I might start using a plastic carrier bag, surely that way there is less of it. Do you see what I’m trying to get at? Less packaging is not necessarily better for the environment.

The Humpty Dumpty Easter Egg company (fictious) wraps their eggs up in 2 cardboard boxes. The next year they focus on improving their environmental performance and move to one box. This is a 50% reduction in the same packaging, so in the crudest sense, we shout ‘of course it’s better than the original’. Year 3 the eggs are wrapped in plastic shrink wrap. ‘We’ve made a 99% reduction in packaging’ Humpty Dumpty proudly proclaim. Indeed they have if you go by weight, but is plastic better than card?

Is the card recycled? Is the plastic recycled? What energy goes into the processes that make these products? I don’t have all the answers, but I do think the current methods of measurement carry an element of environmental ambiguity. Consumers must use caution. Sadly for most of us these important debates add to the mire of confusion when choosinig products. Most people just want to nip into a shop, grab something off a shelf and then head home. The packet said ‘40% less packaging’, therefore it must be good right?

The construction industry got to grip with this problem some time ago, when the debate about which material was better really got underway. Now things like concrete, wood, steel are measured by embodied energy Which attempts to work out the true environmental cost of the material, including elements of extraction, transportation and fixing. Lets face it there are so many variables it’s hard to pin down an exact cost. But the construction industry does a better attempt than most. Maybe the food industry could learn a lesson or two, from this mechanism of performance measurement.

From an environmental and ethical perspective two concerns spring immediately to mind.

Firstly, thousands of trees and tonnes of paper are used to produce telephone directories. Secondly, these directories are delivered to households without asking the occupant(s) if they want them. In other words, they arrive uninvited.

From our own perspective, we were receiving these paper-based directories and not using them at all. For example, there were stacks of pages relating to car insurance but we don’t know of anyone in this day and age who still spends hours ringing around dozens of companies when an on-line comparison site can do the job in minutes (granted there are a handful of insurance companies not listed on price comparison sites).

Worse still, we were receiving many different versions of these telephone directories and often the same information was contained in them. Also, as they’re only published once each year then they can quickly become out of date whereas the Internet offers current and much more detailed information than ever possible on a printed page.

Despite this, we were powerless to stop these directories arriving every year on our doorstep. Our pristine copy would simply be replaced by another pristine copy and then gather dust until we recycled it each time.

We were delighted to find out, therefore, that we could opt out of receiving these directories – saving trees, paper and irritation. Recently, we called BT Phone Books (the phone number is very inconspicuous at the front so you have to search to find this ‘opt out’ phone number). We were very pleased to have a man call at the door within days to collect it along with confirmation that we wouldn’t receive any more.

The point of this article is not simply to highlight that a mechanism exists for stopping the arrival of paper-based telephone directories and saving paper in the process. It also has a broader significance. That is, it illustrates the tremendous power of technology (in this case the Internet) to help the environment and improve economic efficiency.

Gary Robertshaw

The Green Providers Directory

For convenience I took advantage of their on-line booking service (10% discount).  The night before pickup, I received a courtesy sms informing me about the car and driver.

We were greeted by Eric, an ex-IT consultant turned eco-entrenpenuer, and founder of EF Cars ‘Our aim is to provide a service that goes beyond people’s normal vision of a cab company’s service driver.  We have aspirations of a fleet of carbon neutral cars supplied by our own bio-fuel processing’.

Taking the short trip to Southampton Airport I started to imagine a day when all taxis were like the one I was in.  EF Cars significantly undercut the cost of the competition and the smaller carbon footprint, make the choice a no-brainer.  Why everyone wasn’t snapping up rides with this company was beyond me.  Surely this was one way individuals and companies could easily reduce their carbon footprint.

Despite my un-green flight (I did offset by a factor of 2 I hasten to add) our journey to the airport in a VW powered by bio-diesel (recycled oil) made me feel slightly less guilty.

Excellent service from a company with foresight of meeting the needs of the green economy.  I look forward to seeing their progress.

Link: EF Cars http://www.efcars.co.uk

In my mixed experience of going into various super-stores it has been Marks and Spencer that makes me most angry.  For set out amongst their ethical goodies and uniformly ordered stores is a whole mountain of unnecessary packaging.  Some days it appears as though the whole store is wrapped up plastic or card!

‘Make a pledge to reuse things instead of throwing them away. Recycling is good, but reusing is better. See how much you can reduce the contents of your rubbish bin by finding new uses for packaging.  Difficultly 1 star.’  The M and S eco-pledge site tells you it’s easy to re-use things.  Indeed it is, but didn’t they forget the ‘reduce’ that comes before the ‘reuse’.  We don’t want everything in boxes, think of the oils that it takes to generate the plastic, think of the trees it take to generate the card, in this immaculately packaged environment M and S have taken a wrong turn.  This forgot that it was their responsibility to cut back as well.  We want food not packaging.

The one thing that annoys me most?  M and S customers stuffing their Hessian eco-bags with packaging (far less green than plastic carrier bags), in the self righteous, I am better than thou way, that M and S customers tend to have.  Analogous to 4×4 Porsche drivers with National Trust stickers in their windows, these idiots just don’t get it.  If this is what Plan A looks like we are screwed, as are our children.

As the overdue realisation dawns on governments around the world, particularly those with most to lose because of dense populations perilously exposed to sea level rises, there is a clamour for ‘quick fix’ solutions. Everything from geo-engineering to devices in space designed to block out sunlight.

Whilst well-intentioned, these efforts overlook a far more fundamental problem. This problem can be expressed in a simple, single statement: There are too many people on the Earth, consuming too many resources.

In other words, our impact on the environment can be broadly expressed as follows:

Number of people x Per capita resource consumption

Stabilisation of the global population and a reduction in per capita resource consumption will, in combination, do more to mitigate environmental damage than anything else. The Pareto principle of directing most effort into that which produces the greatest result has never been more important, whilst political prevaricating and drawn-out discussions on relatively minor issues serve only as a distraction.

An effective solution must address both population growth and resource consumption together. There is little point in trying to reduce per capita resource consumption with a surging population as the total impact on the environment will continue to rise.

Politically, however, that is what is happening. Governments regard the subject of population stabilisation as almost taboo. A no-go area not up for debate. Almost immediately, there are accusations of totalitarianism and coercion in reducing family sizes.

Yet, it doesn’t have to be like that. Empowerment and better education of women in developing countries is known to have a downward impact on birth rates. The Obama administration’s progress in encouraging family planning in the US and more broadly within the UN will have a positive longer-term impact. There is so much that can be done and without recourse to totalitarian policies.

However, the size of the problem should not be underestimated. For example, China’s population is still growing now despite the policy of one child per couple having been in place for many years. There is an inherent time lag involved. On top of that there are likely to be greater food shortages and displacement of large populations as climate change impacts upon agriculture in low lying areas, coupled with desertification of areas where deforestation has taken place. This will inevitably compound the problems of migration.

Environmental organisations need to avoid focusing almost explicitly on reducing per capita resource consumption whilst neglecting the other side of the equation; population growth. Global environmental strategies can only be truly effective when addressing both sides of the coin.

Gary Robertshaw

The Green Providers Directory

www.search-for-me.co.uk

The author spent four years on an ‘ecological community’ called Tinker’s Bubble in Somerset, UK and before writing the book she visited other land-based projects in the UK and France. And it really shows. Just by flicking through the book you get a sense of the huge wealth of information and advice on the subject.

And while this encyclopaedic-type approach is the book’s greatest strength, it’s also its weakness. This book isn’t really suitable for the casual reader, while fascinating in parts, it’s more of a ‘how-to’ book and something you would refer to if you were planning on setting up a smallholding and starting to live off the land yourself. So if you approach it like that then I don’t think you’ll find anything with more information on the subject.

You might find a bit of a lighter and easier read as this is written a little like a university essay or thesis, starting with some historical background, theory and explanation of motivation, using human energy to produce goods and so on. As I said, it’s interesting stuff and doesn’t shy away from the fact it’ll be hard work to make a success out of your enterprise. As Rebecca Laughton has experienced the process herself and visited many other places, the examples she writes about are real – both the successes and failures. This is invaluable to anyone wanting to set up their own enterprise.

And it really does go into detail – from planning the farm, building a stove, selling goods, planning, employing people and generally making a success of your smallholding. At more than 300 pages I really don’t think it leaves any subject uncovered. While text heavy and a bit of a daunting read, there are small pencil drawings and diagrams littered throughout, as well as eight pages of colour photographs in the centre which are quite inspiring.

In fact the book very inspiring and if you have the time and the inclination then it’s well worth a read. Surviving And Thriving On The Land – How to use your time and energy to run a successful smallholding is available from Green Books for £12.95.