Arte documentary: The future of feeding cities

© 2013 ARTE G.E.I.E.

Here is an Arte documentary on how to feed cities (i.e. most of the world and the rest of the world as well!). For anybody who can view this French/German channel (I think you can get it on Netflix), and who is interested in how on earth we can continue to feed our cities, this would be a very insightful documentary - I think! It's showing again on Tuesday 15th October at 9.45am or pm (I'm not too sure which it is).

The blurb is as follows, according to my quick translation from French/German into English:

Shaping our future

Where are we headed?
Where do we want to go?

Do we have the courage to shape our own future; to create our own salvation?

I have been silent for a long time - consumed by my studies of ethics in any spare time I had and for which I sat my exam this past Monday. So now I feel free again - free to pursue my various (other) trains of thought and action, yet enriched by plunging into the ethical dimensions behind our every day decisions and attitudes. The first thing I took up again was to continue to read the books I had no time for. Here is the first inspiring quote I came across:

 Most of us expect the deterioration of our world to affect our children and future generations but not us. We believe that educational efforts must be focused on young people, because they might somehow solve the problems we created. But [...] who we are today shapes how the future will be. Despite our aspirations or hopes, our children will grow up to be whom they wish to be [...].

It is important that we teach them literacy, responsibility, aesthetics, and morality, and one excellent way to do that is to strive for that knowledge ourselves. We too must change if we want our youth to change. [...]

We concurrently share a moment unprecedented in human history: we have a preview of our own destruction, or our own salvation. The future is shaped only in the present.

This is from the book "The failure of environmental education (and how we can fix it)" by Charles Saylan and Daniel T. Blumstein (2011), London: University of California Press.

BBQ weekend: charcoal and meat

The sun is predicted to be out and the weather to be hot hot hot this weekend here in the UK. So I am already licking my chops in anticipation of a BBQ weekend! And it won't be vegetarian... (though portobello mushrooms will definitely make it on the grill), which is one small dilemma...plus the use of charcoal always weighs heavily on my conscience.

So I just wanted to share this bit of information from the Bulworthy Project website:

Shop light, feel light

Spot the needle!

Today*, I cycled for food. Today was the perfect day for it; not too hot or cold, the scent of flowering trees and bushes in the air, a light breeze, freshly cut grass... fresh spring green all around me. Today, the dreaded weekly supermarket trip was transformed into a needle in a haystack in terms of its significance in my day.

Resonance

Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence In restless dreams I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone ‘Neath the halo of a streetlamp I turned my collar to the cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light That split the night And touched the sound of silence

 And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never share No one dare Disturb the sound of silence “Fools” said I, “You do not know Silence like a cancer grow Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you” But my words like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made 

And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said “The words of the prophets Are written on subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sounds of silence”

- Source: guess....  http://www.simonandgarfunkel.com/us/music/simon-and-garfunkels-greatest-hits/sound-silence

Some ancient wisdom...on meat

Can we imbue our modern day practices of taking lives for our consumption with such compassion, such respect, such appreciation, such mindfulness as in this story?

"A Sioux boy was taught by his grandparents 'to shoot your four-legged brother in his hind area, slowing it down but not killing it. Then, take the four-legged's head in your hands, and look into his eyes. The eyes are where all the suffering is. Look into your brother's eyes and feel his pain.

Inspiration

Like this? Learn to build a better life at Good Life Project.

The dilemmas of an ethical consumer

The dilemmas are coming out of my ears at the moment. So where to start? Perhaps I will warm up with a little of my story:

Although I have always been aware of what I have bought, and was brought up and grew up with a very environmentally conscious mindset, the last few years have seen my ethics become a whole lot stricter - in a non-anthropocentric sense. As members of our community that is all nature on this planet, I am convinced that each of us human beings has the duty to do our best to appreciate and respect what nature has gifted us with. This gift is the basic building block of everything, which I believe, in moral terms, is life (and I don't mean only human life).

So the latest opportunity to become more ethical, to align my actions more closely with my principles, arose when we sold our car. What an act of liberation! But soon reality hits you: living in middle class suburbia, this so-called 'loss of mobility' immediately presents you with a challenge. Yes, gone are a gazillion car-related worries (in the UK these consist of: road tax, petrol costs, annual MOT testing, unnecessary repairs, cleaning the car - honestly, I have problems enough cleaning my flat! Who wants to have to clean a car in addition?! -, insurance etc etc.) BUT "hello" to a whole host of different challenges, mainly consisting of: how do I do my household shopping ... without breaking my back? It's even more difficult for me, with my ethical conscience looming over me as big as... well, a very big thing. How do I shop ethically without breaking the bank and without having to spend half my spare time on it (by going to one shop to buy my potatoes, and to another in a different part of town to buy my butter)?

Coffee health and ethics

Coffee growing in Goias, Brazil

With it being April Fool's Day, I should flex my creative muscles, come up with some fantastic story and post it here. Or, with it being Easter Monday, I should write about Easter eggs (both the real and the "copycat" chocolate kind). In fact there is an interesting piece of news I came across yesterday relating to the ranking of chocolate Easter egg manufacturers according to their use of (unsustainable) palm oil. But I will follow my intuition and, instead, write about coffee.

I do love my quality and responsibly-sourced cup of coffee, and I am always interested to hear more about what effects it might be having on my body, as well as about where coffee comes from, how it is grown and what social and environmental effects the cultivation of coffee has. I am a regular at Monmouth Coffee Company in Covent Garden. It is my "creative haunt", as I have come to see it. I just came across this interesting, if superficial Alternet article on the (potential) good and bad effects of coffee on health/the human body: "10 things coffee does to your body". Makes an interesting read for those of us who are coffee lovers (or haters), and possibly gives us one more reason to drink coffee...responsibly.

What's in a "foodie"?

Having thought a lot about whether I might be called a "foodie", and feeling uncomfortable about being labelled as such, I started thinking about why I feel uncomfortable with the term and what it really means (to me).

I think it is safe to say that when we think of a "foodie", we think of somebody who is almost obsessed with great food, who has the level of interest and takes the time to learn about it, often going to great lengths and expense to get their hands on top quality ingredients, to cook and/or enjoy (and probably be served) a tasty meal. Nothing wrong with that. There are worse things to be obsessed with! However, as implied above, it is inevitable that a foodie is normally comparatively well-off and, let's be honest, a bit of a "food snob" (which is probably a term that requires its own analysis!). There will always be dishes that a foodie will not touch or places that a foodie will not eat at, because it would literally be a sign of "bad taste". And this is precisely what bothers me about the term. The term "foodie" is in itself, firstly, exclusive, and secondly, narrow-minded. My aim here is therefore to make a particular point related to the "democratisation" of food. Bear with me while I explain...

Vote with your food

Calling you - yes, you - to vote with your food! Where is your food vote going at the moment? Inform yourself about what you are putting in your mouth - not only for nature's sake, but also for the sake of your and your loved ones' health and quality of life. What exactly are you supporting when you are buying your food? Dig deeper, past the greenwash if there is any. (I for one will be contacting Sainsbury's to ask them about their sourcing for their organic produce.)

Nobody puts the power that is in our hands - or rather, our mouths and stomachs (!) - into words any better than my oft-quoted favourite author Carolyn Steel:

"How food shapes our lives in the future is up to us. Whoever you are and wherever you live, we can make choices that together would make an enormous cumulative difference.

Growing up

I am changing direction... I am growing up... a sapling slowly turning into a tree; its root system deepening and widening, connecting with other trees, with other life forms and the energy in the soil; my branches reaching out into the air, the sky, catching the energy of the world, harbouring loved ones, providing a home - even if only temporary - for others. I still have a long way to go. It is a slow growth, but persistent - I can't stop it. It keeps coming back to knock on my door (the door of the house a little mouse has made itself at the base of my trunk :). That is the natural course of life.

But still I wonder: what is my course of life? I have an inkling now, but it's not yet graspable. I can't pick it off a tree yet, like I would an apple, thinking: "This is my apple now. I am going to bite into it and taste its deliciousness and relish it ... and share it! I know it is just right for me."

Directing change

Short'n sweet lesson of the week:

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading" - Lao Tzu

It's time to change that direction ...

Inspiration of the day

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.

The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.

You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. [...]"

- Martha Graham

Ecological cleaning

The "trailblazer housewife" is trying to clean in a more environmentally friendly manner! I often worry about the fumes that come from now conventional cleaning products when I use them, as well as their effect outside my home when they leave through the drains. If you have similar thoughts every time you clean (or if you're lucky, have your place cleaned for you!), then read on...