Climate Cartoon

I forgot to post a cartoon this morning so here it is. As usual it comes from the terribly talented Marc Hudson and Marc Roberts at Climate Cartoons. Thanks, chaps. Click on the image to enlarge.

Are 4x4s Evil?

I noticed a story over on Eco Street blog about a group who have deflated the tyres of thousands of 4x4s as a protest against climate change. Because everybody knows that 4x4 drivers are the bad guys. Why is that?

The argument goes that 4x4s consume more petrol than smaller cars and so release more carbon and contribute more to climate change. Is that true? Well, it depends on what you are comparing with what. Some modern 4x4s are actually more fuel efficient than some older smaller cars. So if the protesters were targeting fuel-inefficient cars they would probably attack N-reg Ford Escorts and leave the 2005/6/7 4x4s alone.

But, the anti-4x4 people argue, 4x4s are not necessary in cities, they're not needed for the school run, they're just conspicuous consumption. OK, fair point. But some people do really need to drive a 4x4. Fellow blogger Stonehead, for example, lives on a croft in the Scottish highlands. A Prius wouldn't make it up the lane, much less pull a trailer with a pig in it. But he occasionally gets stick for driving a 4x4. I also know people who have huge customised wheelchairs, and need a large car to fit the chair in. Some of them find a 4x4 fits the bill. A Golf simply wouldn't.

Conversely I know people who have little cars which would escape the wrath of the activists, but who could easily fulfil all their transport needs by walking, cycling and using public transport. And I also know paid-up eco hippies who drive around town in an ancient VW camper van. It certainly looks the part, but it's guzzling fuel as it goes. Funny sort of eco hippy if you ask me, who cares more about their image than about the environment.

So if the activists could really target people guilty of conspicuous consumption, why don't they attack Bentleys and Porsches, pimped Fiestas and those little 2-seater MGs that probably have a great mpg and inspire envy even in total non-petrol-heads like me?

It's just all too simplistic. If these activists could have their wish come true, maybe they would wish all 4x4s would vanish off the roads forever. But that would leave farmers, disabled people and maybe other groups I haven't thought of, in an impossible position, probably without having much impact at all on climate change. A better wish might be to wish that it would suddenly become very unfashionable to drive an over-specified car. It would be considered terribly crass to take your kids to school in a 4x4 unless you live on the side of a mountain. And everyone would be proud of their 2-seaters and their 2-doors and their hybrids, or even better if they could get rid of the car and cycle everywhere instead, that would be très chic. Stonehead would still have his Land Rover. He needs it after all and doesn't give a damn about what's fashionable anyway. But most of the Chelsea tractors would vanish when they no longer won cachet for their owners, replaced by little sports cars that are more fuel efficient and probably heaps more fun to drive anyway.

So if we could agree that's what we really want - for people to voluntarily choose to drive the lowest-impact vehicle they can - how can we bring it about? Well certainly not by deflating the tyres of thousands of 4x4s. We need to think this through. The future of the human race is at stake and we can't rely on sound bites and quick-and-dirty analysis to figure out what to do. What is actually causing the damage? Is it vehicles whose drivetrain sends power to all four wheels simultaneously? Or is it humans whose carbon footprint is outsize? I hope this post is not misunderstood. I am not trying to defend 4x4s in particular. I am trying to attack simplistic approaches to environmental activism. Because I care very deeply about environmental activism and it p*sses me off when we're made to look stupid by our own side.

Change Begins At Home Update

It's just over a week since I launched the Change Begins at Home award, and gave it to three bloggers who don't tell others what to do, they just get on and do it themselves.

I've been watching where it has spread since then, and I am surprised and delighted to see the big ripples made by this small pebble. Forty-four blogs have been nominated so far for the award, most of them I had never heard of before. As a result I have discovered some great gardening blogs I hadn't known about (such as the Green-Fingered Photographer), some sustainability blogs (including Simple Living in a Complex Society), and some frugal blogs (like A Frugal Living Blog by a Frugal Guy). But I didn't expect to see vegetarian and vegan cooking blogs feature, such as Vivacious Vegan). That was a nice surprise. The award also seems to be spreading in the Latter Day Saints community (amongst blogs like Dream A Little More), which would probably never have come to my attention otherwise.

I deliberately left the wording of the award open ended, in the hope that it would spread to places I would never normally go myself. I don't have to agree with all the beliefs of the people who get the award. I don't even agree with all the beliefs of the blogs I link to from this page. I treasure my friends at Lesbian Gardens, but I'm not one of their number. I enjoy reading about how Carlalynne's Christian faith has led her on a journey to simplify her life, because my own faith is central to my "greenness" as it is central to every other part of my life. But she and I differ in many of the ways we interpret and apply that same faith. It's groovy. I respect anyone who lives their life thoughtfully, even if that takes them to very different places than me. It's the sleepwalkers-through-life that I want to take by the shoulders and give them a good shaking.

Bean Bags

Hot water bottles are great for keeping your toes cosy in bed at night, but they're not ideal for cuddling, or applying heat to achey body parts, because they're rather stiff and hard. Bean bags are better because you can make them any shape and they mould to your body. I like long snakey ones that can wrap around your neck and shoulders, and squarish ones that you can hug to your belly or back. You heat them up in the microwave and they're blissful.

Eleanor made herself a bean bag whilst she's been off school. She decided she wanted to make a dog. We cut out a piece of dog-coloured fabric using a sheet of A4 paper as a template (just a plain rectangle - I decided making it dog-shaped was a bit too advanced, but we added features to make it look dog-ish). We folded it in half, and Ellie sewed up two sides with the sewing machine. We turned it inside out and added dog features using scraps of felt and fabric pens, then we filled it up with beans. We used aduki beans; I buy dried beans in bulk for cooking and sprouting so we had plenty. It took about half a pound of dried beans to fill a bag this size. I also added some dried lavender from Steph's garden. Ellie slip-stitched it closed (and I went over the seams to make sure there were no holes big enough for beans to escape through), and it was finished.

Thirty seconds in the microwave heats up the bag so it's cosily warm but not too hot to hold against your skin. It also releases the lavender scent. The bag keeps its temperature for half an hour to an hour, so it's not as good a bedwarmer as a hot water bottle, but it's a cosy cuddle for aches and pains, or poorly children at bedtime.

ZapRoot Episode 6

Online Videos by Veoh.com

A few weeks ago I commented on the launch of ZapRoot, a weekly short video of green news on the web, aimed at young people. It comes out every Wednesday and I don't know how it's going down with its target demographic, but I find it rather fluffy and content-free.

This weeks' edition is interesting though, with a focus on greenwashing. Apparently the Russians have built a new bomb which they claim is good for the environment. General Motors have built a hybrid Yukon (big 4x4-type van-thing) and are including discreet images of wind turbines in the publicity shots for it. And Starbucks have settled their legal action against the Ethiopian government. There's some bleeped-out profanity so if you really don't like that sort of thing, don't watch.

Each ZapRoot video is just about two minutes long so I'll keep my eye on it and see how it shakes down. But for my money, the Wiggly Wigglers podcasts are much more entertaining and useful.

A Rare Month for Boys

I collect first lines of books. It's not a physical collection you understand; I don't rip them out and keep them somewhere. But I can tell you my favourite opening lines of books. My favourite of all is the first line of The Crow Road by Iain Banks:

It was the day my grandmother exploded.

How cool is that? How could you not read on?

Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca also starts very well:

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.

I like the rest of those books as well, not just their first lines, and have re-read them many times. Sometimes though a book fails to meet the promise of its first line. For example, I think Dickens' famous A Tale of Two Cities has a fantastic first line:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

and a wonderful last line:

It is a far, far better thing that I do...

but none of the lines in between are nearly as good. You may think me a philistine, but that's my opinion.

At the moment I am re-reading Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, as I do once a year without fail. Its opening line is:

First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys.

Which I think is a seriously yummy first line. No surprise, really, Ray Bradbury can truly write. Some science fiction authors rely on inventive story lines (few rely on in-depth characterisation) but Bradbury can write. In Something Wicked he has a Jack Kerouac-beat-thing going, but tamed and set to a definite purpose. His purpose is to explore the nature of age and aging, of youth and growing up and old age. It's a coming of age novel in which the young heroes come to terms with change, and so does the old hero. It's hard to say which of them finds the process more difficult. There's also a seriously creepy evil carnival, a humble town library which becomes increasingly important as the novel progresses, and provides some of the best protection and ammunition against the bad guys (Buffy the Vampire Slayer owes this book a major debt), a scary train, a terrifying hot-air balloon. It also has without a doubt the best chapter of any book ever. I reproduce it here in its entirety:

I hope I'm whetting your appetite. If you haven't read this book you really should.

And you should read it now, in October, when the leaves are falling and the nights close in early and it's not quite cold enough for gloves and hats but cold enough to make your bare fingers tingle and ears ache. And if there's a carnival that visits your area around this time of year, so much the better.

Beekeepers' Meeting

Last night I went to a Stockport Bee Keepers' Association meeting. Boy, am I hungover this morning. Those beekeepers really know how to party.

Not really.

But it was a very interesting meeting, with a presentation by the Regional Bee Inspector, and a chance to catch up with my beekeeping pals. I'm also signed up for the beginners' beekeeping course which starts next March. I tried to sign up for this last year, but I was too late, it was already full. I'm hoping it will be more detailed than the 2 day intensive course I attended in May.

So how are my bees doing? Not too bad. They're still alive and seem to be fine, but I can't really inspect them properly. If you remember they had been in a type of hive called a WBC, but these are difficult to move so when we fetched them from Wales to here we transferred them into a type of hive called a National. I was all set to transfer them back to their WBCs when they went berserk and attacked my neighbour (and his dog, and the postman, and another neighbour...) so I had to move them quickly to an out apiary. Not long after that we went on holiday for a fortnight and one thing and another, they're still in the National hives now.

The problem is that WBC hives have ten frames in a box, but National hives have 11. If I'd known they would be in the Nationals for so long, I would have put blanking frames in
(that's a frame with no wax foundation or comb or anything, it's solid wood and just fills the gap where a frame would go). But I didn't, so the frames weren't spaced to exactly the "bee space" - the magic space which is big enough for bees to move around but narrow enough that they won't build comb in it. And now the bees have build "wild comb" in the gaps. Instead of having neat rows of comb that I can easily remove to inspect the brood, extract the honey etc, all the frames are fused together and I can't do anything.

It can be fixed. I don't know exactly how but my bee gurus assure me it's fixable. But not until the spring when the weather warms up again and I can manipulate the bees without killing them by exposing them to cold. The task now is to make sure the bees can survive the winter, by figuring out how much honey stores they have (no easy task when you can't inspect the frames) and feeding them if necessary, and treating them for disease if necessary.

Recipe - Cheesey Number Sixes

... or sevens, threes, thirty-fives, or anything else.

This is the recipe I use to make cheese straws in the shape of numbers for birthday parties. Kids like them, the dough is easy to roll and cut with novelty cookie cutters, and being a wholefood recipe it's even moderately healthy, for party food.

Cheesey Number Sixes

Rub 2oz butter into 4oz self-raising wholemeal flour with some salt and a pinch of mustard powder. When it is the texture of breadcrumbs, add 3oz grated mature cheese, and a beaten egg. Bring it together with your hands into a lump of dough. Roll out and cut into numbers with shaped pastry cutters (we got a set of 99 pastry cutters from Lakeland and it's one of the best things we ever bought, I use them all the time), or make a paper template and cut around that with a pointed knife, or cut long strips with a knife and shape them into numbers. Place them on a greased baking tray and bake in a moderate oven until they're golden (about 10 minutes).

Party Preparations

I'm sure every family has its own traditions for celebrating birthdays and so on. One of ours is that the children decorate a cake for the birthday person, by covering a cheap bought cake with buttercream icing and then studding it with sweets. The result is usually inedibly sweet and gooey (and this year bordering on biological warfare since the decorator has chickenpox - but everyone in the family has now had it so we don't care). The tradition is more about the fun of decorating the cake than any pleasure which can be derived from eating it. I've never analysed it deeply before, but now I come to think of it, it serves a nice purpose in providing a special activity for the non-birthday children, so they don't feel jealous and left out. And it teaches them the joy of giving as well as receiving, something we sacrifice a great part of when cards, gifts, party food etc. are all bought instead of made.

Another of our birthday traditions is making cheese straws in the shape of a number. So Eleanor helped me make cheesey number sixes for Sam's party tea. The kids even insist we make these for adult birthdays so we have made cheesey thirty-mumbles for Ed and me, and cheesey mumblety-mumbles for nana and grandad in the past. I'll have to find the cutter in the shape of a zero next year, for the first time. And the year after. And the year after that. And the year after that, Oh God. Change the subject.

Ed will try to get home from work a bit earlier than usual this evening, and we'll all eat sanwiches, party ring biscuits, Pringles potato chips (Sam's choice) and cheesey sixes. Then we'll dim the lights and light the candles on Sam's birthday cake, and Sam will blow them all out whilst we sing Happy Birthday To You. I'll take some photos and share them with you later.

Sam is 6

Today is Sam's 6th birthday. It's a bit rough having a postal strike on your birthday when you're only 6, but he didn't seem to mind. Most of our relatives had already made arrangements so he wouldn't miss out on his cards and presents. Sam got what we wanted for his birthday (plastic tat basically, but it makes him happy), and we'll have a party tea when he gets home from school.

Ellie is still off school with chickenpox, so she and I are having a nice day preparing the party. We'll do some baking and cake decorating, and blow up some balloons.

The Swallows Are Gone

The swallows are gone. So are the housemartins. I didn't notice exactly when it happened, but I was standing at the end of the garden yesterday, looking over the field behind the house, when it occurred to me I hadn't seen any for a while.

They'll be back next summer. In the meantime I shall look out for the winter visitors, the ducks, geese, swans and redwings, and huge noisy flocks of starlings. But it is a significant moment. The swallows are gone. Summer is gone, as much as we had a summer this year. Winter is on its way. I wonder what it will bring.

Weed of the Week - Bindweed

Bindweed is evil. If ginger beer plants are proof of the existence of God, bindweed is proof of the devil. The roots can penetrate 15 feet (5 metres) underground. The stems can grow several inches in a day. The seeds can lie dormant in the soil for 30 years before germinating. And it binds around everything really tightly, choking your precious plants, and making it very tricky to unravel and remove. Evil, evil weed.

I'm trying the "keep chopping its head off and sooner or later it will give up" approach, but I have to admit I'm not winning. I'm tempted to go the Roundup route - but if I do, I won't spray it everywhere. I've heard that you should gather up as much of the bindweed as you can and stuff it into a thick plastic bag, like a builder's rubble bag or a large bucket with a lid, then spray the Roundup into the bag or bucket. That way, the weedkiller only goes on the plant you want to kill, not everywhere else. You also get enough weedkiller onto the plant to kill it if you do it this way. A single bindweed specimen can be quite large, and just because you zap one stem, you might not apply enough poison to kill the whole thing. Even so it may take more than one application. Anyway, I haven't used any weedkiller on the allotment at all, I'm just tempted to by the bindweed.

I've read that it has some medicinal uses. It certainly raises blood-pressure in gardeners, so if you're suffering from hypotension it could be useful I suppose. The long stems can be woven together and made into a ligature to throttle neighbouring gardeners who tolerate the damn stuff and allow it to invade your plot. You can put it in weed tea. You can put anything in weed tea, it all rots so it's perfectly safe. But don't put bindweed on your compost heap. It will just grow there, and mock you.

Bindweed - it's evil. Can anyone defend it?

Brilliant Jam Jars Idea

Kethry over at Urbania to Stoneheads came up with a brilliant idea for labelling jam jars - paint a square of blackboard paint on them and label them in chalk. How cool is that? It looks really smart but also home-made, and it's very practical and reusable. I bet I could beg some blackboard paint on Freecycle - there must be people who bought some for a project and then kept half a tin full of leftover paint in the shed.

A Step Too Far?

We each have our own line in the sand, green lifestyle changes we're not yet willing to make. Some people just aren't willing to give up their private jet, their mansion and their champagne. Others live in straw bale houses as part of a self-sufficient collective, and feel wracked with guilt because they just can't give up their South American coffee in exchange for home-grown roasted-dandelion-and-chicory-root-coffee-substitute (and who can blame them?)

Earlier in the week Beth left a comment on the Tetrapaks and the Environment post saying that she carries water everywhere in a canteen to avoid buying bottled water and drinks when she's out and about. It's a great idea, but my first reaction was "Oh, I couldn't be bothered doing that".

Why is that a step too far for me? It requires a degree of organisation, for a start. I'm still struggling to take reusable shopping bags with me when I go out, and sometimes forget. But I know from experience that it will become second nature eventually, I'm already much better at remembering than a month ago. Another reason against carrying water is that it's heavy! My handbag already weighs a ton (mostly because of all the rubbish in it). I don't fancy carrying a heavy canteen of water everywhere as well. But I think the main reason is that I really don't buy bottled drinks often at all. It's just once in a blue moon I realise I'm terribly thirsty when I'm out, and I'll buy a drink, maybe three or four times a year. Carrying a heavy canteen of water with me 365 days a year seems like quite a burden compared to the benefit.

But maybe I should drink more water. We're all told it's good for our health. If I carried water with me, perhaps I'd remember to drink more (if only to lighten the damn thing). I could also offer drinks to the kids. Maybe I rarely buy drinks for myself, but I buy them for the kids more often. Perhaps carrying water would result in a significant reduction in waste for our family overall.

What would make me start carrying water for sure? I suppose if someone bought me a nice canteen for Christmas (I'm not dropping hints by the way, just musing) I would make an effort to carry it for a while. If I found it worthwhile I would continue carrying it. I would also be motivated if someone in the family was diagnosed with a condition that made dehydration dangerous for them. And I'd be motivated if all the bottled drinks suddenly vanished from the shops, if they were banned for example, or if they became ten times more expensive.

So will I start carrying water everywhere with me? I don't know. What was more interesting to me was the process of analysing the first moment in which I was invited to take a step for the environment that felt like a step too far.

What is a step too far for you? Is there anything you've been asked to do for the planet that you just weren't willing to do? Is there anything you feel you should really do for the environment, and feel guilty that you don't? What would it take to make you change your mind?

Cartoon from Climate Cartoons. Click on the panel to make it bigger.

Allotment Dreams

I went to the allotment yesterday. I didn't do anything exciting, just weeding. I weeded the onions, garlic and broad bean beds. The crops aren't showing above the surface of the ground yet, but it's important whilst weeding to remember they're just under the surface, and not to disturb them. Ed cleared a new bed. I'll put some more beans in there soon.

It's seed catalogue time of year. I sat in bed last night and read the Chiltern Seeds veg catalogue and the Dobies catalogue cover to cover. Dobies has better pictures but Chiltern Seeds was funnier. The trouble is, I now want far more seeds than I have the space to raise (or the time to tend or the mouths to feed). Then I fell asleep and had weird dreams about an allotment that went from horizon to horizon and I was running round trying to keep it all watered and weeded like some demented Playstation game.

Blog Awards

I've been given two blog awards recently. Frankie at Veg Plot kindly awarded me the Egel Nest Blog Award. And Joanna at Joanna's Food awarded me the Nice Matters award.

It's great to get these awards. It feels good to know that other bloggers like what I do here, and it helps to build up the connections between the blogging community.

It inspired me to start an award of my own - the "Change begins at home" award. This is given to bloggers who live what they preach, who try to make the changes in their own lives that they would like to see in the world.

The award rules are:

1. Nominate three bloggers who epitomise "Change begins at home"

2. Link back to the person who nominated you, and link back to this post

3. When you receive the award, you may display the "Change begins at home" button on your blog. If you, like, you can use the following handy html. But if it terrifies you, just save the picture to your own hard drive and do what you usually do to put images on your blog:

<a href="http://bean-sprouts.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-awards.html"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5117804424978225714" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgdBm_BbGfvtKp9HOiX7NKNCd9BRrf9QDbNx5A2EZtKppIiWZ4nDhiel7cHDReGj4-j2ZZ_ccHOaojPVa5_yZ7BzErdF5ve-Wd0gyG73cCLGyn7lkzEIGFYcJ0lnVf3SSgffk/s200/leaf+and+text.jpg" border="0" /></a>

That's it! To get the ball rolling, I'd like to nominate the following bloggers as the very first recipients of this prestigious award:

• Veg Plot


• Joanna's Food, and


• Chile Chews

More Chickenpox

Now Ellie has chickenpox. When I saw the spots and told her she had it, she made a fist and said "Yes!"

Tom is very annoyed that he has no chance of getting chickenpox and having a week off school. He's already had it, a few summers ago, and he had to miss Cropredy because of it. He likes Cropredy, but he doesn't like school much. He thinks this is unfair.

Why Do Eco-Friendly Products Cost More?

In a conversation on the Facebook group for Everyday Trash blog, somebody asked "Why does the eco-friendly product always cost more than the regular version?"

It doesn't always cost more. The eco friendly alternative to disposable kitchen cleaning wipes, for example, costs less (a bottle of white vinegar and a washable cloth). A bicycle costs less than a car. But marketers don't have to put "Buy this! It's eco friendly!" on those things to sell them, because "Buy this! It's cheap!" trumps the eco-card.

But when the product is more expensive than the alternative, that's when marketers need to work at persuading the consumer to buy it. Why should I buy those expensive clothes rather than these cheaper ones? Ah, because they're organic. Why should I buy this expensive coffee? Ah, because it's fair trade.

The questioner asked why products touted as eco-friendly are often more expensive. Actually it's the other way around. Expensive products are often labelled as eco friendly.

Real Ginger Beer Plant

I've lost the cable that connects the camera to the computer again, so I can't show you the cute pictures of the kids drinking ginger beer. They loved it, and I had to ration them or they would have drunk the whole lot at once.

Whilst surfing the web looking for ginger beer links, I found something very surprising. Apparently I haven't made a ginger beer plant at all. What I've made is a ginger beer yeast culture. It's very nice, but it's not the real deal.

The authentic traditional ginger beer plant (pictured) is a gelatinous symbiotic organism consisting of a yeast and a bacillus. You can't just make one, you have to get it from someone who already has one. Where did the first one come from? And who figured out that you could use it to make ginger beer?

I find myself fascinated by this weird compound organism that can make delicious spicy drinks. It's like the bit in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy where someone says that the babel fish (which can translate any language if you drop it in your ear) is proof of God, because how could anything so fantastically useful have evolved by accident? Or the Eddie Izzard sketch where he expresses amazement that bees make honey. He says "Do earwigs make chutney? Do spiders make gravy?".

I'm trying to get my hands on an authentic ginger beer plant, so I can compare the ginger beer made that way with the yeast culture method.

First Taste of Ginger Beer

I cracked open the first bottle of my home-made ginger beer. It's delicious. It's very fizzy and I had to open the bottle slowly to stop it frothing everywhere. It doesn't taste alcoholic at at all (it is very slightly alcoholic because it is fermented but the alcohol content is so low it is suitable for children). It doesn't taste too "hot". I don't like really spicy ginger beers like Fentiman's, it's too hot for me and I can't finish a whole bottle. In fact, my brew could do with being a bit spicier but I'm sure that's easy enough to fix by just adding more powdered ginger to the recipe.

I'm going to wait until the kids get home and see if they like it. They've been keen to try it whilst it's been brewing.

Meanwhile, the ginger beer plant is still going and I'll be able to make my next batch tomorrow.