Wizzy's new bike

I was round at my mate Steve's house last night and saw his new chopper - he's using it as a walkabout piece for carnivals etc. and will be dressed in full biker gear. I'll get a few more shots when he's "in character"

Stephen Hawking

I’m not generally in favour of space travel. Claims are often made for the benefits of the space programme back here on earth. But besides the non-stick frying pan (which is apparently carcinogenic) I’m finding it hard to think of much else. I suppose satellites have been ok – global communication, ok, I’ll give you that.
But it’s difficult to see the justification in opening up space travel to the common man or woman. I think the west needs to justify how it spends its enormous wealth, especially with so much poverty in the world. I think we should have some obligation to our fellow human beings before we start taking day trips in to space.
Having said all that, seeing the pictures of Stephen Hawking taking his first training flights in preparation to becoming a space tourist did bring a smile to my face. And if anyone deserves a wee trip in to space – it’s the man who has increased our knowledge of the universe – probably more than any person in history.

Another rider in the family.

My son finally learnt to ride his bike this week. I had started teaching him at the end of last summer but when the winter nights set in we didn't get much chance to practice, but now that spring has arrived it only took a couple of sessions and he was flying.

I think half the problems from teaching your kid to ride come from them looking behind to check if you are still holding on. As soon as they do a couple of runs on their own the confidence just builds and builds.

With Easter coming up, it'll be good to get a couple of rides down the tow path. Only one problem though - my daughter has now outgrown her bike. I don't want to buy her any cheap rubbish so it looks like i'm going to have to fork out nearly £200. I'll just have to make sure she gets her moneys worth, or should I say my moneys worth.

Cycling Guide

The Guardian had a guide to cycling free with last Saturday's paper. If you didn't get a copy - it's available here.

Google, gardening and gearing up.

As the long dark winter nights come to a close it's time to get the bike serviced again. I'm beginning to think a fixed speed bike would be better - maybe if my employer, in their infinite wisdom, decides to run the tax break scheme for cyclists I might treat myself.
Still haven't got round to digging a plot in the back garden or putting the green house up. If I leave it much longer it's going to be too late. A three day weekend would suit me a lot better - 1 day for tidying the house, 1 for doing the garden and 1 to do everything else.
I'm going to have to get this template thing sorted out - the blog isn't looking very flashy at the moment.
Hopefully this year I'll have a few more posts on topics that are currently of interest to me such as scepticism, atheism etc as well as the bike and environmentalism stuff. If nothing else this blog will provide me with a record of how my thinking has developed as I've got older.
I'm now using G-Mail by the way and I must say i'm very impressed and the google personalised home page is a very handy way of keeping up with all the blogs I read - definitley worth considering if you haven't done already.

Happy New Year?

Well – I haven’t made a very good start to the year blog wise. But here are a couple of pictures of stuff I got for Christmas. I’m not really in to presents but at least there was an eco element in what people bought me this year.



Compost Bin and a Solar Powered Charger!

Having posted on a few forums recently about the impending doom that this planet faces, it is hard not to notice that quite a lot of people are still sceptical about the whole global warming issue. In particular, people would argue that there isn’t a consensus within the scientific community about the extent of global warming.
My wife would often accuse me of believing everything I read. A harsh criticism you may say, but then maybe I am just choosing reading material that fits in with my world view.
Over Christmas I read Derren Brown’s book “Tricks of the mind” which provided me with a couple of good memory techniques, but also encouraged me to look on issues with a more sceptical eye, particularly the claims of alternative therapists. From reading this book – I searched out a couple of sceptical podcasts and came across “The sceptics guide to the universe” which I would highly recommend. I’ve also started listening to Penn Gilette’s (From Penn and Teller) radio show, another great sceptical show.

I’ve been going off on a bit of a tangent there, but my point is that even from a sceptics point of view global warming really has become undeniable. Sceptics would emphasise the importance of the scientific method, so when you get 2500 scientists from 30 different countries working on a project about climate change you must attach some sort of credibility to it. And you would have to present some pretty strong evidence to argue against the findings of the IPCC.
It should come as no surprise then, that the oil industry would try to discredit the findings of the IPCC.

From the Guardian last week:

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.
The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

When your only opponents are funded by the oil industry I think we really can say

YES – THE VAST MAJORITY OF SCIENTISTS IN THE FIELD OF GLOBAL WARMING DO BELIEVE IT IS REAL
YES - WE HAVE CONSENSUS!
YES! IT IS OUR FAULT!
NOW DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Plastic bag bag

Cele's Plastic bag bag
Originally uploaded by Bobbins.

Thought you might like to see this bag that my talented wife made out of old Tesco bags. Some of the bags are bio-degradeable so hopefully it wont collapse.
Watch out for pictures of my hand knitted dish cloth after Christmas!

Juggling footprint

One of the things about being a juggler is you do have to travel a fair bit to do jobs. We use my juggling partners car most of the time as it is the only option for lugging around a big unicycle and a trunk full of equipment.
So if you include the parrafin I burn on my fire torches - my carbon footprint from my juggling job is probably bigger than that for my office job which I commute to by bike.
Added on to this is the guilt of occasionally taking on corporate gigs for the likes of coca cola - they are charity events though.
At the moment we are performing in a few towns for their Christmas Lights switch on (yet more carbon wasted) and last week we were in Larne and guess what. Santa turned up in a stetch hummer!! I could barely hide my disgust and I actually said to the organizers "do you think santa should be turning up in a hummer with global warming happening?" She took it as a joke and just laughed it off, and I didnt take it any further because I still wanted to get paid.
I mean, Hummers are bad enough but a stretch hummer!!! Who came up with that idea?

One of my juggling friends Caoihme has just moved to Lisburn and she also cycles, so we both commuted in together this morning. She usually just cycles around the town so the 10 mile journey this morning was a bit more of a challenge for her - but not much considering she is the Female World Brazillian Ju Jitsu Blue Belt Champion!
Any way, it was a nice crisp morning and she enjoyed the ride. So it will be nice to have someone to cycle in with once in a while.

A stretch Hummer ! I just cant get over it!

Check this.

For those of you who see the attraction in working less and spending less I thought I would bring you attention to this book.
Martin Lewis, for those of you who don’t know, is a “money saving expert.” He is a familiar face on British TV and his web site is dedicated to saving people money. In response to some of the more ethically aware contributors to his forum he set up a page for green / ethical money saving, as well as a saving money “Old Style” page, and as a result of this page he has now published a book - Its called "Thrifty waysfor modern days"

“It’s a compendium of hints and tips on living life thriftily, ethically, cheaply and healthily. It’s written off the huge collective wisdom of the site’s ‘Old-Style’ board, which started when some of the site’s older visitors wanted to share their accumulated knowledge; it covers cleaning (white vinegar galore), clothing, home maintenance, recipes and everything on running a home without over-consuming.”

Plus – all the money from the book go’s to charity.

Curb your emissions

Laurie David, according to an article in this weekends Guardian, is one of America’s foremost environmental campaigners. She is also married to Larry David – writer of “Curb your enthusiasm” and “Seinfeld”
Laurie David has campaigned against SUV’s and has been a driving force behind the Al Gore movie – “an inconvenient truth”. She has even written a book “The solution is you – an activist’s guide”.
All admirable pastimes for a wealthy liberal, but here is the problem – not only does she own a second home, she also owns a private jet! So regardless of the fact that she only uses it a few times a year, her carbon footprint must be as big as a fleet of SUV’s.
I just don’t understand how an environmental campaigner expects to be taken seriously when they own a private jet – this has got to be one of the worst excesses of the wealthy “elite”.
To me it just de-values all of the other good work that she does. If you want people to change their lifestyle in order to save the planet there is only one place you can start – yourself!
I think the British and American definitions of an eco-warrior differ somewhat. When I hear (some) Americans talk about eco-warriors – they more often mean some high flying environmental lawyer, or some Hollywood celebrity, or some entrepreneurial business man who is “doing their bit”. Whereas in the UK, we are more likely to think of Swampy and other activists who bury themselves underground to prevent a runway being built or handcuff themselves to a JCB digger to prevent it cutting down some trees.
I’m sure the high earning eco-warriors are doing their bit to raise awareness of the issues, but I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that if you are going to earn our respect.
If there is one thing that this earth can’t sustain – it’s millionaires!

Minister encourages direct action

As global crisis looms ever closer it’s good to see a government minister encouraging a bit of direct action.
Despite an agreement with some of the countries biggest retailers to reduce their packaging it isn’t happening as fast as some of us would like. I was therefore glad to see that environment minister Ben Bradshaw has advised food shoppers to leave excessive wrapping at the tills and to report the stores to trading standards in an attempt to cut the amount of unnecessary plastic sent to landfill sites.
From being a minority interest a few years back, green politics really seems to be making an impact. Every day sees several new environmental stories in the broadsheet newspapers.
I wonder, come election time, how this will translate in to votes for the Green Party? With the main parties increasingly incorporating green policies in to their manifestos, I hope the Green Party doesn’t miss the opportunity to push for some truly green policies.
A truly green manifesto needs to be a lot more radical than what the main parties are suggesting, but at the same time the general public are less inclined to vote for policies that will impact on their lifestyle.
People before profit has never been a popular position to adopt, but as the effects of global warming become increasingly apparent the radicalisation of our political system might be an interesting by-product of this process.

Happy to be ethical

I have just finished a book by Peter Singer called Practical Ethics. Singer was one of the key thinkers in the animal rights movement, but his work goes much further than this, and has informed much of the debate that exists around environmentalism amongst other things.
In his conclusion to the chapter on the environment he says :

“The emphasis on frugality and a simple life does not mean that an environmental ethic frowns upon pleasure, but that the pleasures it values do not come from conspicuous consumption.”

In the final chapter on why we should act ethically he argues that taking the ethical point of view offers a meaning and purpose in life. And I think that in our increasingly secular society this is certainly true. I think that there is a certain amount of fulfilment that can be gained through trying to live an ethical life, which is something that those who accuse us of being killjoys seem to miss.
One of the most enjoyable parts of my day is the simple pleasure I get from commuting by bike. Nothing I could go out and buy, at whatever price, would give me more satisfaction than the simple freedom that the bike gives me.

A return to the simple

Being the only person in my office who cycles to work, and the only person who bothers to collect all the tins and bottles for recycling (even though I don’t buy tins and bottles myself). I sometimes wonder does anyone else in this place give a shit. But having read an e-mail from a colleague who is leaving his job today made me think that maybe there are more people disillusioned with modern living than you think.
I didn’t really know the bloke – he worked in I.T. but he included this poem in his farewell e-mail, which went out to several thousand people across Northern Ireland.
Now I’m intrigued to find out what he has left to do – I’ll let you know if I find out.


“Thank you for all the fond memories that I take with me and I wish you all the best wherever your lives take you. I can't think of any intelligent words of wisdom of my own to leave on, so here are someone else's...

A return to the Simple

Press the pause button.
It's time to feel the rain, the wind, the cold mountain air.
Turn the mobile phone off. It does have an off button.
Let the laptop power down.
Leave the e-mails go un-read.
Shred the to do list.
Unplug the television.
Ebay the playstation.
Don't eat anything you haven't made yourself.
Shop local.
Spend only what you can afford.
Leave the city.
Head to the hills.
Hear the quiet.
Look up at the sky.
Hear the noises of the wood.
Make a campfire.
Watch the fire flicker and the beans bubble.
Time to recharge those batteries.
Things got too complicated back there.

Cheers
Gary Mitchell “

Oliver Postgate

For those of you not from the UK, I’d better explain who Oliver Postgate is. Oliver Postgate is best known in the UK as the maker of some classic kids TV programmes from the 60’s and 70’s including Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, and The Clangers.
But more recently he has come to public attention through a couple of large advertisements he has placed in the Guardian newspaper. His first advertisement attracted a lot of comment – people asked “what right have you, an ignorant old person in a basement, to tell the government that it must do what you tell it to do, or everybody may die?”

Here is his reply :

I do apologise most sincerely for that. I have no such right. What I have is a duty. Let me tell you a story about it:

“I am walking along the path behind the cliff and I see, over the fence, that a small child, not more than two years old, is blithely toddling straight towards the brink of the cliff. Now the ground inside the fence is private property, with stern notices, so I have no right to enter on to it. But all the same, I have a duty to jump over the fence, run across, pick her up and carry her, bawling blue murder, to safety.”

Human society is that child, that happy, greedy, outraged moppet, totally self-centred and lovable, but it too has no grasp of its situation and now it is also toddling towards the brink.

Is this our fault?

Not particularly. In our civilisation, in which a nation’s economic success is measured by its “growth”, consumer-spending is a vital component. It is a competitive commercial world in which, for the economic health of our nation, we are honour-bound to over-eat, over-spend and over-waste. As units of consumption that is our function.
The side-effect of this function – global warming, was recognised long ago, and successive governments have worked hard to avoid coming to terms with the inconvenient fact that our “conspicuous consumption” has been slowly poisoning the whole climate of the world.
Now we have run out of time. Global warming is on the brink of becoming irreversible!
If the human race is to avoid having to face slow, irreversible extinction in a disaster torn world, it must, as a race, take immediate draconian action to reduce carbon emissions to a level which will not only eliminate the green house effect but also cause the planet to cool away the vast heat charge it has already received during the years of neglect.
Personal economy is necessary and can help, but the bulk of carbon emissions come from larger sources which only government legislation can deal with.
The present government has been making a show of tackling this, but the task it has given to its scientists is not simply to find a way to end global warming – they could do that at once – but to do so “without cutting either our economic growth or our living standards”.
As these are the two main causes of global warming, this task does, as they say: “present some difficulties” in that, from among the many different speculative predictions on offer, the scientists are being expected to seek and select, as definitive, the most “politically practical”.
To do that is potentially suicidal. As nobody can pretend to know for certain what is going to happen to the climate, the only safe and sensible thing to do is to deal with it now. So GLOBAL WARMING IS A GLOBAL EMERGENCY – Our duty is to see that it is fully dealt with, now.
Thankyou,
Oliver Postgate
October 2006.

Green Consumers

I often cringe at the term “green consumer”. A lot of people love to shop, and I think that many of them see “green shopping” as “doing their bit” – whilst still being able to shop shop shop. Aren’t I good buying this hemp cd holder made by Guatamalan peasants!

At the end of the day it comes down to the simple fact that modern society has been built on this desire to consume, and it is a pattern of behaviour that has quickly become part of our psyche.

I certainly don’t think it helps to identify ourselves as consumers – green or any other type.

Ethical consumerism is a bit of a paradox – I don’t see how you can identify yourself as a consumer and consider yourself ethical.

The truth is we need to work less, spend less and do less.

This is a point of view that has been expressed much more clearly than I can by a comment that I have noticed posted on a few different blogs recently, and I think it is well worth repeating here as well. The piece is written by someone called sushil yadav and you can see the full piece here.
You may not agree with everything in the article but it will certainly make you think.

Here are some of the best quotes:

The Environment can be saved only if we stop production of most [more than 99% ] of the consumer goods we are making today. The Environment cannot be saved by recycling. The attempt of an industrial society to save the environment by recycling is like shooting someone 10,000 times and then trying to save him by taking out one bullet.

We can never save the environment by doing something. We can only save it by doing less of what we have been doing - much less of what we have been doing. If we want to save environment we will have to reduce human activity [overactivity] by 99%.
We can have Sustainable Lifestyle.
We cannot have Sustainable Development.
Development can never be sustainable.
Sustainability and Development cannot exist together.
Development and Sustainability are opposites.
Development and Sustainability are contradictory.
Sustainable Living is associated with consuming less – being satisfied with a simple and frugal life.
Development is associated with never ending desires – always wanting more.
Industrial Societies can never be sustainable – When you make thousands of consumer goods you kill Nature - you kill Animals, Trees, Air, Water and Land.
A Society that does mental work [city based] can never be sustainable - it will keep on making consumer goods - destroying the environment moment by moment.
Only agriculture-based societies that do physical work can be sustainable.

War on Terror

After years of frustration at watching people queue up in the bike / bus lanes on my way to work, I finally saw 2 cops standing on the pavement this morning making sure that drivers stuck to their lane. Maybe seeing the cops enforcing the law might make some people think twice about using the bike lane in the future – who am I kidding? It’ll be back to normal tomorrow.
Traffic law just isn’t enforced strongly enough in my opinion, I include some fellow cyclists in this as well. I see more cyclists on the pavement than I do on the road – I even saw one cyclist tutting and shaking his head because 2 pedestrians had held him up – you shouldn’t even be on the pavement you knob!
More people died on British roads last year than were killed in the twin towers – so how about a real war on terror – war on the car!
The car kills more of our civilians than terrorism ever will; yet governments are reluctant to bring in tougher sentences for people who kill by dangerous driving.
I suppose at the end of the day the people in the twin towers died for the same reason as the people on the road – OIL!

Cycle Powered Washing Machine

Great idea, we're a bit pushed for space in our kitchen though.














see cyclean.biz

Back to Clifden

The weather over here is atrocious at the moment. If any one has tips for getting trainers dry (without putting them over the radiator and stinking the house out) I’d be glad to hear them.
I’m taking the bike in for a pre-winter service in a couple of weeks and whilst its in I think I’ll get them to fit mud guards and a rack. I’m fed up of water spraying up my back and lugging huge weights around my shoulders.
I was in Clifden over the weekend for their annual arts festival, I didn’t bring my bike with me this year and I forgot the camera – so here is a picture from the web.
Last year I rode round the Sky Road which has fantastic views over the Atlantic, but this year I had to console myself with a short walk to the monument that overlooks the town.
It really is my favourite festival in Ireland. Connemara is astoundingly beautiful, and the locals are all ways really welcoming.
We stay in the same B&B every year and Gerry, the fella that owns it, also works for the local fire service and has numerous other jobs connected to the festival.

We usually end up each night in the Alcock and Brown Hotel where there is music and singing in to the wee small hours. If your wondering who Alcock and Brown are – they were the first men to fly across the Atlantic and they crash landed somewhere near Clifden.
The town seems to expand every year, but hopefully they’ll not let the development go on indefinitely as this really is one of Irelands best kept secrets and it would be a shame to spoil it with too many modern apartment blocks.
We are performing at the Enchanted Evenings in Botanic Gardens in Belfast this week, so hopefully the weather will clear up for that. It was a nice wee event last year – lots of pixies and stuff. The kids loved it.

Check this.

I think it’s time that I flagged up a few of the blogs/podcasts that I read/listen to on a regular basis. Just because I’ve heard of these sites, I presume that everyone else has – but I know that’s not always the case.

Monbiot.com and Turnuptheheat.org

Guardian writer George Monbiot has to be one of the most important writers on the issues of green politics and global justice. What I like most about his site monbiot.com is the way he challenges other writers to back up their claims and reveal who their paymasters are. So often we see stories in the press reported as fact, yet we rarely consider whether these stories have received the rigorous analysis that any research should receive from a peer reviewed journal.
His latest book and web site – turn up the heat (turnuptheheat.org) attempts to expose greenwashing and challenges organizations to live up to their green claims.

Here are a couple of quotes from the site, a couple of digs at the type of people that think they are “doing their bit”:

“The middle classes think they have gone green because they buy organic cotton pyjamas and handmade soaps with bits of leaf in them – though they still heat their conservatories and retain their holiday homes in Croatia”

“In promoting biodiesel – as the European Union, the British and US governments and thousands of environmental campaigners do – you might imagine that you are creating a market for old chip fat, or rapeseed oil, or oil from algae grown in desert ponds. In reality you are creating a market for the most destructive crop on earth…I thought that the biggest problem caused by biodiesel was that it set up a competition for land. Arable land that would otherwise have been used to grow food would instead be used to grow fuel. But now I find that something even worse is happening. The biodiesel industry has accidentally invented the world’s most carbon-intensive fuel.”

If you haven’t done so already, you really should check out these sites.

The pressure continues

The pressure continues to build up on the motor industry.
The Guardian reports that the state of California is suing the 6 big motor companies for contributing to global warming.

I think we always look on America as the big bad polluter that couldn’t care less about the planet and wouldn’t sign up to the Kyoto protocol. But we shouldn’t forget that there are some people in America that are taking this issue seriously. California’s actions can only make more people aware of the issues, and face up to the implications of years of apathy that have allowed the big polluters to get away with murder. I wonder if California's governorator still drives a hummer?

Also, this week has seen The Royal Society writing to ExxonMobil to tell them to stop denying climate change. They want ExxonMobil to withdraw funding from groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

Finally, this week saw the release of “The Inconvenient Truth” in the UK. Al Gore may be jetting around the globe to pass on the message but at least he’s keeping the debate alive.

But despite all the information out there, people still don’t get it. The Government and Local Councils have these big pushes on to encourage us to recycle, but fail to realise that it’s the excessive consumption that causes the problem in the first place. Of course – they aren’t going to tell us to buy less – the whole system is predicated on encouraging an increasing amount of consumption and therefore waste.

I just can’t see how big business can ever be compatible with a sustainable society. Not only should we be working locally, but our food, and just as importantly our energy should be sourced locally. Better still, we should cater for all our own needs through self-sufficiency – I really need to build that green house before winter sets in.

One more thing, Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was critically injured attempting to break a speed record for the programme. Although it’s very sad for all concerned, was it really that unexpected from a programme that glorifies speed on a weekly basis, that one of their presenters would come to some sort of harm? More people die on British Roads each year than were killed in the twin towers, yet we still allow cars on our road that are capable of more than double the speed limit. Some people say we don’t need a nanny state enforcing speed restrictions, but if people behave like kids, nanny needs to take their toys away!