On the Beat

So I took part in Earth Hour this evening. I switched off my electric lights at 8.30pm; I feel I cheated a little – I lit a couple of candles and I had my hifi on. And I sat and listened to music – for the first half hour I listened to the radio – the second half of Jazz Record Requests (which featured a really beautiful version of Jerome Kern’s “All The Things You Are”, by Lee Konitz and Gerry Mulligan) – and then I listened to Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny’s record, Beyond The Missouri Sky.

It was lovely listening to this record by candlelight: it is gentle, contemplative music.

It was fascinating, because listen to the music is all I could do. Normally, I would do something else whilst listening to music – read a book, play on the internet, whatever. Using the computer or watching tv felt it would be cheating more than lighting candles; and I couldn’t read in the half-light.

So I sat, and listened to the music. I was very aware of the shadows as the candle-flame moved. I tried meditating, though that is something I have done little of, and thinking of nothing doesn’t come naturally. So I sat and listened and watched the shadows.

It did make me think how much we rely on energy: I was reminded of the few times I have been places without power, and of the power-strikes in 1970s Britain. I have been in places without energy a few times in my life – the Sinai coast; the Borneo forest (a couple of times); in India; camping in Scotland. It is the sky I remember – although tonight the Edinburgh streetlights remained on, and although I saw a sliver of a crescent moon, the sky was mostly clouded and no more visible than usual for Edinburgh.

It was interesting; something I might try more often: think of the world in a different way.

andrewducker linked to this rather wonderful but very worrying knitted animation on the BBC website.

I first came across Avebury by chance: I was driving from Oxford to Somerset about twenty years ago on a dark, foggy autumn day, and the most direct route to where we were going took us through the village. I hadn’t been expecting it: we came around the corner, and looming out of the dense fog were these large, impressive stones. We stopped and looked around; and it has been one of my favourite places ever since.

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I went walking in Glen Etive last month. I intended to climb Beinn nan Aighenan, but my new boots crippled me - I developed huge blisters on my right heel - so I gave up on that, just slowly wandering in the early summer heat. I sat for a while beside the burn, Allt Nheuran, and I thought it was rather beautiful; so I took some photographs.

Yesterday evening, walking home in the twilight, I saw a dog sitting on a wall; and then as I got closer, I saw it wasn't a dog, but a fox. It was very calm, not at all interested - I got quite close. It looked at me, and was very unconcerned.

I slowly took my backpack off, and unzipped the side-pocket, reaching for my little pocket-camera. I took two pictures before there was a rustling in the bushes behind the fox, and it jumped off the wall to investigate.

cornaid found a very interesting site which measures your individual environmental footprint - kind of scary. Here's what cornaid had to say about it.

It reminded me of an article in today's Independent by Nigel Pollitt - Saving The Planet: Empty gestures - about how people say one thing but actually do the opposite - if only because we feel the problem of climate change is so big that no one individual can possibly make any difference. And they're probably right...

Some while ago on gastrogasm, there was some debate about the environmental impact of the food we eat: how agribusiness affects the environment, and what consumers - that's us - can do about it.

I was thinking of this when I heard this story on BBC Radio Scotland last week. I am not sure if it got much attention outside Scotland, and I thought it might interest some of you.

In summary, Youngs, a Scottish frozen fish producer, has laid off 120 employees from a fish processing plant in Dumfriesshire, south-west Scotland; it will ship the scampi (langoustine) from Scotland to Thailand for shelling - taking advantage of cheap labour costs - before shipping them back again for further processing. That's a round trip of 12,000 miles.

The move has been roundly condemned in Scotland, from both a people and an environmental perspective, by all political parties.

It does seem particularly perverse, and very damaging (the article states that for every tonne of scampi, half a tonne of CO₂ will be released.

(x-posted)

How are people feeling about the Stern report?

I had expected that they'd be more journal-chatter about it, especially knowing the leanings of many on my f-list.

I am not sure that I can really get worked up about it, other than to feel a smug "told you so" (which won't stop me drowning, will it?).

I hope it translates into a bit more action.

Of course, I haven't read it - jeez, it comes into at 600 pages or something - but it has been all over the papers today.