“When an organism grows beyond its design, nature will determine it to fail—a fact of life, in the strictest sense. Nowhere in evolutionary theory is hypertrophic growth posited as the key to success. What is key is optimum size, what we’d more accurately call right size.” So says Christopher Ketcham in this great article in [...]
Archive | March, 2010
Streetbank – building a bank of local tools and skills
Last year at the Breathe conference we had a short presentation from Sam, a man with a good idea that he was piloting at the time – a simple website where you could list things that could be borrowed, things you wanted to give away, and things you needed, and then exchange them with your [...]
What we learned this week
The Independent newspaper has been sold to Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev for the princely sum of £1. I’d have bought it myself at that price. The key to Britain’s economic recovery lies… in outer space. “Britain’s space industry has defied the recession” said science minister Lord Drayson this week at the launch of the UK [...]
One day without shoes
Here’s a campaign after my own heart. I’m far happier without shoes, and only wore them when I had to as a child. (I nearly declared monday to be the first sandal day of the year, until I remembered I had to return a 45kg industrial sander and I figured I ought to have shoes [...]
Heathrow third runway in disarray as High Court labels plans ‘untenable’
Some breaking news: Plans for a third runway at Heathrow were set back today after a high court ruling in favour of a coalition of local councils and climate change campaigners. The coalition brought together Greenpeace and the Campaign to Protect Rural England with West London MPs, councillors and local action groups. Bringing their case [...]
Climate change solves border dispute
A long-running territorial dispute between Bangladesh and India has been settled in recent weeks by an unexpected mediator – climate change. The countries have been arguing over New Moore Island in the Sundarbans since 1974. As it lies directly opposite the mouth of the river that forms the border, both feel they have a legitimate [...]
Our travel priorities are backwards
This is how the cost of travel has changed since 1997, according to the government’s own figures. In real terms, the cost of coach and bus travel has gone up 24%, rail travel by 13%. The cost of owning and running a car has fallen by 14%, and the average price of an air ticket, [...]
Duty free shopping, tax free flying for the UK’s richest
Here’s a strange thing: if you or I take a budget airline flight, we pay Air Passenger Duty between £22 and £110, depending on how far we go. But if we were to take a private flight, we wouldn’t pay any tax at all. According to the Campaign for Better Transport, private jets are tax [...]
The London Orchard Project
Last year I did a weekend permaculture course, and among the many interesting people there were two with a grand plan to plant mini-orchards all over London. It sounded like a great project, so I was pleased to come across it again and hear that its going very well. In their first year of operation [...]
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