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Photographers Sebastião Salgado and Per Anders Pettersson present a selection of previously unseen photographs from the ongoing “Genesis” project at Somerset House, London. Showing images shot entirely in the Amazon, the exhibition is in aid of the Sky Rainforest Rescue campaign, a joint venture between the broadcaster Sky and the WWF.

For the last seven years Salgado’s Genesis project has documented the life of the Amazon rainforest, capturing its breathtaking beauty. He has spent time with Amazonian natives and lived amongst them, describing their life as a very “pure” one.

Pettersson, by contrast, has recently documented the devastation to this natural wonder, and shows the affect of deforestation and the work by Rainforest Rescue to try and save a tiny area of the Amazon Rainforest.

You’ve got until the 4th of December to see these images at Somerset House, Holborn, London and admission to the exhibition is free. Visit the Amazon exhibition at:

Somerset House
Strand
London
WC2R 1LA

And see the website at http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/amazon

Editors comment: This exhibition must be seen. To understand the beauty in a part  of the world that most of us may never visit should bring home the sadness that the loss of such natural wonder will mean. The rainforest must be saved. No more should be destroyed and much of it should be allowed to regenerate.

The Sky Rainforest Rescue campaign is apparently just a 3-year joint venture whereas I feel it should be a permanent alliance but with the work of Salgado and Pettersson the natural environment not just at home but far away should be at the forefront of world issues. Of course, people need jobs and stable economies but none of that matters without a stable environment.

My wife found this on facebook this morning. Doesn’t this just hit the mark? Here’s a transcript of the image text:

 [Image of spoon]

It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to

• Extract oil from the ground
• Ship it to a refinery
• Turn it into plastic
• Shape it appropriately
• Truck it to a store
• Buy it, and bring it home

…is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’re done with it.

Sorry, plastic spoon manufacturers, but your time is up!

It’s been reported today that the cycling industry is worth some 3 billion pounds to the UK economy.

With cycle-manufacturing, cycle accessory manufacturing, retail and other cycle-related employment all thrown into the mix, that’s a healthy figure and a good sign of the state of the cycling industry in this country.

As many as 23,000 people are employed in these UK cycle and cycle-related industries and they contribute some £600 million to our economy in wages and taxes.

Last year 3.7 million cycles were sold in the UK, that’s up 28% on 2009′s figures, and apparently manufacturing accounted for £51million worth of revenue in 2010.

The total number of UK cyclists is now estimated at some 13 million, although not all of these cyclists are full time bikers.

Why?

Well, motoring is getting more expensive. I recently had to buy a car and was shocked that in the 18 months I’ve been out of driving a car, fuel has rocketed to around £1.45 a litre. £20 in the car doesn’t get us much above the quarter tank full and that only lasts some 80 miles or so

And when you hear stories that youngsters are being charged thousands for car insurance, like this 20 year old apparently being given a £53,000 insurance quote (on a Vauxhall bloody Corsa!), you can see why people would rather walk or cycle.

A few of my friends have been involved in, for instance, the Cyclescheme and had discounts of around 33% on some decent cycles (Specialized and Giant cycles – both good brands) and they’ve certainly added to the ranks of cyclists in this country. We’re especially lucky around here, having some great cycle paths in Farnborough and some really excellent off-road tracks in the surrounding MOD land.

What’s more, cyclists apparently have o7.4 sick days a year less than their non-cycling counterparts who take off 8.7 sick days per year, so that’s further proof that cycling is good for you.

So, rising fuel and insurance costs, improved cycle networks and concern for the environment are all factors influencing Brits to get out on their bikes and skip using the car…

…long may the cycling revolution continue

Bottled Water. A multi million (billion?) pound industry where businesses put water in bottles, market it heavily and make big fat profits.

And all you need to do is turn on the tap and out it comes. You already pay your water rates/have a water meter, so why on earth are you paying someone else to make big profits on something you’re already paying for?

And then there’s the whole industry of making the plastic bottles to fill up and throw on the streets or in the trash – What a waste of resources, just take a reusable bottle out with you, fill it up at home.

Did you know that…

• on average, people in the EU buy 85 bottles of water per year?
• A typical UK local authority will dispose of up to 10 million water bottles per annum?
• Worldwide, the human race threw away 5,000 bottles every second, that’s 150 billion bottles a year!

But what if you came out without your water bottle? What happened to all those drinking fountains that were around when we were younger? What about those Victorian drinking fountains?

Well, that’s where the Find-a-Fountain project comes in.

Drinking fountain, Lewes. (c) 2008 The Justified Sinner

The ‘Find-a- Fountain’ project, developed by environmental entrepreneur Guy Jeremiah and now part of the 1859 Drinking Fountain Association, aims to record all publicly accessible drinking water fountains across the UK via a specially designed interactive website. Also optimised for smartphones, the service enables individuals to key in their location to find their nearest free water source or to share the whereabouts of a new site.

The Find-a-Fountain project hopes to start a renaissance in the use of drinking fountains in order to reduce the UK’s reliance on inefficiently produced bottled water, and lessen its negative impact on the environment. It is hoped that this campaign will also lead to a second phase which will facilitate the installation of new drinking water fountains around the country and the restoration of old fountains which have fallen into disrepair, like the campaign to restore Bristol’s drinking fountains.

Through public records, www.findafountain.org has so far logged over 600 of the nation’s drinking water fountains and is now calling on volunteers to upload details of their own local facilities or free public drinking water sources.

Guy Jeremiah, founder of Find-A-Fountain, said:

“This is an ideal opportunity for anyone to play a part in reducing the environmental damage associated with the consumption of bottled water. The average person in the UK buys 85 bottles of water a year and a typical local authority in the UK has to dispose of up to 10 million bottles a year, at a significant cost to tax payers. So, we’re calling on everyone to join us in helping to find fountains and free drinking water sources. It’s a great project for walkers, photographers, students, cubs, brownies, geo-cachers, urban explorers, local historians and anyone who cares about the environment. It’s a small thing to ask with the potential to make a big difference.”

To encourage volunteers to get involved, Aquatina collapsible pocket-water bottles will be given away to the first five hundred people to add a fountain to the website.

So, what are you waiting for? Get looking for those water fountains and log your results over at www.findafountain.org

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We’ve had an interesting email from the Make Wood Work campaign.

In essence, the UK Government’s Renewables Obligation (RO) policy encourages the use of bio-mass burners for electricity generation with financial subsidies. Whilst, from an environmentally-friendly point of view, biomass burning creates energy from waste materials, the forest products industry is concerned that using wood for bio-mass burners will damage their industry.

They have a good point. If the waste material from the wood industry is used for biomass burning then it is being diverted away from the recycled wood industry where collected waste wood is used to created further products. If biomass burning is encouraged then the wood will be burnt and the capacity for the energy industry to a) be heavily subsidised and b) burn vast amounts of timber is not only a worry for the forest products and wood panel industries, but also for the environment, for local economies and for the greater social good too.

By using wood and waste wood in products, there is greater environmental good with the carbon being “locked up” in the products and reused and recycled, stimulating initiatives to find further ways to innovatively use waste wood. The biomass energy industry would simply burn the timber and produce greater carbon emissions than the waste wood recycling and reprocessing industries.

Basically, the government’s well-intended renewables obligation policy is distorting an “already fragile wood supply and demand balance in the UK”. You only have to look at Channel 4 News’ report Timber prices up as power plants boost biomass use to see what the subsidised energy industry is having knock-on effects elsewhere by voraciously burning timber.

So, quite simply put:

RO means wood and waste wood go stright to burners to generate “renewable” energy. Wood, that takes 30/40 years to grow, is burnt. Waste wood is burnt. Wood and waste wood are simply destroyed.

A rethink of RO means wood goes to the wood products industry and actually makes useful products. More people are gainfully employed in business and industry and there is innovation in creating from wood and waste wood.

We’re not against biomass energy as it does have the potential for energy production from sources that would not otherwise be of any use, but to use wood and waste wood is a short-sighted and destructive path.

For more information take a look at the Make Wood Work campaign website, their video is particularly interesting.

{EAV_BLOG_VER:d8d8317f40d9f024}I had an opportunity to chat with one of our local street cleaners the other day and he was saying that our local McDonald’s was the worst offender in terms of the sheer amount of litter he had to pick up. One day during the week he completely filled 10 large refuse sacks full of just McDonalds trash.

This is no surprise when you go to McDonalds, Farnborough Gate, or McDonalds Drive Through in London Rd, Camberley, on a Sunday morning – Both of these places are completely covered in fast food trash. Whilst they open and spark-up the fryers and rush to serve hungry punters with cheap food, the streets are still awash with the filth from their wrappers.

This is nothing new, it’s being going on for years. Whilst McDonalds has attempted to change its image from a fast food joint with primary-coloured, bright red and yellow fascia and fittings to this new “green” and “sustainable” image of raw wood and earthy tones, serving healthy salads to divert you from its core products of sweet, fatty burgers, the average McDonalds client is still a litter lout. A local traffic cop was even spotted throwing his McDonalds wrappers out of his squad car window. When questioned, he said he was only putting it there temporarily until he could pick it up and get to a bin! So why didn’t he keep it in his car then?

This leads on to the fact that the local penalty for dropping litter is £50 on-the-spot fine. If the threat of forking out £50 because you threw the rubbish from your 99p burger on the floor is such a deterrent then why are the areas around McDonalds still such utter sh*tholes when it comes to litter?

Like a Leopard can’t change its spots, McDonalds can’t brainwash the public by painting things green, serving the occasional dish of leaves, sponsoring football and sticking tiny messages on its cartons saying “please be responsible and place this nicely in a litter bin rather than out of the window of your big-bore Vauxhall Nova, you chavvy little scumbag!”

McDonalds is synonymous with high street litter. McDonalds is a champion of “keep Britain dirty”. There may very well be a McDonalds environmental policy, but its not worth the pixels it’s printed on.

As I have been told, first hand, it’s cheaper to pay someone to pick up the litter than it is to try and take the perpetrators to court – whether it’s the police or a council employee slapping £50 fines on the offending chav’s cars or taking the multinational to task for its worthless, caring image, to give someone the minimum wage for picking up their crap is the low-cost option.

It’s not just us either. Check out Nigel Ball’s McJunk. Nigel’s been on the case of McDonalds junk since 1999 and he’s even published a book about it. Then there’s the filthy McDonalds restaurant in Adelaide a few years ago… Not McLoving It? No, us neither.

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I was walking home from the local shops last night when I spied between the wood and wire panels of a fence, a load of beer cans stuffed inbetween. Then, a few minutes later, as I was walking through the woodland at the end of my road, I saw more beer cans littered around. As per usual, it’s often Fosters cans that you see littering the place.

This makes me think – Why are there no reverse vending machines in Farnborough? For that matter, why are there so few reverse vending machines anywhere in this country?

Can you believe it was 2 and a half years ago that we first wrote about reverse vending? The couple in that story, from Petersfield in Hampshire, paid for their honeymoon by collecting litter and feeding the reverse vending machine. The very same thought went through my mind last night – The benefits are many:

1. I could benefit personally by picking up those empty aluminium cans and taking them to get money for them. Money plus the satisfaction of doing a good job for the community and seeing my neighbourhood clean is the most beneficial personal outcome. Mercenary, I know
2. Any other Tom, Dick or Harry passing could make a few coins by doing so.
3. The perpetrators who dropped the litter in the first place could clear up after themselves and get a small discount on their drinking habits. But then, if they’re the sort of people who drink Fosters lager and drop litter in the first place, then that’s probably hoping too much for them.

So why are there still so few reverse vending machines around? Whilst I have the utmost respect for anti-litter campaigns and the likes of organisations like Keep Britain Tidy, I still think that messages like “You shouldn’t drop rubbish” and “you should keep it tidy” are weak and, to prove a point, they have been ignored for years. What we need is something to help backup that message with where and why you should do so, and “keeping it tidy” still isn’t enough – the financial incentive in these austere times, should help for the more thrifty amongst us.

So if there are any reverse vending companies out there or anyone else who can answer the question “Why are there no reverse vending machines in Farnborough?” then we’d love to hear from you. And, if that doesn’t get enough attention, then we’re going to have to approach a few of these reverse vending companies, supermarkets and councils ourselves and get some answers for you readers.

It looks like the concept of “grow your own” is really picking up again in Britain.

Whether it’s due to the wave of austerity sweeping the nation, allowing people to supplement purchased food and reduce their costs, or the  sheer satisfaction of being able to plant, grow, harvest and taste your own fruit and veg, grow your own is a most welcome change in the national psyche.

To illustrate this trend LoveTheGarden.com have commissioned Studio Leigh//Leigh to produce a Grow Your Own infographic, an abbreviated version you can see posted below.

Our favourite fact? The most common form of plant feed is organic, showing the concern of the nation’s home growers for the drive to avoid modern synthetic pesticides and fertilisers.

And on that note, we’re off to re-pot our chilli plants, water the strawberries and see how well our organic ginger is growing. Enjoy and click the image to see the full glory of the Grow Your Own infographic…

Grow your own infographic from LoveTheGarden.com

Yesterday morning just one piece of mail came through the letterbox – Ecotricity’s Progress Report 2010.

That’s just one very good reason for choosing Ecotricity as our green energy supplier all those years ago – They’re open, they’re honest and they keep their customers informed which is something I’ve not seen from any other energy company.

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