Whenever there’s a local farmers market on we go down to see what we can do to assist with “localisation”. Afterall, if there is an oil crash and we all end up being unable to travel, we’re not going to be able to get our flowers from Kenya and beef from Argentina, so it makes sense to rely on local producers.

Farmers Markets also boost the local economy and stimulate the sense of local community.

And saying all this we’ll be down at our own local farmers market in Milford, Surrey on Sunday 18th May. We’re helping out on a stall and rolling our sleeves up to get involved, so let’s hope the weather and attendance are good.

Milford Farmers Markets are held at the Secretts Garden Centre and Farm Shop which is in Chapel Lane, Milford, Surrey GU8 5HU (We even put in a link to the map for you there). The market is open from 10:00am until 1:30pm so get there nice and early to get the best of what Surrey’s local farmers have to offer.

We were sceptical, we usually are. We’ve even been sceptical about our own champions of green energy Ecotricity, but only by questioning do we understand the answers. Upon publishing that story we received word that, despite a very public campaign to prove that E.ON is going green, they are forging ahead with plans to build a new coal-fired power station in Kingsnorth, Kent.

According to the website (”Stop Kingsnorth, no to new coal”) the new Kingsnorth coal-fired power station would belch out as much CO2 in one year as would 200 years of the the FA Cup.

Hypocrisy, madness, Greenwash?! What is the world coming to? No, don’t answer that!

For more answers on E.ON’s Kingsnorth coal-fired power station go take a look at the spoof site http://www.carbonfootyprint.org/

Argun Murti, energy strategist at Goldman Sachs, said that rising worldwide demand for oil and limited supply will push the price of a barrel of oil up to $200 in the next six months to 2 years. Murti’s previous predictions that oil would reach $100 a barrel (when it was at $55 a barrel) were true, and with oil prices rising 25% in the last year and by 400% since 2001, it looks like $200 will be correct too.

The usual suspects in this current situation are China, with its voracious appetite for oil, and India, whose economy is booming. As somebody at the ethical clothing company Howies said in a catalogue a few years back… “and what if they all want a car?” That’s more than 2 billion souls in China & India…

So much for the world reducing its dependence on oil

Today it dawned on me, whilst looking for a plectrum/pick to play my guitar… why don’t I make guitar plectrums by recycling my old cards?

Using a plectrum (I eventually found one) as a template, I marked up an old store card and cut out each plectrum one-by-one with a pair of suitably sharp, heavy duty scissors. I managed to squeeze 6 plectrums from one card.

My new plectrums are not exactly perfectly-shaped like the ones I buy from the local music shop so they do need a little wet-&-dry to smooth off the edges. But they are novel and totally usable - very similar to a medium pick.

I’m now not only happy that I didn’t have to cut up my cards and throw them into the landfill but I have a handful of unique new picks!

Photos to follow…

Whilst oil prices have reached $120 in the last week and the world worries about rising energy prices, along comes a simple technology that can create energy for free. Well, almost.

The EBM technology or Energy By Motion machine, is a 15 ton electro-magnetic generator that, once started, produces electricity under its own perpetual motion.

The current EBM 720 produces about 15Kw of energy from its location in Budapest, Hungary.

Whilst this is the biggest version, after 20 years of development, there are plans for a commercially-viable 100-ton unit to be produced.

Take a look at the following video of the EBM 720 and visit the Gamma Manager website.

One question: If this device is so darned good and produces free energy, why haven’t they seen the light of day sooner?

Thanks to Green Optimistic for the story.

Unilever, the global Anglo-Dutch company with interests in food, drink, cleaning products and personal care items, is a major user of palm oil in many of its products. Formed back in 1930 as a merger between the British soap makers, Lever Brothers, and Dutch firm Margarine Unie, the company amalgamated to pool its resources as both products (soap & margarine) relied heavily in the use of palm oil.

Recently rain forests have been destroyed in Malaysia & Indonesia to make way for palm plantations to fuel the world’s burgeoning desire for products that happen to use palm oil. As a result many orang-utans have been displaced and killed; some species of orang-utan are on the endangered species list, with the Sumatran orang-utan being critically endangered.

The Greenpeace protests at the Unilever HQ in London and the manufacturing plant in the Wirral, Merseyside, have involved some 50 protesters, highlighting the need for Unilever to urgently introduce sustainable methods of palm oil usage.

Unilever does chair the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil which aims to “promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil” but Greenpeace fears the slow progress of the group. Whilst the RSPO discusses ways to be sustainable rainforests are still being cleared to make way for the production of palm oil.

Unilever states that it is leading the way to find sustainable palm oil solutions but this could simply be just Greenwash.

All you have to do is turn off the lights and “see the difference you can make”.

It’s got to be better than E-Day which was an abysmal failure.

Green taxes and measures to help people struggling to pay energy bills are likely to be among changes in the chancellor’s first Budget on Wednesday.

It goes on to speculate that the chancellor, Alistair Darling, might put a levy on larger vehicles like people carriers, putting their price up by £2000.

And that’s it!

Well, if that’s all the chancellor can do for green issues in the UK Budget on Wednesday then that’s pretty poor for helping people go green. Isn’t a people carrier a more efficient way of carrying 6 or 7 people than having to drive 2 vehicles? If there’s any truth in that rumour then it would be a right poke in the eye for people who car-share.

We understand putting taxes on the least fuel efficient vehicles, but isn’t that why some people pay more road tax than others and why inefficient vehicles cost more to run purely from the fact that their MPG is so poor?

Come on Darling, where’s the incentives to go green. Saying “you can’t do this” or “can’t do that” is simply negative. Why don’t you give us:

• Increased grants for home solar projects
• Increased grants for home insulation
• More green spaces for community allotments
• Increase tax on the most polluting vehicles
• Greater taxes on polluting businesses
• A stop on the expansion of any more UK airports
• Serious public debate over nuclear energy

etc etc

That would be a good start. He’s already effectively nationalised the Northern Rock bank, why can’t he part-nationalise some of our public transport to stop the greedy private companies from milking the public?

Let’s wait until Wednesday, aye?

Starting at 10am and running through to 5pm there are stalls and stands, which are free to see.

The talks, ranging from the design of eco centres and buildings to green rooves, need to be paid for. Obviously it’s too late to pre-book but you can pay at the door today.

Green Architecture Day is held at the Sallis Benney Theatre in Brighton.

The shaky state of the US economy has weakened the dollar and the weak dollar makes oil a cheaper for investors in other currencies.

Now if oil prices aren’t a good reason to go green then I really don’t know what it will take to make people snap out of their excessive ways!