Green news & views

Why buy organic? What is organic? Why isn't everything organic if it's so much better? Why is organic more expensive?

If you know the answers to these questions then you'll be happy to see this wonderful little movie from The Soil Association. If you have friends that need convincing that organic food is actually better than intensively farmed food then, again, you'll like this.

A one-day climate summit in New York yesterday saw about 100 world leaders attend ahead of the crucial Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December.

China, now the world's biggest polluter, taking the shameful crown from the United States, seemed to make the biggest commitment with President Hu Jintao saying that the country would cut carbon emissions by a "notable margin" by 2020.

I'm currently staying in Germany, the land of recycling, where they've had recycling machines for years, so it's nice to see that we're catching up in England and the county of Lancashire has now its first reverse vending machine.

I was only away for 9 days and I came home to find a ton of junk mail on my doormat.

Apart from a couple of magazine subscriptions, the usual bills and letters (including welcome mail from Ecotricity and Triodos Bank) the majority of what I received was junk.

So, apart from just 11 legitimate pieces of mail the rest was:

It's funny how most Brits say that self-sufficiency would help us out in this recent financial crisis and yet half of us admit to lacking the skills our grandparents had in abundance.

I was munching on some organic blueberries this morning and noted that my driveway was littered with fallen fruit from a day of very heavy winds (the tail-end of what was originally hurricane Bob, or so I'm told). There were plums, pears and another small orange fruit that I do not recognise.

I feel like I've had my head in the sand for a week having been busy on a major website rollout for a client. What I missed in that time was the sad news of the death of Edward "Teddy" Goldsmith, a true pioneer of the green movement in this country.

A report today from Britain's Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has tipped "Cleantech and renewables... to become two of the most important sectors of the economy."

I nearly forgot to tell you, The Great Eden Ale Festival 2009 is on now at the Eden Project in Cornwall (22nd August - 31st August)

Being back at the Eden Project last weekend (for the second time this year) I spent two days in this wonderful place and it was rather handy to have the Ale Festival going on at the same time.

Lobbying firm sends ant-climate change bill letters from "old peole's homes".

After last week's news that big oil are against a better environment it seems that the lobbyists who oppose any moves to limit climate change (incase it dents the profits of big business) have stooped to a new low point.