Green news & views

BBC2 last night broadcast the first episode in the new series of It's Not Easy Being Green.

I missed the first (and second) series but have been on an economy drive recently, so staying in and watching TV has been the order of the day.

Back in the 1970s Kermit sang It's Not Easy Being Green.

Now Kermit is on a t-shirt saying "It IS easy being green".

Bloody frogs, make your mind up.

What a muppet!

I was watching the local news on TV late last year and was fascinated by the story of a Hampshire couple who paid for their honeymoon by recycling. They collected recyclable litter for 3 months and fed it into a machine at their local store, receiving points that they converted into 36,000 airmiles for return flights to the USA in business class seats!

Adnams, the Suffolk brewer, have a great beer in their range called East Green which, they boast, is a carbon neutral ale.

Just over a year ago Adnams came out with a lighter-weight version of their classic & uniqulely-shaped traditional beer bottle. Less glass means less materials, less weight, cheaper transport costs and a smaller environmental footprint.

After joining our local Freecycle group in June last year we finally rolled our sleeves up to start the new year and freecycled.

Rather than shedding some of the useful items we still have kicking around we took the plunge and liberated an old lawnmower. Our own mower is a modern piece of orange plastic and it isn't particularly good, so we leapt at the chance to recycle a piece of old English engineering.

On Monday 8th December protesters from the anti-aviation activists, Plane Stupid, broke through the perimeter barriers of Stansted Airport in Essex, England, to make a point against the proposed building of a second runway at London's third biggest airport. (Heathrow & Gatwick are London's two top airports)

It's that time of year again folks, it's Buy Nothing Day.

Unless of course you're in North America where it was Buy Nothing Day yesterday, to coincide with Black Friday, that day of retail mayhem where shoppers become so rabid with the hunger for cheap deals that this year a man was trampled to death by the consuming hordes!

I'll admit it - I'm a petrol head. That may sound like utter hypocrisy for a man who runs a green website, but it's the way I was brought up.

Like all boys I've always loved cars and when I had the opportunities to buy fast cars I did so. I still have them. One hasn't done a single mile in 6 years and the other does over 30 miles to the gallon. I also do below average mileage, the cars are old but well-maintained and so I probably contribute far less CO2 into the environment than your average motorist, maybe half. That's still a good score.

Oh dear. It looks like George W Bush wants to rush through environmentally damaging changes to the Endangered Species Act. Clearly the man has no shame, no brain and absolutely no concern for the natural world in any shape or form.

This looks like it could be his last parting shot, a f**k you, if you will, to the people that have watched his tenure with continued astonishment.

If you're in the oil, mining or logging industries, it looks like your old buddy Dubbya has handed you the keys to the wilderness on a silver platter.

For people who want the green lifestyle to be integrated into their home there's a number of things they can do. Installing energy-efficient light-bulbs is a good cheap start, as is turning down the thermostat and recycling your trash. But have you thought about using green insulation like when we used hemp/cotton insulation in the wall cavities in our bathroom, or natural flooring that uses only wool or grass?