purplerabbits

I wanted to talk about the 10:10 thing, but it seems a bit done to death already, to be honest. What I can say is that a) any news articles done in the form of a list is likely to be cheap ill-thought out journalism and easy to take pot shots at and b) the sight of well-meaning Guardian readers each defending their own carbon footprint while happily commenting on each others' is getting old really quickly [1].

Yes, we need more big changes, but this does not mean we need fewer little ones, it just means that the little ones will be more possible, because the infrastructure will be there to support them. So if you've just found the time to go down the list and tick off everything you 'can't' do for various unarguable reasons, either think of something you *can* do, or do some campaigning about the larger issues. Don't moan to your mates about why you can't do recycling, moan to the council. Or call a meeting at work about *their* carbon footprint. Or even write a well reasoned and public article about what big changes need to happen.  Because the planet, annoyingly enough, doesn't care whether or not you personally are in the right.

I remember that the last time I ranted about something similar I made the point of contacting the council about getting recycling facilities on my street. Which there now are (well, just round the corner, and it doesn't do glass, but still). I'm not naive enough to think it was me wot dun it by myself, but I'm pleased I did.

[1] And, yes, there are things on the list which I either can't do or which would be really expensive or which I doubt the carbon efficiency of, and I'm not saying you're all wrong about everything on your lists, either.

Job losses over eBay 'addiction'

Oh fucking cheers 'Union Bosses' for doing your best to spoil internet access at work for the rest of us! I always knew Unison were a shower of shitehawks but this takes the biscuit. When did it become a Union's job to tell employers not to trust employees. Yes of course if you spend two hours out of seven a day on Ebay you may lose your job. So don't do that then. Morons.

"If we do not want to find channels like Nuts TV on our televisions, we are going to have to stop lying to ourselves and each other. That would mean we have to stop buying pre-teen daughters T-shirts that say Babe In Training or Born To Shop, or taking them to see Bratz: The Movie. It means not reading any more magazines devoted to laughing at a celebrity for having a sweatmark on her dress, and not watching any more Living TV - the closest female equivalent on cable to Nuts TV, being targeted explicitly at women and consisting almost exclusively of programmes about breast enlargement."

I agree 100% except that nobody of any age should be labelling themselves as "born to shop" and I refuse to give up watching CSI on Living just because they otherwise consist of celebrity ghost plastic surgery...

I have set up a community called sustainable_uk to talk about sustainable and ethical living. It doesn't have to be exclusively UK people, but I thought I'd start with what I know...

The info says it's about "anything to do with reducing carbon emissions, fair trade, recycling, reducing consumption, and anything that will make this planet a better long term prospect to live on, including both personal actions and wider campaigns for change" which is a pretty wide remit - I also want to have conversations about what people are *not* doing and why, like because they'd be a waste of time or whatever...

I don't know where I should publicise this that won't hack people off too badly - so let me know if you have any ideas, too...

This Map of where no-one should live in the US has got me thinking about a long standing debating point with me - where to live when I win the lottery so as to assure a bearable old age. So for you Friday conversational topic, as set by Me - where is the world would you not live, and why? And is there, anywhere you'd suggest that is relatively free of/immune to inevitable natural disasters, global warming, oppressive regimes, killer creatures and diseases and violent rednecks?

[1] The latest threat to civilisation as we know it