'Saving the planet' is a project which must surely involve everyone; but apparently not all designers of domestic recycling technology agree. For recycling to be effective, design should logically follow, not lead, function. This requires an understanding of how ordinary people will use recycling opportunities - before systems are designed, not as an afterthought.
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Today marks the start of UK National Vegetarian Week. The arguments for a balanced vegetarian diet are persuasive - it's low on carbon, low on water consumption, it can respect the seasons, it has the capacity to make a huge contribution to resolving global hunger, and it's good for us. So how can we begin to make it reality? ...
Mid-winter, and the rawest, sorest part of the oh-so necessary works on Liverpool's Sefton Park has begun. Here lies the pink ribbon of protest an anonymous tree-lover tied on this felled tree. And here (below) lies scattered the still fresh sawdust of the vigorous cull of trees around the upper lake. Soon, we are assured, these voids will be host to new and vibrant growth. Soon, our park will be even more lovely than before. ...
This is the time of year when churches urban and rural across the nation urge us to attend their services for Harvest Festival. For many of us however this annual celebration is now marked more secularly, observed at one remove, via our newspapers, rather than physically in our communities. Media celebration of seasonal food is the order of the day. ...
This week is U.K. National Allotments Week, promoting 'the awareness and availability of allotments both locally and nationally, to show ... the strength of support and interest for the heritage of allotment culture.' This excellent initiative is quite new, but allotments themselves have stood the test of time. Here is an example from rural Portugal, on a tributary of the Duoro River, of a smallholding which has probably been in place for centuries. ...
A White Paper on sustainability and planning rules is about to appear. Ruth Kelly, the Government's Communities Secretary, wants climate change to be an integral part of the agenda for the overall planning process, regarding both infrastructure and local renewable technologies. So why has the Local Government Association already rejected the White Paper? ...
AWC (Alternate Weekly Collection of recyclable and non-recyclable household waste) has a bad reception in the UK, although it increases the extent of recycling. But why is something designed to sustain our environment - an ambition held by most of us - producing such hostility? ...
Recycling things we don't need or want anymore can be time-wasting and even counter-productive, if it's a big hassle to get done. So one very good idea is using the that global force, the internet, to share news of offers and requirements for items on a strictly non-commercial basis between people who live in a local area. This is what the Freecycle Network sets out to do. ...
Today's Independent newspaper offers us a mixed message. Under a front page story entitled 'The Climate Has Changed' it features a special issue on 'the bill which makes action on global warming a reality'. And then, at the point of sale, it proposes a special offer of a free plastic bottle of water.... Celebration of a major breakthrough in environmental legislation is greatly to be welcomed. But toasting this particular achievement with such an environmentally unfriendly product tells us a lot about the contradictions of the market. ...
Self-sufficiency in energy is an ambition shared by many. Increasingly we are recognising that carbon-neutral living must be for real. Communities in Ashton Hayes, near Chester in the U.K., and Knezice, an hour east of Prague in the Czech Republic, provide different real-life examples of how this might be achieved.
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The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been going now for full five years, and it's showing an impressively modern approach to public engagement, with its very own personal Blog, inviting public involvement, by the new Defra Secretary of State, David Miliband. ...
What do the terms 'Conservation' and 'Sustainability' say about our attitudes to change? And can we apply them to the same sorts of things? ...
Welcome to the official website of Liverpool Fringe! which was launched on 21st November 2007. This is where everyone can read about Liverpool Fringe! and where you can post your ideas or messages of support and share details of your own events, for free....
What are the relationships between science, technology and 'modern society'? How are these interactions determined? And what is 'progress'?...
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