An Ordinary Person’s Views on Living With Minimal Environmental Impact

  1. Pig Business

    Written by Clare Topping on 1st Jul 2009.

    The much vaunted Pig Business was shown on More 4 last night. A thought provoking film showing the effects of the intensive pig rearing business on the entire community framework.

    Last night, encouraged by a myriad of twitters and tweets, I tuned in to watch Tracy Worcester’s ‘Pig Business‘, an exposé of the pig industry.

    For those of you who did not see it, Pig Business was a relatively objective film highlighting the activities of Smithfield, one of the US’s largest suppliers of meat, as it started up operations in Poland, where it has bought up a number of farms and meat processors in the post communist era.

    The film concentrated on two main themes; surprisingly, animal welfare did not seem to rank as highly as the Industry’s impact on human health, or the loss of a traditional way of life for Poland’s many small farmers.

    Human health issues were linked to the practice of spraying the pig excrement onto nearby fields from a series of lagoons, a method that is now banned for new facilities in the US due to the ill health suffered by nearby residents; needless to say there were similar complaints in Poland.

    Predictably, the number of independent farmers was also on the decline, as they cannot compete with the sheer scale of the operations and were, in the main, not prepared to house their livestock in similar intensive conditions. An interesting point made by an American campaigner, suggested that this competitive edge would be seriously eroded if the intensive producers had to pay the full environmental cost of their operations; a point coming into sharper focus in most industries today.

    On the lack of sentimentality I would like to applaud the film makers as many people are unconcerned by animal welfare standards or the resulting quality of the intensively raised food. As Tracy stated in the film, food has started to become a commodity: people are only interested in the cheapest price, and this is a point on which I can become quite agitated if drawn into a debate.

    Over the last few months, and particularly during the European elections, there has been a lot of dissatisfaction with eastern European immigrants coming over here and taking our jobs.

    Why do people not equate their purchasing decisions, and the constant drive towards price reductions, with the loss of jobs in the UK? This film made it plain to me that it’s these same decisions that prevent the same immigrants from making a living at home, unemployment was very high: jobs in agriculture have plummeted to realise the efficiency gains needed to provide us with cheap food.

    Why can we not accept that food should have a minimum cost, buy a little less, eat a little less, keep people in jobs, and enjoy better quality food. Paying more might make us think twice about throwing things away.

    Capitalism is a double edged sword, and it is easy to blame everything on evil Corporations, but the truth less comforting: they have to sell what we as consumers will buy. If we change our behaviour we would surely all be winners? 

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  2. How’s your garden growing?

    Written by Clare Topping on 29th Jun 2009.

    This year is already proving to be more productive in the garden than the last two years put together.

    This is just a quick update on the produce in my garden. Following on from last year’s disaster, I have already had some minor success.

    Blackcurrants

    After living in a pot for a couple of years whilst we relandscaped the back garden, the blackcurrant bush has grown well, survived aphid attacks and has yielded about 1 lb of blackcurrants. We are going to freeze some of them and others will no doubt end up in blackcurrant muffins (I will post a recipe at a later date if any of you are interested). The variety that we grow, for no reason other than it looked healthy when we bought it over 5 years ago from the garden centre, is Ben Sarek. I have included a picture to prove they exist (and in case we don’t get any next year).
    The gooseberry has been attacked by sawfly for two years, so we are giving it one final chance this year and have relocated it to the front of the house. It has one solitary gooseberry, but, so far no sawfly devastation. Hopefully it will continue that way.

    The garlic that I planted in December is having mixed fortunes. Those planted in the front garden are doing wonderfully well and have some of the thickest stems I have seen, the 3 cloves that I put in the back are looking a bit sad and weedy. I think it will be time to harvest them before long.

    Courgette Flower

    My courgettes are also doing OK (although the ones I gave to my mother-in-law appear to be twice the size) and the first flowers appeared on Thursday on both the one in the ground and the one in a pot. This is a big relief as they failed completely last year, being annihilated by slugs soon after planting. This variety is Partenon which I have grown before, fruits early and is self fertile so should be fine whatever the weather.

    I have also planted out some pak choi and my beans as well as some either cauliflowers or cabbage that I was given (Colin couldn’t remember which was which). Radish (which are supposed to be easy to grow) have benefited from me making the effort to thin them out and I finally have some carrots coming up in containers. However, I am particularly pleased with some rainbow chard in the front garden and my chillis in the back garden which are already fruiting. (I will share the secret of my success once they have ripened.)

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  3. Living in the landscape

    Written by James Whinfrey on 25th Jun 2009.

    Whatever Climate Change has to offer, the natural world will adapt, but we need to consider whether we’ll have a place in the living landscape of the future.

    Climate change isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s been in constant flux since our planet was formed. Our impact may be causing an acceleration in the pace, but life will still adapt; even if some species disappear, in a diverse ecosystem, new ones will appear to fill their niche. This is what evolution and natural selection are all about, but it’ll only work if given enough time and space.

    This is where we could have a serious problem. Rapid change shortens the time scale, but if species and their habitats are allowed to move: to cooler areas as ambient temperatures rise, or salt marsh moving inland as the coast erodes, they can buy time for natural selection to have an effect. Unfortunately human activity is so widespread that we can block such progressive change with our constructions, such as highways, cities, and dams.

    Our species is enhanced by rich biodiversity; think of how our food is produced, and where many medicines are sourced. It’s clear we need to adopt a more holistic approach to the natural world: it’s essential it becomes an integral part of our lives.

    This imperative is reflected in a change in the way conservation is being approached, as noted on Page 5 of Living landscapes: A call to restore the UK’s battered ecosystems, for wildlife and people, published by The Wildlife Trusts.

    To recreate genuine living landscapes, we need to embrace this approach:

    • Move from dominators and controllers of nature to
      appreciators and influencers of nature;
    • Move from nature as special interest to nature as
      providing our living conditions – locally, regionally and
      globally;
    • Move from a situation of nature in boxes to nature in the
      neighbourhood and nature in the landscape.

    Everyone has a part to play in this kind of strategy, so when considering flood defences, coastal erosion projects, transport systems, or even paving your garden, please consider the impact on our living landscapes.

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  4. Energy Management – Where does it go and what does it do?

    Written by Clare Topping on 24th Jun 2009.

    Before starting to reduce our energy consumption I first needed to find out how much we are using and where.

    In order to better manage our energy we first need the data to establish our base load; I need to know where the energy is being used.  As a site that uses a substantial amount of energy we pay for our data to be collected every half hour (HHD). Have I been able to get hold of our data?  Yes, but it took me tens of emails, lots of ‘phone calls and three months.  As it stands I am only receiving it monthly, rather than weekly, but it is a starting point.

    So, now what?  The data is provided in Excel format and I have been provided with some simple graphing software via the Carbon Trust to illustrate the changes in consumption on an hourly or half hourly basis.  However, I am sure that this is something that I could have done for myself given the data, probably using Excel.

    We operate continually with only the occasional shutdown, so finding the base load wasn’t as easy as one would think.  However, I have now estimated that when the site is unoccupied it is still consuming in the region of 860kWh per day.  This is approximately 30% of our total consumption  – at a notional cost of 10p per kWh this would equate to more than £30,000 per year.  Whilst we are only closed for a few days a year, and so not all of this is necessarily wastage, at the moment I have only discovered where 72kWh is used.

    My next mission is to discover what is eating the rest of the electricity, whether it is necessary, and to try to pinpoint the costs in the various operations on site.

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  5. Energy Awareness at Work

    Written by Clare Topping on 21st Jun 2009.

    The Carbon Trust returned to raise our energy awareness – did it work?

    One of the major problems highlighted as part of our energy audit was employee awareness of energy wastage.  This was obvious just on the walk around when the number of lights and computers left on was visible to anyone with their eyes open.  As a consequence, we were offered several one hour training sessions to try to raise the awareness of staff about the cost of leaving things switched on.  This was sold to us on the basis that most people, even advocates of energy saving, don’t even think about saving energy at work and are often unaware of just how much leaving some devices on standby could be costing.

    So, I organised three sessions for all the employees on site that day, and was impressed to see that everyone did turn up for the sessions.  Only one person asked if they could miss it (I obviously said no as they are the biggest sceptic that I know and believe that climate change is just a government scare tactic to introduce more taxes).  I also (admittedly a bit belatedly) sent an email to other departments and sites inviting them to send someone over if they wanted (I had only one response, and everyone else ignored me) – this is obviously not currently a priority within the Company – although I believe this may be about to change with the requirements for the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC).

    How did the training go?  Well, it was not the most dynamic of deliveries I have ever come across.  There were some interesting facts and figures about the cost of leaving appliances on standby, which did seem to be news to some people in the room, but other than that there did not seem to be very much content and certainly nothing that I thought would influence many people to change their habits.  There was also a large concentration of effort about the Carbon Reduction Commitment, despite my assurances that there really was nothing that I could do about it at my lowly level.  Maybe I was a little prejudiced though, because it wasn’t news to me, but apparently some people did not know that leaving their mobile on charge for longer than required was wasting money.

    So, results of the training, no immediate effects were noticeable, although it did get some people talking about it.  I have since discovered that more warehouse staff are turning lights off as they leave the room (I discovered this second hand due to a comment from maintenance that they are having to replace more bulbs).  Most disappointing though is that people in the office are still leaving lights and IT equipment on – one of our biggest wastes of energy.  So, although it did not change the world, it was probably worthwhile as it did what it said on the tin and raised employee awareness with regards to energy usage – now it is up to me to start getting them into new, better habits.

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