Run for the hills: Colours

Sunday, 30 November 2008

Colours

I sort of expected changing colours to be a feature around here - but yesterday was completely amazing. The white of the dusting of frozen snow, the watery red of the sun and the reds and browns of heather and dead bracken and the blacks and greys of the rocks. Stunning.

For most of the day it was beautifully sunny and calm and around -6C. It snowed and then rained briefly around sunset and then froze again.

Jussi managed to return Muppet but it was a hairy journey - especially around Crask and Altnaharra where the warming and plunging of the temperature had made a lot of the road thick sheet ice. But she managed it.

Meanwhile Ailsa and I took a walk to the loch - here are some piccies. The loch was frozen and we had a lot of fun skimming ice across it listening it sing.

3 comments:

Petra said...: stunning! Wow...; 6 December 2008 at 16:20
Petra said...: oh, and I finally commented on the health effects of your lifestyle change - thanks! Not sure how you keep track of delayed comments like that - that's partly why I use that moderating function. How do you do it?; 6 December 2008 at 16:40
The Speaking Goat said...: Thanks Pedi,

Somewhere there's a preference that allows you to be emailed everytime there's a comment posted. (I think if you're signed in you get this option automatically when you post a comment and it seems to remember).; 7 December 2008 at 10:55

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Where I"m coming from - !CAUTION! a bit of a polemic

Firstly, there is nothing more important than me and my family. The most precious thing I can give them (including me) is time. In my job, with all it's pressures, I singularly failed to do this. So we run for the hills and try to redress the balance.

Secondly, climate change is happening. It's a cataclysm, the scope of which is beyond our comprehension. This is why we are doing so little to stop it - we just cant imagine the scale of the upheavals to come, and we can't imagine how we, as individuals, can stop it.

Everything is stacked against effective action. Our economy is driven by consumerism and it is consumerism that is driving climate change. Our political leaders are paralysed - to curb consumerism would cripple the economic engine. We increasingly define ourselves by our economic position and the things we buy. We are what we buy. What politician dare restrict our ability to buy, our ability to define ourselves? It would attack our very self and would be political suicide.

And anyway, the real power lies with money - and the people with money want us to consume and they spend millions every second of the day persuading us to consume more. What hope do we have against such power? And everything we buy pumps a little more CO2 into the atmosphere.

Thirdly, I am no saint. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to change my life for the benefit of myself, and, I hope, the planet. Ultimately my reasons for doing this are selfish, and although I'll do what I can to keep my carbon footprint low, I'll make many choices that are not so good for the planet. Like anyone, I can only voluntarily make changes to my life at the speed I can. I don't intend to beat myself up over this - I do intend to change faster than most.

Fourthly, there is hope. Our lust to consume is a very recent phenomena. Not so long ago we principally defined ourselves by our relationships with friends and family and place and we defined ourselves by our usefulness to society. I believe that climate change will force us out of consumerism, and in its place we will find those core values, and rediscover a sense of wellbeing that is so missing from our current fractured existence.

There are lots of examples where this is starting to happen. The transition town movement is one - people getting together and learning to appreciate the things and people around them. I played a small part in helping Sustaining Dunbar get off the ground. (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/sustainingdunbar/about-us) What I found there were people striving to build a positive and resilient future and there are transition towns popping up all over the place - a really positive movement. (find out more about transition towns)

Fifthly, At the end of the day it's all bollocks. So let's all go off and have some fun - it's the most important thing we can do - but let's just try to do it without killing the planet in the process.

Things I"m going to miss

Run for the hills

Sunday, 30 November 2008

Colours

3 comments:

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