Run for the hills: Bloggers junk mail

Friday, 30 October 2009

Bloggers junk mail

Bloggers get junk mail. Usually it comes from some twerp who runs a dubious-looking health food store in California - and in exchange for a link to their website they promise a free prize draw for an organic cotton T shirt. I don't succumb.

But this time I will. The email is copied below so you can pursue the links if you wish. When will people realise that buying unnecessary stuff, such as that sold at Nigel's Eco-store, is no way to save the world? How disappointing to see Caroline Lucas as chief judge, and various other luminaries of the green world who really should know better - allowing themselves to give credence to this poorly disguised advertising gimmick for Nigels Eco-Store. Cos that is all it is. If Nigel was really green he'd never be running a shop like this.

So I've nominated this blog, and this post, in the hope that the judges might get to read this and wake up to how cheap they really are. Here's the email:

Hello Simon,

My name is Diana, the intern at Nigel's Eco Store. I am trying to raise awareness of our Green Web Awards, now in its 2nd year. You can find info about the Awards at http://www.nigelsecostore.com/green-web-awards/ - any chance you could mention it in your great blog?

Of course feel free to participate by nominating some of your favourite green websites (which could include your own!) http://www.nigelsecostore.com/green-web-awards/nominate/ . Last year it was a great success, you can see the winners in its 12 categories at http://www.nigelsecostore.com/green-web-awards/2008/

I hope that through people like me and you we can push it one step further.

Please check the website and feel free to forward it to everyone who you think would want to participate or have any interest in green web.

You can also follow the progress of Green Web Awards on Twitter or Facebook :
twitter.com/greenwebawards
facebook.com/greenwebawards

Thank you!

--  Diana Office Assistant  Nigel's Eco Store www.nigelsecostore.com Office Tel: 01273 710770   Nigel's Eco Store 55 Coleridge Street, Hove, East Sussex BN3 5AB

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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

Friday, 30 October 2009

Bloggers junk mail

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