Brief milk update

Posted on September 13, 2012 by admin

A few weeks ago I posted that against my better judgement I had agreed to buy some local milk off a local dairy company. Things have worked out fine so far, we buy 2L a week of semi-skimmed from them and pay by flexible direct debit.

As an aside Edinburgh Council are buying additional land to turn into allotments. It may surprise some of our foreign readers but there is a statutory right to an allotment in the UK (in theory). In practise there are huge waiting lists everywhere for allotments. A lot were sold off in the 1970’s and 1980’s as people fell out of love with growing things and were built on (my theory is that allotments became associated with post war austerity). From the 1990’s as Britain’s food culture has taken off, demand has soared.

Could visitors take a moment to fill in the poll as to why you have visited our site- ta.

Neil

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Guest blog on consumerism

Posted on September 12, 2012 by admin

This is a guest blog entry from Mark Powley author of “Consumer Detox” taken from breathe by permission.

Consumerism has given us many globally recognisable shapes. Creative types might think instantly of iconic design profiles: the figurine coke bottle, the Nike swish, the sleek Apple Mac. The cynical among us might suggest more sinister outlines: the increasing Western waistline, the reducing Arctic ice.

But nothing the consumer mould produces is as significant as this: the way it shapes our souls. The problem with consumer culture, to put it bluntly, is not so much the products it makes – these can be ingenious, useful and, increasingly, more sustainably produced. The problem is not so much the mess it makes – this is a massive global challenge, but still only a symptom of a deeper malaise. The problem with consumer culture is the people it makes.

Let’s make this personal. The problem is me. “Hi, my name’s Mark and I’m a consumer.” The truth is that I am hugely shaped by my addiction to stuff. I am formed by my fear of a dull, reduced life. I am defined by the ever-present danger of lagging too far behind the consumer pack. Funnily enough, I don’t feel addicted. But, at the same time, I really don’t want to be the only person who hasn’t seen Avatar in 3D / hasn’t been skiing / isn’t culturally up to date (delete as appropriate). All this is deeply formational, and the shape it gives me is a rushed, dissatisfied and self-focussed life.

God is, of course, in the formation business too. He has a particular shape in mind for us – ‘to be conformed to the image of his Son’ (Romans 8:29). It’s an image of suffering and glory, as Paul makes clear throughout Romans 8. It’s an image of generosity and blessing (at times ‘poor, yet making many rich’ – 2 Corinthians 6:10 – easy now, Paul!). Eugene Peterson calls it ‘the soaring and swooping life of grace’. Or we could say ‘less stuff, more life’.

Six years ago, inspired in many ways by the writers at LICC, I co-founded The Breathe Network to answer the question: how do we become Christ-shaped rather than just consumer-shaped? If we’ve learned one thing so far on the journey it’s the importance of just starting somewhere. So then, why not begin with a simple life audit: where do I invest more imagination – in shopping or in scripture? What do I hope most for my children – personal success or the life Jesus describes as ‘blessed’? What is going to shape me today – the genius of consumerism or the generosity of Christ?

Mark

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Dallas is back!

Posted on September 11, 2012 by admin

Everyone’s favourite super-soap from the 1980s is on our screens again – with a re-boot which brings a whole new generation of Ewings into the heady mix of intrigue, power, sex and oil. I never saw much of the original series, (not the sort of thing that was watched in our household) but having just written a book on oil and its role in mankind’s future, I felt justified in watching some of the first episode – just for research.
The storyline centres around a new find of oil – a test well drilled on Southfork land hits an oilfield with apparently “2 billion barrels of light, sweet, crude.” And here’s where Dallas veers off from fiction into the realm of fantasy – and today’s lesson in the oil industry begins: In fact new oil fields are being developed in America, but they are not ‘gushers’ – where oil spurts up a vertically drilled well. There was a time when, it seemed if you stuck a pitchfork in the ground in parts of Texas, oil would come up – but those days are long gone. New oil finds are so-called “tight oil” or shale oil. An oil boom is going on in North Dakota and Montana as the industry begins to develop oil production from the Bakken shale rock formation.
A couple of brief comments: Whilst there is a lot of loose talk about the US (the world’s largest energy user) becoming self-sufficient in energy, oil prices remain stubbornly high. Shale oil is not like Dallas fantasy crude – the process of drilling and fracking to remove the oil from the rock takes a huge amount of energy, and so the net energy return is much lower – the oil price needs to be at least $70 a barrel to make any money. Secondly, all this excitement about new oil needs to be tempered by the fact that traditional oil supplies are going into decline. Shale oil is expensive, and there isn’t enough to go round. Lastly, what about climate change? We are apparently way ahead of even the most pessimistic models in terms of arctic ice melt, arguably weather patterns are already being affected by this shocking change. We have got to wean ourselves off this dangerous addiction to burning fossil fuels.
Post by Andy Mellen

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Third runway u-turn the case against.

Posted on September 7, 2012 by admin

The UK government in its wisdom is preparing for a u-turn over airport expansion in SE England.

I think a few points need to made here, referring to some articles in today’s print edition of the guardian.

This whole issue goes way beyond climate change. The climate arguments and growth forecasts for air travel are covered well in the print edition of the paper. The problem is no takes into account peak oil. You can argue about exactly when the peak will occur but there cannot be many people who think things will be anything they are as now in 2050, apart from apparently politicians and the airline industry. The Department for transport thinks there will be a 250% increase in demand by 2050. Who are they kidding? The business lobby say we cannot survive without another runway.

The sustainable airline council (SAC)?!! think they can use 40% biofuels.  We cover this in some detail in our book. Its impossible, and we would (as Christians) immoral to demolish rainforest so we can drive (don’t forget this as well) or fly. The problem is land area.  As we have covered in the book/blog we are going to have a struggle enough to feed ourselves with oil production having peaked much less if we use biofuels. (See David Strahan’s site for details if you haven’t bought our book.) SAC probably mean 2nd generation biofuels or algae.  But this would still need a considerable land area and energy inputs for processing.

There is another argument that Boris is using and that is noise. When I was staying in London a few days ago I was under a flightpath. At 05:30ish the noise started and continued every two minutes. We went to Amsterdam a few years ago and we visited a lake for swimming.  This was under the Schiphol flightpath.  Every minute or so planes were flying in so low they were skimming the tops of the trees. The racket was enormous (and I recognise that planes have got much quieter I grew up under a flightpath).

To sum up everyone is playing games here. Boris knows that could cost him the mayoral election but wants to put another runway somewhere else. The airline surely cannot believe in biofuels etc. but I believe think this will give them cover to do what they want (and give government cover).

Business and government have got to recognise the oil age is coming to an end and its not completely replaceable, they must know this, but do not want to say so since to admit to it opens a whole can of worms…  Such as SE England’s economy is going to have to do without flying (eventually).

Neil

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Urban gardening taken to a new level.

Posted on September 6, 2012 by admin

I’ve just returned from the Paralympics and I slept on the floor of someone I was in the CU with 30 years ago who lives in a mixed part of London. He’s organised the people in his flat to grow food. Everyone has a small patch of land behind the flats. These existed and were used to grow food (and other things), but had become run down. The images below show one growers ability to squeeze the maximum amount of food production out of the minimum amount of area. The fence has melons growing on it (an act of genius). This is true transition stuff and the project has now expanded to flats on the same estate round the corner. The plastic containers are being used to collect rainwater.

Melons growing on fence.

Picture of overall plot.

Neil

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Background information for the book

Posted on September 3, 2012 by admin

We had a word limit with our publisher and breached it several times. We therefore have various bits of background information that didn’t make it in. Here is the full church transport survey results and the remainder will follow.  Feel free to use it in your church if you want and adapt it. The basic finding was unsurprising that attendees of the early traditional service use the car the most (as a %), the family service come second and the evening service with lower numbers but a high proportion of students has the lowest % of people getting there by car. One problem the early service suffers from is that although the bus service in Edinburgh is very good, many buses are not yet running at the time needed on a Sunday to get people there in time. It is however true peak oil will be a real challenge from this point of view for my church.  Hope someone finds the below useful.

church transport survey in word format

transport survey in writer format

church transport survey in pdf format

Neil

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Food prices

Posted on September 3, 2012 by admin

Interesting well argued article by Larry Elliot about rising food prices in today’s Guardian.

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Gas prices

Posted on August 30, 2012 by admin

A lot happening today and this story is of international importance. This is something we touched on at Greenbelt and in our book. I’ve never thought shale gas is going to be the game-changer that some people think it is. It takes a lot more drilling and therefore energy to extract and also fields deplete really fast. It puts a floor under gas prices. If the gas price is high enough then its worth extracting otherwise its not. At the same time a glut of gas stops conventional gas extraction. So the price falls then rises then falls. Its likely there will be less investment in conventional gas and hence a rise in prices. Good news for the fragile Arctic environment and climate change since the only way to get people to conserve and switch to renewables is for prices of conventional energy to rise.

Do our US readers agree? Is there anything you’d like us to cover?

Neil

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wind power

Posted on August 30, 2012 by admin

Wind power study says opponents’ claims are unfounded see here. I don’t suppose anyone is going to shift anyone’s position. But talking of wind power (and other renewables) Orkney is doing really well powering itself using micro-renewables especially wind. Of course this is a small community with a very good wind resource. I’ve never been to Orkney but I’ve been to Shetland a bit further north and the wind blew almost all the time we were there. Any-time it didn’t we were eaten alive by midges…

Neil

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GB addendum

Posted on August 30, 2012 by admin

Forgot to say we sang “Give me oil in our lamp” at the beginning of the meeting and everyone present joined in with great gusto.  However, what Andy had also worked out was that it fits with the theme tune to “Dallas” which is about to make a return to our screens.  If one half of a group of people sing one and the other half hum the other it works beautifully.  Of course “Dallas” is more relevant in some ways…

Neil

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