Greek forest fires

So sad to hear about the forest fires of Greece this year, particularly the loss of lives. Even having spent time there these past few years, I can only begin to imagine the disruption to people's lives and livelihoods. Must be very hard to start again after such tragedy. A lot of issues here. According to this news article Greece has had 120 forest fires this year compared with 52 in 2006. A particularly bad year....but I'd no idea that so many occurred each year.

The Cumbria Way

We made it! Eleven of us, adults and children - 72 miles from Carlisle to Ulverston through the Lake District. Mixed weather, wonderful wild places and great to walk with good friends who just accept you as you are.

Tranquility maps

We've been looking at the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE's) tranquility and light pollution maps. Sad to see the decline in some areas and pleased to hear about their campaigns.

Interesting site

Technology, Entertainment, Design or TED is a site that aims to spread ideas by making talks and performances available from their annual conference, where a wide range of 'thinkers and doers' are challenged to give the talks of their lives. Those I've looked at are well done and there's an interesting range of themes. Thanks to Graham Jeffery for the link.

Nighttime again

Following up Peter Brown's comment on this blog about what sounds like an intriguing book from Roger Ekirch called At Day's Close: a History of Nighttime' I came across this review of it which I found thought provoking - both in terms of what we've lost but also perhaps in terms of what we've gained. For many of those in service for instance the 'nighttime hiatus' referred to must have been one of the few times they could call their own.

Interconnections of foot and mouth

Sad to see the return of foot and mouth at a time livestock farmers are already struggling, for instance with the aftermath of the floods and high cost of feed. As with last time it's also a reminder of how much movement of livestock and meat exports we rely on across Europe. Today's special report from the Guardian shows just some of the interconnections of today's livestock farming with other events, livelihoods, biosecurity... It sounds to me like efforts are being made to act on what we learnt last time round but any intervention is likely to have its unintended consequences. I hope it's over quickly and that we continue to learn from this sort of experience, not just in terms of retaining the status quo but in making changes for the better. Looking through the BBC's news in pictures...which to me often get through more than words...I came across this amazing picture from a foot and mouth outbreak in 1933. I guess farming's changed out of all recognition since those times but a lot must have been learnt also about how to deal with outbreaks... do we build on that or is society changing so fast with globalisation, technological development and new value systems that it's difficult to do so?

Is adaptability enough?

I was intrigued to see what Geoffrey Vickers had to say about this topic, as it's become current once again in the context of climate change. So I tracked down his paper*. Vickers was concerned with rapid industrialisation as a major disrupting factor in an established economic, social and political balance. As I've found in the past with his work, he made some interesting points such as...
"In an expanding society numbers increase and every individual claims to take up more room, both directly...and indirectly..... Since the surface of the planet does not expand, it is inescapable that people should become more thick on the ground....The problem for Western democracies is to socialise their indivualist ethic without losing its essential values."
50 years on, I wonder how Sir Geoffrey would think we are doing? In his models in his paper, he drew out what he considered as essential features of adaptation and put a lot of emphasis on regulation and understanding the systems that industrialisation disrupts. Along with his observations on value systems, this all still seems very relevant today.

*Vickers, G. (1959), "Is adaptability enough?" Behavioral Science Vol. 4 pp.219-34

Hidcote manor

We finally got to visit Hidcote Manor Garden on Friday. It's been near the top of my list for several years now so very satisfying to get there and also early in the day ahead of the crowds. It certainly lived up to my hopes - wonderful planting and such a lot of different atmospheres and lights created in Lawrence Johnston's 'Garden of Rooms'. Exquisite and wonderfully inspiring!

Turning in on summer evenings

Lovely quote about going off to sleep at twilight from late author Roger Deakin’s recently-published ‘Wildwood - A Journey Through Trees’ posted by DrFrank. I remember as a child going off to sleep on light evenings and sneaking a look through the curtains to see adults still out and about - gardening or walking the dog. I think as children we probably sometimes felt it too early for sleep while it was still light but I think Deakin's right that it's much more natural and I remember it as very atmospheric as the light began to fade.

Floods worldwide

I hadn't realised that the floods had been so bad worldwide until Kevin drew my attention to the following reported in this BBC article

"..... research from the charity Save the Children found that nearly 138 million people worldwide had been affected by floods in recent weeks. More than 1,000 people around the world have died and at least half a million homes have been damaged or destroyed because of the torrential rains, said Save the Children. The charity's director of emergencies, Gareth Owen, said: "This is an emergency on a worldwide scale and it deserves a global reaction, which is badly lacking at the moment from governments and donors." More than 17 million have been affected in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. But the worst affected country is China, where 119 million people have been hit by floods in the last month. "

Still very difficult no doubt if it happens to you but seems to put UK events in proportion. Also difficult to be magnanamous when under threat yourself so not perhaps surprising that it's difficult at this time to get a global reaction.

Branching out to local press coverage

I catch myself referring to the BBC's version of events quite often these days so decided to try and find out if Uttar Pradesh had met their tree planting target through more local channels. Came across this report from Newspost India which I enjoyed - language a bit more descriptive somehow. And according to UNEP they did indeed make it. There's something quite amazing about exceeding the target by a cool half a million. Great!

The sort of world record I like....

"The northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has attempted to set a world record by planting 10 million trees in a single day" Amazing!
From BBC online, thanks to DrFrank for the link.