tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490805992051243622024-02-20T02:57:26.306-08:00EcospeakMy question is this: how do we talk about sustainability?
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-46418869839384664292016-03-11T08:01:00.002-08:002016-03-14T02:33:25.371-07:00Innovation in Italy: Small farms, Big Data<i>I attended Fieragricola thanks to the European Network of Agricultural Journalists</i><br />
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“The watchword for agriculture’s future is innovation,” said Raffaele Maiorana, youth president of Confagricoltura, at Fieragricola, the 112th Agricultural Techonologies Show in Verona.<br />
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“The new course of agriculture comes inevitably from cutting-edge technologies, sustainable development, precision farming, but also the creative use of Big Data,” said Mr Maiorana.<br />
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<i>Big Data seminar at Fieragricola</i></div>
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With the average Italian farm just 7ha, sharing and accumulating data between businesses has a great potential to help individual farmers. Combining data resources gives individual farmers a level of information that would be impossible to generate alone.<br />
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The power of collecting and sharing data for innovation that could save the future of Italian agriculture was a running theme at Fieragricola.<br />
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Held in Verona in the Veneto province, 3 – 6 February 2016, Fieragricola, attracting over 100,000 visitors, had a broad programme of seminars, presentations and machinery demonstrations spanning all of the Italian agricultural sectors.<br />
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For the province’s leaders, the 18,264 km² Veneto region is a fitting place to demonstrate the benefits of sharing farm data. It is home to over 665,000 agricultural companies, with growth in agricultural employment at 23%, according to Governor Luca Zaia.<br />
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Provincial President, Antonio Pastorello, said: “Agriculture is still one of the sectors driving the Veronese economy, the third Italian province in terms of exports and top in the Veneto for livestock numbers, with 57% of the regional total.” <br />
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In a seminar on the second day of the event, Mr Maiorana identified opportunities for the Italian agri-food sector to make the most of big data, acknowledging that production systems have to interact with very different information systems. The simplest case, he said, is using meteorological and environmental data compiled by external information stations to inform production cycles. For example, a system of sensors for the supply of water or the flow of rivers, could help farmers to manage their water resources. <br />
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“Agriculture is already fully involved in the digital revolution,” Mr Maiorana continued. “In the countryside it is vital that technologies integrated with the internet grow in a co-ordinated way, to ensure development and sustainable growth, attention to the land and its products. Intelligent agriculture will have to know how to use Big Data across the huge amount of available information, connecting them and interpreting them in an integrated system to help grow our industry.”<br />
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Wine growers in some regions across Italy are already contributing to and benefiting from these kinds of data networks.<br />
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<b>Big Data in Barolo</b><br />
In the Barolo area, a community of farmers upload their data to a secure website and share it with others in the group.<br />
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“Farmers get information on weather and disease modelling, which is needed for good management of the crop,” said Dr Andrea Lari of Pessl Instruments, which manages one of these data-sharing networks.<br />
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“Farmers can also save money through collaboration, because the average farm size is not big. Tools for sharing information could help us overcome some major challenges for Italian agriculture, ecological and economical, for example,” said Dr Lari.<br />
<b><br />Data volume in Valpollicella </b><br />
<b></b><br />
Another example comes from the Consortium of Valpollicella Wines, where a project on using moth pheromone traps has grown to cover almost 2,000ha of farmland, from just 50ha in 2011. Certification is likely to be available in 2016 for those farmers in the project who correctly employ the integrated plant protection protocol, as well as for those who correctly practice the methods of using pheromones to protect against moths.<br />
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Another programme in Valpollicella, Riduci, Rispetta, Risparmia (‘Reduce, Respect, Save’), is an environmental initiative which started with ten pilot farms and now covers at least 2,000ha. Farmers involved in this scheme meet together on farms, have training meetings on farms, and receive newsletters, emails and texts – all to help farms improve their sustainability.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-56809417687532754352016-01-18T10:30:00.001-08:002016-01-18T10:30:31.324-08:00Nature's metaphors (or the monkey's devil fingers)<i>The monkey has the fingers of the devil</i><br />
<br />
When I started learning a little Tajik in preparation for a volunteering trip a few years ago, my bizarre phrase book contained this gem in the section under 'animals'. I'm starting on a bit of a tangent, but it's relevant, I promise.<br />
<i> </i><br />
My question this time is - how much of our language takes its inspiration from the natural world? Where have our animals, plants, trees and skies slipped into our ordinary parlance without us noticing? We have some beautiful idioms - maybe none as strange as the monkey with the devil fingers*, but still...<br />
<br />
In the wake of new word hoarders like Robert McFarlane, I'm setting out to make my own list (to be continued):<br />
<br />
<i>to weasel</i><br />
<i>to ferret</i><br />
<i>have a gander</i><br />
<i>larking around</i><br />
<i>beetling away</i><br />
<i>dog-tired</i><br />
<i>crow about s.th </i><br />
<i>pussyfoot</i><br />
<i>to leapfrog</i><br />
<i>to be a pig</i><br />
<i>parrot-fashion</i><br />
<i>budding talent</i><br />
<i>a blossoming young woman</i><br />
<i>put down roots</i><br />
<i>.....</i> <br />
<br />
<br />
*I do have some doubts about this phrase, but I'll never know for sure. My phrase book was written by two people whose only common language was Esperanto, living hemispheres apart from each other.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-23201883887180224032015-10-08T07:13:00.002-07:002015-10-08T07:13:48.148-07:00Happy poetry dayLeaves burning<br />
Trees<br />
Hot embers in the forest -<br />
A sacrifice to the summer,<br />
perhaps,<br />
But quickly put out<br />
by October's rains.<br />
Now the glow of<br />
iron stones in a river.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-29339869211825712652015-09-01T04:44:00.000-07:002015-09-01T04:50:17.352-07:00An excerpt on ecological conversion<a href="http://www.iustitiaetpax.va/content/dam/giustiziaepace/Eventi/giornatamondialepreghieracuracreato2015/PCJP_WorldDayPrayerCreation2015_PROPOSAL_ENG.pdf" target="_blank">From the Holy Father’s letter of 6 August 2015 to Cardinals Koch and Turkson</a>:<br />
<br />
As Christians we wish to contribute to resolving the ecological cris
is which
humanity is presently experiencing. In doing so, we must first rediscover in our
own rich spiritual patrimony the deepest motivations for our concern for the care
of creation. We need always to keep in mind that, for believers in Jesus Christ,
the
Word of God who became man for our sake, “the life of the spirit is not
dissociated from the body or from nature or from worldly realities, but lived in
and with them, in communion with all that surrounds us” (
Laudato Si’
, 216). <span style="background-color: yellow;">The
ecological crisis thus
summons us to a profound spiritual conversion:</span> Christians
are called to “an ecological conversion whereby the effects of their encounter with
Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them”
(ibid., 217). For “living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is
essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our
Christian experience” (ibid.).<br />
<br />
1st September is the <a href="http://www.prayandfastfortheclimate.org.uk/1-september-day-of-prayer-for-the-care-of-creation/" target="_blank">day of prayer for the care of creation</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-40115769299964807852015-04-24T00:44:00.004-07:002015-04-24T00:44:50.760-07:00Wealth...continuing to quote from Barry Lopez's <i>Arctic Dreams</i>, <br />
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<i>In the following narratives [of Arctic exploration], it is not solely the desire of some men for difrerent sorts of wealth that becomes clear, but the suspicion that North America offered more than material wealth. <b>It offered wealth that could not be owned, like the clarity of the air and the sight of 300,000 snow geese feeding undisturbed on the Great Plain of the Koukdjuak...</b>We seem vaguely uneasy with the notion that a flock of snow geese rising like a snowstorm over Baffin Island is as valuable or more to mankind than the silver, tin, and copper being dug out of the Bolivian Andes at Potosí. These are not modern misgivings; they daye in North America from the time of Columbus and Cabot... </i><br />
(pp.312-313)<br />
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Apologies for the long passage today. I like the idea of wealth that cannot be possessed, because it makes it a communal asset. If I don't possess A, it means that my friends can also enjoy it. But it does make me wonder about responsibility with relation to possession. If I own, say, a tree in my back garden, I have a responsibility to make sure it is safe and well looked after otherwise it will be my fault if it dies. If there's a tree on the patch of communal land outside my house, whose responsibility is it to protect that tree, to make sure it thrives and grows beautifully old?<br />
<br />
Wealth that cannot be owned by any individual cannot be traded. It cannot be bargained for, charged interest on, entered into ledger books or spreadsheets. It makes me think of Oliver's song: "Who will buy this wonderful morning?" The rising sun is one of our most valuable assets and yet completely and utterly un-possessible. Just a thought.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-66191025553140623002015-04-15T00:44:00.000-07:002015-04-15T00:44:00.443-07:00The mind's intercourse with the landscapeIn his book <i>Arctic Dreams, </i>the American author Barry Lopez writes:<br />
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"...language is not something man imposes on the land. It evolves in his conversation with the land - in testing the sea ice with the toe of a <i>kamik</i>, in the eating of a wild berry...A long-lived inquiry produces a discriminating language. <b>The very order of the language, the ecology of its sounds and thoughts, derives from the mind's intercourse with the landscape</b>."<br />
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As I walked to work today, I wondered about the intercourse of minds with the landscape in my own community, and the effect this may have on our language and therefore on our perception of our own environment. (Incidentally, the German word <i>Umwelt, </i>meaning 'environment' but which I translate literally as 'world around oneself' helps me understand better what we mean by 'environment').<br />
<br />
<br />
If we're not letting our minds interact, study, perceive the landscape, what happens?<br />
<br />
It makes me wonder whether it's a vicious cycle. The less time we spend outside, the less we understand; the more language we lose with which to describe our landscape and so more estranged we become from the natural world around us.<br />
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Perhaps today, then, I'd advocate spending just a little more time outside, looking, listening and letting our minds explore.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-60441310112016251412015-04-06T13:51:00.004-07:002015-04-06T13:57:18.473-07:00LifeI've been doing some preparation for a church youth group session and hence pondering on the meaning of 'life'. (Not the answer 42, before any Python fans jump in).<br />
<br />
What is the word 'life' for us? Is it just our physical existence? Or is it something more?<br />
<br />
From the Greek New Testament of the Bible, I've discovered, there are two types of 'life' - <i>bios</i>, the earthly, physical existence; and <i>zoe.</i> <i>Zoe</i> is altogether more exciting.<br />
<br />
<i>Zoe </i>is the adventurous, vital, genuine, vigorous, generous, authentic state of being. <br />
<br />
What if <i>life</i> is more than simply existing? More than eating, breathing, sleeping? More than having our physical needs attended to? More than consuming and acquiring?<br />
<br />
In Barry Lopez's book <i>Arctic Dreams</i>, he often talks about the lifestyle of the people that inhabit the arctic, and there's one particularly relevant point he makes in a passage on Eskimo hunters. Lopez writes:<br />
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<i>They [Eskimo hunters] have a quality of </i>nuannaarpoq<i>, of taking extravagant pleasure in being alive; and they delight in finding it in other people.</i> (p.202) <br />
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This is existing and much more. <br />
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More reading:<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/zoe.html" id="docs-internal-guid-b86b7621-907e-95d2-0112-5f7e8f9876d1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/zoe.html</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Greek_Index.htm" id="docs-internal-guid-b86b7621-907e-ba6c-8c76-7afe4566391c" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Greek_Index.htm</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/979.htm" id="docs-internal-guid-b86b7621-907f-6236-fd26-9251b8c061a4" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://biblehub.com/greek/979.htm</span></a> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b86b7621-9080-06a0-ce2c-db270824b1a3" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Luke 12:13-15 & 22-23</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams </span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-56089228313028262692015-03-22T12:31:00.001-07:002015-03-22T12:31:34.276-07:00Two types of fearThanks to Barry Lopez' <i>Arctic Dreams </i>for these...<br />
<br />
The Tununirmiut Eskimo on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bylot_Island" target="_blank">Bylot Island</a> have at least two words for fear (maybe more?):<br />
<br />
<i>ilira</i> - fear that accompanies awe (like watching a polar bear)<br />
<i>kappia</i> - fear in the face of unpredictable violence (having to cross thin sea ice)<br />
<br />
Do either of these apply in the face of our changing climate? Are we sitting back and experiencing <i>ilira</i>, watching the changes take place from a point of relative safety, or have we got collective <i>kappia</i> yet? Are we as afraid as we should be?<br />
<br />
Barry Lopez published his <i>Arctic Dreams </i>in 1986.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-70799955424502711842015-01-24T13:10:00.000-08:002015-01-24T13:26:57.408-08:00It doesn't sound bad enoughMy complete thanks go to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yk373" target="_blank">Now Show (BBC R4, 23 January 2015)</a> for this post.<br />
<br />
<i>Global warming</i> and <i>climate change</i> don't, to many people, sound that bad, said Nish Kumar. Too true. In the middle of the damp, cold, bone-biting, and joint-aching January, a bit of warmth doesn't sound like all too bad a thing. A changing climate is neither here nor there. We're surrounded by change all the time. <br />
<br />
We need some alternatives, and here are a few of Nish's suggestions:<br />
<br />
<i>"Turdpocalypse"</i><br />
<i>"Kicked in the weather-balls"</i><br />
<br />
And, for the CEOs of major corporations, whose major concerns at Davos were regulation and taxation:<br />
<br />
<i>"Increased regulation and taxation of ...oxygen</i>"<br />
<br />
(Listen online for the next 29 days, go on, do: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yk373">http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yk373</a><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yk373" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04yk373</a>)<br />
<br />
Time to think of some more emotive, urgent synonyms for <i>global warming</i> and <i>climate change</i>. And while we're at it, <i>green.</i> It doesn't make sense, really. How can a colour be a solution to a weather-based issue?. What words do we use to make it sound worse? Perhaps we need to be more concrete: <i>drought, flood, fire</i>. <i>Hunger, famine, war.</i> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-20277839833217281262015-01-11T09:24:00.001-08:002015-01-11T09:24:17.462-08:00Land ethicWhat's changed in the last 60 years?<br />
<br />
In 1949, the American forester and writer, Aldo Leopold wrote in his <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sand-County-Almanac-Sketches-There/dp/0195007778" target="_blank"><i>Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There</i></a>, that what we lack is a system of ethics.<br />
<br />
<i>There is as yet no ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus' slave girls, is still property. The land-relation is still strickly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations...</i><br />
<br />
And, later on in the same work:<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>We have no land ethic yet, but we have at least drawn nearer to the point of admitting that birds should continue as a matter of biotic right, regardless of the presence or absence of economic advantage to us.</i><br />
<br />
Sixty years on, have we got the ethics we needed? Or is our relationship to the land limited to economic terms?<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-58940600005505612732014-12-19T06:50:00.003-08:002014-12-19T06:51:36.366-08:00December haiku<div style="text-align: left;">
Winter coming home</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Butterfly in a lampshade</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Paper flickers dark</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-18937074158321440052014-11-06T09:20:00.000-08:002014-11-06T09:20:00.790-08:00A non-verbal homage to Cubbington WoodsI won't write the obvious cliché about the value of pictures, though you can probably guess what it is. In this blog I wanted to tell the story of a wood just to the north of where I live, which lies in the proposed trajectory of HS2. It's where we go blackberry picking in the late summer; people walk their dogs nearby, and it's close enough to the edge of town to be just the right balance of accessible but wild. Sometimes there are buzzards.<br />
<br />
This is my homage to the Cubbington Woods:<br />
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All of the above are (c)Eleanor Perkins<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-22494790155953335342014-10-29T03:11:00.002-07:002014-10-29T03:11:41.338-07:00Word of the day?Just a quick exercise today, to see what some of our online media providers are writing about in their environment sections at the moment. Click on each of the wordles to see the original in detail.<br />
<br />
A selection of today's hot words are:<br />
- Continue<br />
- Just<br />
- UN<br />
- Britain <br />
- Government<br />
- Trillion<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment" target="_blank">Guardian environment</a>:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/8270292/Guardian_Environment%2C_29-10-2014_" title="Wordle: Guardian Environment, 29/10/2014 "><img alt="Wordle: Guardian Environment, 29/10/2014 " src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/8270292/Guardian_Environment%2C_29-10-2014_" height="150" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 4px;" width="200" /></a>
<br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/" target="_blank">Telegraph Earth</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/8270303/Telegraph_Earth%2C_29-10-2014" title="Wordle: Telegraph Earth, 29/10/2014"><img alt="Wordle: Telegraph Earth, 29/10/2014" src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/8270303/Telegraph_Earth%2C_29-10-2014" style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 4px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment/" target="_blank">BBC Science/Environment:</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/8270306/BBC_Science-Environment_29-10-2014" title="Wordle: BBC Science/Environment 29/10/2014"><img alt="Wordle: BBC Science/Environment 29/10/2014" src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/8270306/BBC_Science-Environment_29-10-2014" style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 4px;" /></a>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/" target="_blank">Independent Environment:</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/8270311/Independent_Environment_29-10-2014" title="Wordle: Independent Environment 29/10/2014"><img alt="Wordle: Independent Environment 29/10/2014" src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/8270311/Independent_Environment_29-10-2014" style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 4px;" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-58637886882628050602014-10-28T06:53:00.002-07:002014-10-28T06:53:40.750-07:00Nature as a poet: John Muir<i>Nature as a poet, an enthusiastic workingman, becomes more and more visible the farther and higher we go; for the mountains are fountains - beginning places, however related to sources beyond mortal ken. </i><br />
<br />
John Muir (1838 - 1914) writes effusively in <i>My first summer in the Sierra</i> of the wonders that he sees. Every tree, flower, mountain, and even house fly he sees there is a miracle, a beauty to be contemplated; to be enjoyed and protected. In 1869, he is the companion to a group taking a herd of sheep ('woolly locusts', he terms them) to find fresh pasture in the mountain meadows of the Yosemite. Taking his leave of the group for sometimes days on end, Muir walks and sketches and makes copious notes of his surroundings.<br />
<br />
I think his predecessor and fellow Scotsman, Hugh Miller (1802 - 1856) would have agreed with Muir's 'nature as a poet' approach: <i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Nature is a vast tablet, inscribed with signs, each of which has its own
significancy, and becomes poetry in the mind when read; and geology is
simply the key by which myriads of these signs, hitherto indecipherable,
can be unlocked and perused, and thus a new province added to the
poetical domain. </i>(<a href="http://todayinsci.com/M/Miller_Hugh/MillerHugh-Quotations.htm" target="_blank">Lecture third</a>)<i>
</i><br />
<i> </i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-73330345036078160042014-10-16T13:41:00.002-07:002014-10-16T13:43:59.801-07:00Blog action day: inequalityInequality, to me, is legalese. It's harsh, unfeeling and grey. The word doesn't demand action of us: it's a state of being, a mathematical comment on the way the world is. A brick is heavier than a feather - that's inequality. It doesn't make me want to do anything about it.<br />
<br />
So I wondered about the synonyms for inequality, and a quick search on the clever <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=inequality%2Cinjustice%2C+unfairness&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cinequality%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cinjustice%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cunfairness%3B%2Cc0" target="_blank">Google Ngram</a> showed me something interesting. We used to talk about <b>injustice</b> much more than we talked about inequality. Something happened between 1973 and 1974, and inequality took over. There's not space (or time) to look at why that happened, but it seems that the sense of justice went out of fashion. We were no longer talking about what was right or wrong.<br />
<br />
Does 'injustice' demand more response than 'inequality'? Or which other words could we use?<br />
<br />
Here's the graph, and you can have a go yourself, using a good thesaurus (or<a href="http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/inequality" target="_blank"> thesaurus.com</a>) and <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=inequality%2Cinjustice%2Cunfairness&year_start=1800&year_end=2014&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cinequality%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cinjustice%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cunfairness%3B%2Cc0" target="_blank">Google Ngram</a>.<br />
<br />
(For comparison, I've also included 'unfairness', which doesn't seem to have been very popular at all.)<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="250" hspace="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="ngram_chart" scrolling="no" src="https://books.google.com/ngrams/interactive_chart?content=inequality%2Cinjustice%2Cunfairness&year_start=1800&year_end=2014&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cinequality%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cinjustice%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cunfairness%3B%2Cc0" vspace="250" width="550"></iframe>
<a href="http://blogactionday.org/" target="_blank">Find out more about Blog Action day </a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-10075319259819070352014-09-13T01:48:00.001-07:002014-09-13T01:48:42.946-07:00Possession. Can you live without this verb?"Possession is nine points of the law", goes the early seventeenth-century proverb. What would happen to our understanding of possession if we had no verb to express it?<br />
<br />
Scottish Gaelic (and other Celtic languages) has no possessive verb. I quote from "Gaelic made easy", by John M. Paterson (1952):<br />
<br />
<i>We know that when you want to say that a person has anything, you put it as being "at him". Thus THA TAIGH AIG IAIN, A house is at John, or, John.....THA FIOS AGAINN GUM BHEIL AIRGIOD GU LEOIR AGAIBH, We know that you have plenty of money; or [literally], knowledge is at us that money galore is at you</i>.<br />
<br />
What would happen if we took away our English verb 'to have'? In Gaelic, we're stating the facts - there's a house and it's with John. There is some money and it happens to be in your pockets. To me, this sounds less permanent, accepting the transient nature of the world by the very grammar used. It makes me think that the things we talk about owning don't really belong to us in the first place - they belong to someone else and we're borrowing them for a while.<br />
<br />
It's easy to forget that, really, everything is a gift; everything we use, borrow, eat. How about giving up the verb 'to have' for the day?<br />
<br />
(You might want to check out the <a href="http://storyofstuff.org/" target="_blank">Story of Stuff </a>for more on this topic)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-20414858368364767662014-09-04T04:38:00.000-07:002014-09-08T00:48:35.167-07:00Gypsy storytellingShould sustainability be an abstract concept? I went to a talk by Damian le Bas last weekend at <a href="http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/" target="_blank">Greenbelt</a> on Romany language, storytelling and culture and I asked him how he would express the concept of 'sustainability' in Romany.<br />
<br />
The answer he gave all of us was surprising at first. For all the precious lessons that Romany people have learned from the past about travelling light, for their low carbon footprint, there's no word for sustainability. Granted, Romany is an evolving language, but there's no English Romany word for 'sustainability'. According to Damian, English Romany is not often used for abstract ideas; more for saying "I'm going up the hill to catch a rabbit". <br />
<br />
However, the <a href="http://romaniarts.co.uk/632-professor-emeritus-thomas-acton-consultant/" target="_blank">Professor</a> chipped in, there is an international Romany constructed word, <i>dur-shayipe</i>; sort of 'long term ability to carry on, etc', which can be used in the context of sustainability. They both agreed, though that it's a word with little currency.<br />
<br />
This got me thinking. Should something so vital to our existence be relegated to the realm of the abstract? Where's the concrete language to talk about what we mean? Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-88071636130251421632014-08-16T13:18:00.000-07:002014-08-16T13:18:19.168-07:00The key to survival"...a place where knowing your environment is the key to survival." *<br />
<br />
We rarely think about how our knowledge of our surroundings is a matter of life or death. We reserve that for people living in the more out-of-the-way places, where the weather is more severe, and the natural landscape hazardous.<br />
<br />
But it's not quite true.<br />
<br />
I know that if I walk across a certain road at the wrong time, my life is in danger. I know that this particular alleyway is narrow and dark and should be avoided at night. I know to be wary of certain wild animals. I know that <i>these</i> berries are tasty and <i>these</i> berries are deadly poisonous. I know how to keep food so that it won't go off. I know, more or less, the things which will help me preserve my life and those which will bring it to a more rapid end than I'd wish.<br />
<br />
This is true for me, someone who lives on the edge of a medium town in a pleasant county. <br />
<br />
Knowing our environment is <i>always</i> a key to survival, wherever it is. We need to understand that our environment isn't somewhere 'out there' where the wild things are, and see that it's here, right where we are. <br />
<br />
<br />
* I took this from the concluding statement of BBC's Human Planet episode, <i>Arctic life: in the deep freeze</i>. It's currently available to watch on iPlayer: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rrd7r/human-planet-3-arctic-life-in-the-deep-freeze">http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rrd7r/human-planet-3-arctic-life-in-the-deep-freeze</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-71997481486876126212014-07-05T06:49:00.000-07:002014-07-06T14:14:12.508-07:00These are a few of my favourite......words. I did a quick straw-poll on Facebook this week, asking a simple question:<br />
<br />
What's your favourite word?<br />
<br />
I'm not sure that any of the answers are words that get used very often, but they're an interesting mix of foreign, emotive, philosophical, onomatapoeic expressions. A lot were chosen for the way they feel to say; some for the meanings and a couple for their flexibility.<br />
<br />
I wonder whether a piece of writing containing one of these favourite expressions would make the reader more likely to take notice?<br />
<br />
Presumably someone, somewhere has mapped the nation's favourite words.<br />
<br />
Here's the list I got:<br />
<br />
- Bizarre<br />
- Shenanigan<br />
- Autumnal<br />
- Lassitude<br />
- Plinth<br />
- Gloopy<br />
- Lentosaema (airport in Finnish)<br />
- Unheimlichkeit<br />
- Crepuscular<br />
- Quail<br />
- Rationalise<br />
- Delectable<br />
- Defenestration<br />
- Shagala bagala ('mess' in kiSwahili)<br />
- Hobb<br />
- Abominate<br />
- Idyllic<br />
- Slake<br />
<br />
I should point out that one of my friends takes umbrage with this question of ' favourite words', as it subscribes, in his opinion, to false economic reason. We ought not, he tells me, reduce the massive complexity of language to mere words. Thanks, JB.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-33180887961672322092014-03-11T09:57:00.000-07:002014-03-11T09:57:45.863-07:00...is a foreign word<i>Nachhaltigkeit ist ein <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremdwort" target="_blank">Fremdwort</a></i>, writes Silvia Schaub in her article in <a href="http://www.schweizamsonntag.ch/" target="_blank"><i>Schweiz am Sonntag</i></a> at the weekend.* 'Sustainability is a foreign word'. In German, <i>Sustainability</i> is a word taken from another language. A foreign concept, rendered into German by using the existing building blocks: <i>nachhaltig,</i> 'sustained, lasting, persistent' and <i>keit</i>, a suffix like the English <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ness" target="_blank"><i>-ness</i></a> to turn it into a noun expressing the concept of being sustained or lasting.<br />
<br />
It's clunky but functional - not unlike our English <i>Sustainability</i>. It's a construction; a concept that we're learning to live by because, as Silvia writes, it's better than the alternatives. <br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*'Ende der Monokultur - Zeitenwende im Garten', <i>Schweiz am Sonntag</i>, 9.März, pp. 50 - 51. </span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Richterswil, Switzerland47.2089492 8.701852700000017647.1657957 8.6211717000000174 47.2521027 8.7825337000000179tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-85896255172912555902013-12-30T09:02:00.000-08:002013-12-30T09:02:39.820-08:00Work partiesOne of our big challenges is making our joined-up, fair and helpful vision of our world more fun. Reading through the cover notes to a CD of Georgian songs by the Rustavi Choir, I found an answer: <i>Naduri</i> - a work song. Not just a 'yo-ho-heave-ho' work song, but a song of endless possibility, creativity and competition.<br />
<br />
<i>"'Nadi' were villagers who voluntarily assisted their neighbours at harvest time. Competing groups of workers would begin in a slow tempo with alternating melodic figures, and as the work intensified and neared completion, melodic motifs became shorter and the alterations more rapid. The end of the song - and of the song - was marked by a slow finale sung in unison."</i><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-8806205681528314292013-12-11T02:19:00.003-08:002013-12-11T02:19:49.995-08:00NnoboaI haven't had a chocolate advent calendar for a while, so this year was a treat. Every morning after breakfast now I get a snippet of the Christmas story and a tasty chocolate heart - just enough not to feel guilty about it.<br />
<br />
Anyway, <a href="http://www.divinechocolate.com/uk/" target="_blank">Divine</a>, the fairtrade company who made the calendar, share a story on the reverse about the farmers of the cocoa co-operative.<br />
<br />
"The farmers who have joined the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative have discovered how good it is to work together. In fact, they have a name for it - NNOBOA - which means, 'If you help me, I will help you'."<br />
<br />
Sharing resources, ideas, experiences and problems helps people to create stronger businesses, fairer and more resilient systems all round.<br />
<br />
Can we have more NNOBOA in the UK?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-54283163753391046172013-10-26T12:52:00.000-07:002013-10-26T12:52:22.015-07:00Marram grass in Lindisfarne"The monks of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne" target="_blank">Lindisfarne</a> must have been aware of he island's remarkable natural environment. The monks who illustrated the gospels with bird and plant designs had a keen understanding of their form and detail. St. Cuthbert's mysterious power over the natural world was well documented in early accounts of his life."<br />
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<br />
<i>From a visitor display at the <a href="http://www.holy-island.info/lhc/" target="_blank">Lindisfarne Heritage Centre</a>, Holy Island, Northumberland.</i><br />
<br />
'...a keen understanding of their form and detail.' Our natural environment has such a breadth and almost unfathomable wealth of beauty and intricacy. How is it, then, that the ideal relationship with the environment within which we live is summarised as one word: sustainable? Or just one colour: green?<br />
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How about the silvery colour of marram grass in the wind under a clear October sky; the sound of a single grain of wheat pushing up through the earth? <br />
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Do we need to understand the beauty in order to protect it? How do we express this in our language?<br />
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I'm not sure we have the answer yet here in England.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-56984633256768066322013-10-15T01:28:00.002-07:002013-10-15T01:41:48.616-07:00In a land of iceIn the fantastic <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Ice-Death-Politics-Arctic/dp/1905264658" target="_blank"><i>After the Ice: Life, Death and Politics in the New Arctic</i></a>, author Alun Anderson talks about the extreme northerly communities of Inuit peoples in Canada. Living on the edge of the ice, their language points to a people who have a profound understanding of their relationship with their natural surroundings. Perhaps 'understanding' is too trifling a word: the connection runs deeper than consciousness. The communities here in places like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grise_Fiord" target="_blank">Grise Fiord</a> depend almost entirely on their surroundings for their survival in a way that is hard to understand for a soft, suburban dweller like myself.<br />
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And so in Inuit you find the following words:<br />
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<i>qanuqtuurniq</i>- resourcefulness<br />
<i>piliriqatigiiniq</i> - capacity to work together for a common cause<br />
<i>tuunganarniq</i> - fostering good spirit by being open, welcoming and inclusive<br />
<i>avatittinnik / kamatsiarniq</i> - respect for the land, animals and environment<br />
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When we speak about 'sustainability' in English, I think we mean all of these things and more. Maybe it's time to expand our vocabulary a little bit.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-649080599205124362.post-56065556738919057772013-10-09T04:10:00.000-07:002013-10-09T04:10:39.003-07:00Asking the right questionsI took part in some students' survey last week in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Leamington_Spa" target="_blank">Leamington</a> town centre. Their questions ranged from happiness to town surroundings and included the slightly obscure "Is there space for animals and humans to interact together in the centre of Leamington."<br />
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Standing in a busy shopping street, with visions of petting pigeons and feeding foxes, I was struck by the importance of asking the right questions. It was the word <i>interact</i> that got me. Did the students mean that we should have opportunities for meaningful exchange with the urban wildlife?<br />
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In my research into language and environmental responsibility, I wonder if there is a danger of manipulating the answer based on the words in the question I use. If I ask "how do you talk about your environmental <i>responsibility</i>", is it more likely that I will get a legal/political response? Would a better question be, "how does your community talk about the natural environment you live in?"<br />
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Oh, and I had to say "no" to the students.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0