Cognition

After a good 20 months in my small adobe cottage at Lynedoch EcoVillage and having witnessed all manner of architecturally uninspired monoliths spring up around me as a result of a poorly planned housing development at the village, I am exploring options for an ecologically built monolith of my own. I have used a 3D modelling programme called Sketchup to present my initial ideas.

Since becoming aware of their existence, solar cookers have always intrigued me. Yet I have to admit to having previously harboured a certain degree of scepticism as to their efficacy and practicality. A visit to some friends a week ago, where I witnessed a solar cooker performing some low level bean-cooking, had the effect of upgrading my intrigue to full bodied consumerism (with an ecological slant thankfully) which I acted upon...

My participation in the Building and Social Housing Foundation's study visit to the Solar Houses in Gårdsten, Göteborg, afforded me the opportunity to catch the X2000 high-speed tilting train (an experience in itself) to Stockholm where I spent an afternoon rambling around Hammarby Sjöstad, a high income urban development incorporating numerous sustainability related innovations. I felt at times like I was in some sort of futuristic movie. Pictures that I snapped of some of the features follow...

The first week of spring heralded my taking ownership of a W123 Series Mercedes Benz 300D, the icon of the veggiemobile movement. She (for she is a she) is a 1985 model with a seemingly undercounted 323 000 odd kilometres on the clock.

After the hints of optimism that emerged from the UN Climate Change Conference in Montreal earlier this month, it might be apt to revisit the somewhat poignant ending to George Monbiot's speech delivered at the Climate Change march on the 3rd of December lest we forget where the real struggle lies...