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Nature
Why Alicia Keys giving up makeup is important
Readers of the Lowimpact blog won’t necessarily know who Alicia Keys is. She’s an American singer / songwriter who has sold over 35 million albums. So very famous, very successful, and right at the heart of the entertainment industry.
How to leave the city and regain a connection with the land
Many city people yearn to be involved with the land hands-on—and to do so on a long-term basis. But leaving the city for good is too big a step for most people; they need to keep a stake in the city for work or social reasons.
Nature in June – what to look out for
Nature in June – what you can expect to see!
Nature in May – what to look out for
Living in a cool and slightly windswept location in the South Shropshire Hills means that the arrival of migrant birds or the appearance of the first spring butterflies occurs a little later here than it does in counties further south and east.
Stephen Hawking says that we should prioritise space travel and that ‘philosophy is dead’; cleverness and wisdom are very different
There’s clever and there’s clever. There’s clever like a computer or a calculator, and then there’s clever as in wise. The first kind of cleverness is the technical type, that can work out how to build nuclear weapons, or to genetically modify food crops, or to cut through the branch that we’re sitting on
Ageing: rejecting cosmetic surgery and embracing the crone
When I sit in a coffee shop people-watching other older women, I am often drawn to two main types. First there is the older woman keen to retain an image of youth to whom ageing successfully is to be seen to be as young as possible for as long as possible by whatever means.
The EU referendum from a low-impact perspective
We’ve got a referendum coming up in June that Cameron didn’t want, but was forced to promise at a time when it looked as though votes lost to UKIP might have cost him the election. His arguments now are largely based on the number of jobs that could be lost if we leave.
Is it a good idea to recruit (in N America and Europe) for sustainable living apprenticeships in Peru?
We’ve just been approached by someone running ‘sustainable living apprenticeships’ in Peru, asking if there’s anywhere to promote them on our site. This sort of thing happens all the time, by the way – yoga retreats in India, conferences in Malaysia, meditation on Greek islands etc.
The discipline of economics presupposes corporate capitalism and perpetual growth, which renders it invalid
Economics is not an unbiased academic discipline, it’s an ideology. Furthermore, economics is based on the false premise that perpetual growth is achievable. It is not, and the reason most people can’t see this is
Review of ‘Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi’ by Mark Boyle – part 1: reformism and the Transition movement
This was a very challenging and thought-provoking read. Mark lived without money for three years, and wrote the Moneyless Manifesto, published in 2012. This is his latest book about the corporate ‘Machine’ and appropriate responses to it.
Can constantly-moving livestock help prevent desertification?
Desertification is the process whereby grasslands slowly turn into deserts, and suggesting that we can help reverse this process with livestock sounds counter-intuitive, especially as livestock is usually named as one of the major contributors to desertification. In the video below, Allan Savory, who has spent a lifetime studying and working towards poverty eradication and wildlife conservation, …
To all environmental groups: lifestyle change isn’t going to be enough to avert ecological catastrophe
Someone said to me the other day that he associated ‘low-impact’ with lifestyle but not with politics or economics. Someone else asked why we blogged about TTIP, economic growth or system change when we were ‘just’ an environmental organisation.
Should I remove moss from my roof?
Removing the moss from your roof is a topic that is widely debated. Does it do more damage to leave the moss growing on your tiles or does removing it harm your roof even more?
Hats off to Brandalism for exposing corporate greenwash
Genius campaign by a group called Brandalism. They managed to get around 600 spoof but corporate-looking adverts all over Paris in time for the climate talks. The fake ads were the work of 82 artists from 19 countries, and they parody the companies involved in sponsoring the climate talks.
How to make a new axe handle
First, wood selection. The perfect wood is nice straight grain ash fairly fast grown, if it gets more than 6-8 rings per inch it is much more brittle, 4-6 rings per inch is perfect.
How to fit a new axe handle
This blog post shows how to fit a new axe handle, it could be a new store bought handle or one you made yourself – more on this soon.
Do you know which of these wild berries you can eat?
At Our Edible Landscape, the most recent School of the Wild event, facilitator Milly set us the Wild Berry Challenge, so we’re putting the challenge to you. Identify the berries below, and decide if you’d eat them.
What are we supposed to teach children about nature nowadays, without frightening them?
My little boy Alfred, just turned 6, pays close attention to what he hears. Sometimes this means that we need to be very careful in case he remembers something and then blurts it out in front of just the wrong person. It’s already clear that he’d make an awful spy.
Why does our list of topics include vegetarianism, veganism AND keeping animals?
Isn’t that a bit inconsistent? If we think that vegetarianism or veganism is a good idea, how can we also think that keeping animals – most of which are kept for meat – is a good idea too?
Autumn foraging season soon – here’s some inspiration
Arriving at the beautiful setting of WOWO, I immediately knew I’d done the right thing ignoring cold-weather challenges to get myself to this workshop. Given the warmest of welcomes, we were invited to form a circle and take a moment to think about what plant we felt like in that moment. We were to bear …