As most people know, animal welfare is one of the many things that gets me all riled up and unable to sleep at night. So, imagine my horror when researching an email to my pal Daniel at The Born Free Foundation I came across this video of a hapless (and rather ignorant) tourist attempting to cuddle a rather unwilling panda.
The place is the Wolong Giant Panda Breeding Centre in China. It’s essentially a conservation project but sadly, the welfare standards are comprised by the drive for cash. This cash is raised from misled tourists who think it’s a good idea to give a panda a cuddle.
So what’s wrong with cuddling a panda? Well, the trouble is, these panda are being captively bred so they can be reintroduced to the wild. It is widely accepted that reintroductions of captive bred animals is hit or miss and efforts are likely to be unsuccessful is the animal becomes too tame. Its only healthy for wild animals to have a degree of fear of humans – it stops them from being hunted or captured. If the pandas used for cuddling aren’t destined to be reintroduced then the centre is basically sacrificing these individuals welfare for the good of the other pandas. Surely this is questionable at best and immoral at worst!
My advice is to steer clear of anywhere that offers animal cuddling (other than domestic animals). If you want to cuddle a bear, get a Care Bear! Plus you get browny points for retro chic too.
Friday, 29 January 2010
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Ignorance is bliss: Living in my own happy bubble
I recently started living a rather simpler life. One of the surprising consequences of this I have only just realised. I have no TV and don’t listen to the radio so I’m blissfully ignorant of what’s going on in the outside world. The real surprise is that I actually don’t mind. As someone that is interested in current affairs, politics and global living this is a bit strange.
I think in the past I have got rather hung up on doing the right thing, being informed, raising awareness and generally caring about the world. I try to live a moral and ethic life but perhaps I take it a little too far. I’m really proud of my ethical buying and the way I’ve tried to shun consumerism but I feel guilty when I fall off the wagon and buy something in Tesco and maybe I shouldn’t. Perhaps its time to loosen my grip a little and cut myself some slack. I mean, I doubt if the founders of Oxfam beat themselves up if they buy non-fairtrade coffee once in a while. Surely doing my best is ok?
Combining the two things together is rather liberating. I’m no longer feeling anxious about the bad stuff that happens in the world (as I don’t know what’s going on) and I’m not suffering from my ethical guilt if I so much as stray into the poundshop. So now, I’m living in my own little world where my only concerns are what to have for dinner! And to be honest, it’s refreshing! I know it sounds very self involved and somewhat selfish but perhaps its not such a bad thing to look after myself for a while and concentrate on my own happiness rather than fretting about the rest of the world.
Don’t get me wrong, I know shite happens but I’ve taken to not thinking about it and concentrating on living in my own little happy bubble, blissfully ignorant of the wankers, bullies and bigots of the world. Whilst away for the weekend with some friends, I told them of my new philosophy and one said she likes the happy bubble Holly so I think I’m going to stick with it for a while.
I think in the past I have got rather hung up on doing the right thing, being informed, raising awareness and generally caring about the world. I try to live a moral and ethic life but perhaps I take it a little too far. I’m really proud of my ethical buying and the way I’ve tried to shun consumerism but I feel guilty when I fall off the wagon and buy something in Tesco and maybe I shouldn’t. Perhaps its time to loosen my grip a little and cut myself some slack. I mean, I doubt if the founders of Oxfam beat themselves up if they buy non-fairtrade coffee once in a while. Surely doing my best is ok?
Combining the two things together is rather liberating. I’m no longer feeling anxious about the bad stuff that happens in the world (as I don’t know what’s going on) and I’m not suffering from my ethical guilt if I so much as stray into the poundshop. So now, I’m living in my own little world where my only concerns are what to have for dinner! And to be honest, it’s refreshing! I know it sounds very self involved and somewhat selfish but perhaps its not such a bad thing to look after myself for a while and concentrate on my own happiness rather than fretting about the rest of the world.
Don’t get me wrong, I know shite happens but I’ve taken to not thinking about it and concentrating on living in my own little happy bubble, blissfully ignorant of the wankers, bullies and bigots of the world. Whilst away for the weekend with some friends, I told them of my new philosophy and one said she likes the happy bubble Holly so I think I’m going to stick with it for a while.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
What price is freedom?
In the past couple of days I have seen two adverts for what appears to be freedom. ‘Hmmm…’ I hear you say ‘Surely you can’t buy freedom?’ My thoughts exactly. These adverts were actually for a TV and a perfume. How is a TV or perfume freedom? Surely TV and perfume are the total opposites of freedom? The adverts showed people outdoors, laughing, smiley, running around in the sunshine – all things that you can’t do whilst watching TV! It actually makes me think of the rant from Trainspotting, which nicely sums up all my objections to living in the rat race and consumerism in general. I summarise with this quote…
“Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth.”
And that’s why I don’t own a TV and why I object to freedom being used as a lifestyle to sell with. (By the way, I saw these adverts on 4od which isn’t technically TV.)
Incidentally, it appears that freedom can be bought on ebay.
Friday, 27 November 2009
Possum living: an inspirational push towards self sufficiency
To some extent, you could say that life has rather got in the way of my dreams recently. Yes, self sufficiency has been on my mind; I’ve recently been researching alternative food sources such a dogfish (which is usually caught as bycatch and discarded) but I’ve kind of neglected the bigger picture. So when I read about Dolly Freed on Off-Grid.net it was the wake up call I’ve needed for a long time.
I bought my first book about self sufficiency back in 2003 when I found myself stuck in a rut, doing a job I hated. It prompted me to set myself a target, focus on my goals and make some progress towards what I really wanted and not get sidetracked by the trappings of the rat-race. So today, Dolly and her laid back lifestyle gave me a kick up the arse. Why had I forgotten what I’ve been striving for? I’m already a step closer to my goal – I’m no longer renting so I’m not bound by the constraints of what a landlord says I can or cannot do to the garden. But I’ve not made any progress from there. I suppose the 9-5 distracted me again so now’s the time to get back to business. Don’t get my wrong, I’m not about to downshift and attempt The Good Life in my 2 bed terrace; the garden is far too small and shady for that. But I have spent this evening planning how to restructure the garden to grow food and which trees I should growing from seed now, so they are ready to fruit in a few years time when I have a bit a land to plant them in. Yes, it’s a very long term goal but its baby steps and first I need to learn how to grow food before I become dependant on my growing skills! So here goes… where did I put my trowel?
I bought my first book about self sufficiency back in 2003 when I found myself stuck in a rut, doing a job I hated. It prompted me to set myself a target, focus on my goals and make some progress towards what I really wanted and not get sidetracked by the trappings of the rat-race. So today, Dolly and her laid back lifestyle gave me a kick up the arse. Why had I forgotten what I’ve been striving for? I’m already a step closer to my goal – I’m no longer renting so I’m not bound by the constraints of what a landlord says I can or cannot do to the garden. But I’ve not made any progress from there. I suppose the 9-5 distracted me again so now’s the time to get back to business. Don’t get my wrong, I’m not about to downshift and attempt The Good Life in my 2 bed terrace; the garden is far too small and shady for that. But I have spent this evening planning how to restructure the garden to grow food and which trees I should growing from seed now, so they are ready to fruit in a few years time when I have a bit a land to plant them in. Yes, it’s a very long term goal but its baby steps and first I need to learn how to grow food before I become dependant on my growing skills! So here goes… where did I put my trowel?
Thursday, 12 November 2009
In search of happiness; are we looking too hard?
I received an email today, telling me of the happy smiling faces of the people of Madagascar. It got my thinking, would anyone ever say the people of Britain are happy smiley people? Well, no, they wouldn’t. Why? Because we’re not. We’re a nation of apathetic, cynical grouches. Only yesterday I saw a London commuter snap at a hapless traveller who didn’t move his foot fast enough. And I thought the English were supposed to be polite. We’re not, we’re selfish, self-involved and so thoroughly wrapped up in the rat-race and profit chasing that we’ll tread on anyone who gets in our way. I speak generally of course. Not all of us are like that, just the majority it seems.
So the Malagasy are happy despite being subsidence farmers, living on the poverty line and the English are miserable despite being filthy rich in comparison. Hmm… what’s wrong with this picture? The obvious answer is money doesn’t buy you happiness. We thought it might, pursuing the ‘American dream’ of a house, car, white goods and all mod cons but instead we’ve found that consumerism has no limits. What ever we have is never enough, we just want more and more.
In the pursuit of happiness we’ve forgotten what happiness is all about. Deep down we all know that money doesn’t buy us happiness. What makes us happy is sitting in the sun on a summer’s day or spending time with friends and family, but instead we’re in front of a desk, damaging our eyes to make money for some faceless company. Again I’m speaking generally about those London commuters but most of us are selling off huge chunks of our lives in exchange for money to buy stuff to compensate for the lack of time we have to spend with friends or sit in the sun. I’ve been warned off the ‘poor but happy’ ideal but in this demoralised modern world is does seem like a very tempting alternative.
So the Malagasy are happy despite being subsidence farmers, living on the poverty line and the English are miserable despite being filthy rich in comparison. Hmm… what’s wrong with this picture? The obvious answer is money doesn’t buy you happiness. We thought it might, pursuing the ‘American dream’ of a house, car, white goods and all mod cons but instead we’ve found that consumerism has no limits. What ever we have is never enough, we just want more and more.
In the pursuit of happiness we’ve forgotten what happiness is all about. Deep down we all know that money doesn’t buy us happiness. What makes us happy is sitting in the sun on a summer’s day or spending time with friends and family, but instead we’re in front of a desk, damaging our eyes to make money for some faceless company. Again I’m speaking generally about those London commuters but most of us are selling off huge chunks of our lives in exchange for money to buy stuff to compensate for the lack of time we have to spend with friends or sit in the sun. I’ve been warned off the ‘poor but happy’ ideal but in this demoralised modern world is does seem like a very tempting alternative.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Corporate Social Responsibility hits the high street? Well, not yet…
It’s been over two years now since that dreadful day in Harrods when I decided that consumerism really wasn’t for me. Since then, I’ve been living my life quite happily without frequenting the usual high street chain stores on a biweekly basis as so many people do. So what have I learned? Well, if you can find happiness by enjoying the simple things in life, then you don’t need to buy so much stuff. I feel the need to quote Sam Duckworth of Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly here ‘Open your eyes, as you don't need to buy it’. So, Sam Duckworth and I know that there’s more to life than shopping; Sam’s written a lovely little song about it but it seems that we’re in the minority.
Apparently fashionistas of the world are still even new to the idea of organic! Jigsaw, one of the high street heavy weights has just launched its ‘first ever’ organic range. Shame it’s a little late in the game. Both ASDA and Next were doing organic t-shirts at least a year ago. Meanwhile, the free newspaper I found on the train applauds Jigsaw for making green cool ‘and there’s not a Hessian sack in sight’. It seems that despite the hard work done by organisations such as Oxfam and War on Want, the fashion industry is still 20 years behind the food industry. So we’re still calling anyone with an environmental conscience a ‘greenie’ are we? Still perpetuating the stereotype of sandal wearing beardy hippy types? Tsk tsk.
Meanwhile, back in the business world, things are looking up. Despite the current recession the ‘ethical climate’ still continues, being led by the food industry. Fairtrade, organic and local have all been foody buzz words for a while but now the mainstream businesses have caught on. Big multinationals have noticed that Corporate Social Responsibility is not something to be sniffed at. Previous ideas of ‘we can’t mention the good things we do because it leaves us open to criticism on what we don’t do’ has been replaced by ‘this is what we do, we know we’re not perfect, but we’re working on it’ attitudes. Even Starbucks, mass consumerism in a cup, has a Global Responsibility report that details how much waste their disposable cups generate. It’s all about clearly stating business intentions, aiming to improve social and environmental standards and reporting on it. If more businesses can put these good intentions into practise, then perhaps we might actually make some progress towards more sustainable consumption.
Apparently fashionistas of the world are still even new to the idea of organic! Jigsaw, one of the high street heavy weights has just launched its ‘first ever’ organic range. Shame it’s a little late in the game. Both ASDA and Next were doing organic t-shirts at least a year ago. Meanwhile, the free newspaper I found on the train applauds Jigsaw for making green cool ‘and there’s not a Hessian sack in sight’. It seems that despite the hard work done by organisations such as Oxfam and War on Want, the fashion industry is still 20 years behind the food industry. So we’re still calling anyone with an environmental conscience a ‘greenie’ are we? Still perpetuating the stereotype of sandal wearing beardy hippy types? Tsk tsk.
Meanwhile, back in the business world, things are looking up. Despite the current recession the ‘ethical climate’ still continues, being led by the food industry. Fairtrade, organic and local have all been foody buzz words for a while but now the mainstream businesses have caught on. Big multinationals have noticed that Corporate Social Responsibility is not something to be sniffed at. Previous ideas of ‘we can’t mention the good things we do because it leaves us open to criticism on what we don’t do’ has been replaced by ‘this is what we do, we know we’re not perfect, but we’re working on it’ attitudes. Even Starbucks, mass consumerism in a cup, has a Global Responsibility report that details how much waste their disposable cups generate. It’s all about clearly stating business intentions, aiming to improve social and environmental standards and reporting on it. If more businesses can put these good intentions into practise, then perhaps we might actually make some progress towards more sustainable consumption.
Friday, 4 September 2009
Wants, needs and homogenised households: just another day avoiding temptation
I’ve been rather quiet recently, but it’s not because I’ve given up, it’s because I’m doing ok. Over the past few months I’ve had a bit of a reassess and I’m trying to live my life more simply. I’ve been buying more bread from my local bakers, buying less ‘stuff’ that I don’t need and generally working out where I want to go from here. I must confess, I have been buying more CDs as I no longer have a TV, but charity shops are pretty good for CDs too! I was starting to think ‘yes, it’s been two years and finally I’m not finding this ethical shopping thing too much of a struggle.’ My mindset of staying out of the shops to avoid temptation was working. I’ve been spending my time gardening, giving new life to my old furniture and picture frames and I have a pile of fabric I inherited that I intend to make cushions from (thank you Kirsty’s homemade home for the well timed inspiration).
However, I returned home from work last night to find an Ikea catalogue on my doormat. Flicking through the glossy pages I found the old familiar pang of ‘want’, clever disguised as ‘need’ nagging at me. ‘But its only £15 for a 100% cotton duvet cover’ my little brain was crying, ‘that’s so much cheaper and easier than spending £50 on that fair-trade organic cotton and making a duvet cover.’ You can’t fault my logic, but the glaringly obvious still remains. How can Ikea possibly make this stuff so cheap and retain their ethics? The catalogue includes a double page spread of how they intend to improve, using less packaging, including more recycled materials and solar powered lamps which is all very commendable but it’s the very nature of Ikea that I’m opposed to. It’s the mass produced, cheap & cheerful items that make everyone’s house look the same which crushes peoples’ individual style, tells us how our homes should look and homogenises households into something that you can buy online in a few easy steps. Don’t get my wrong, for some people it’s perfect, but I like the way that most of my furniture has a past. For example, my desk used to belong to my mum’s yoga teacher friend, my chest of drawers became mine when a friend moved to America and my Grandma made my bedspread. No one else in the world has a patchwork bedspread like mine! Having said that, I’m still tempted to get the £15 duvet cover; I love my ethics but I also love a bargain!
However, I returned home from work last night to find an Ikea catalogue on my doormat. Flicking through the glossy pages I found the old familiar pang of ‘want’, clever disguised as ‘need’ nagging at me. ‘But its only £15 for a 100% cotton duvet cover’ my little brain was crying, ‘that’s so much cheaper and easier than spending £50 on that fair-trade organic cotton and making a duvet cover.’ You can’t fault my logic, but the glaringly obvious still remains. How can Ikea possibly make this stuff so cheap and retain their ethics? The catalogue includes a double page spread of how they intend to improve, using less packaging, including more recycled materials and solar powered lamps which is all very commendable but it’s the very nature of Ikea that I’m opposed to. It’s the mass produced, cheap & cheerful items that make everyone’s house look the same which crushes peoples’ individual style, tells us how our homes should look and homogenises households into something that you can buy online in a few easy steps. Don’t get my wrong, for some people it’s perfect, but I like the way that most of my furniture has a past. For example, my desk used to belong to my mum’s yoga teacher friend, my chest of drawers became mine when a friend moved to America and my Grandma made my bedspread. No one else in the world has a patchwork bedspread like mine! Having said that, I’m still tempted to get the £15 duvet cover; I love my ethics but I also love a bargain!
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