View From The Basement

God Bless America

A friend pointed me towards this fascinating documentary that went out on Channel 4. It's called, "God Bless America" and looks at the association of the religious right in the US with the republican party and how that relationship changed over the recent presidential election.

You can watch it on Channel 4's play back service.

It features many of the main players, those who ran the "faith teams" for the respective candidates. It interestingly points to how many conservative evangelicals where changed politically by going to New Orleans to get involved with relief projects there. It also highlights a "new bread" of evangelical leaders such as Richard Cizik and Joel Hunter (Pastor of Northland, Orlando) who have a broader agenda than that of the traditional narrow issues. It also shows Don Miller (author of Blue like Jazz) endorsing Obama.

Worth a look.

It's the cats that are to blame

It would seem that I've been worrying about my contribution to depleting fish stocks when the "real" culprits to the crisis in many of the world's fisheries are cats. Australian scientist Giovanni Turchini carried out some research looking at the consumption of fish by pet cats as compared to humans.

Here's the basic findings of his research;

Cats eat 2.48 million tonnes of anchovies, herrings and sardines each year.

American cats eat the most getting their way through 11.1 million tonnes of fish.

Australian cats eat 13.7kg of fish a year each compared to the average Australian person who only eats 11kg a year.

Part of the issue with the tonnage of fish that cats are consuming each year is that the species they consume are important in maintaining some of the bigger fish in the fisheries - tuna for example. Thus if cats continue to eat fish in such large quantities then other species will be effected leading to a collapse of fisheries.

The obvious point to make however is that its not cats that go to the shops to buy their food but their owners. Not being a cat owner myself (personally I don't like cats) I'm not sure what alternative foods are available for them. Perhaps all you cat owners can bring some pressure on the cat food manufacturers to provide more alternatives and also to look at the way the fish that is in their tins are caught? (line caught fish are better for the environment that fish that have been bottom trawled as the weights on the nets smash and plough up the ocean bed damaging the ecosystem and deep fish nurseries).

There is also an interesting sociological angle to this. Why are more people keeping cats? Does it have something to do with our busy lifestyles - unlike a dog a cat does not need walked by its owner a couple of times a day.

Wasps in the Compost

we have wasps in our compost. The wee holes in the bin which are meant to let the compost breathe are letting the wasps in and out, and judging from the numbers they have built a nest.

I'm not alone in having wasps. The good people over at My Zero Waste also have wasps in their compost. There are some helpful (I hope) comments about what to do.

The hydrogen car is here

This is very cool - see here

Saving Money when you drive

Perhaps the first thing I should say is that this is not my car! It's simply the only photo of a car I have that I also have the right to use.

The recent hikes in forecourt petrol prices have exposed (if ever it needed exposed) our addiction to oil and our reliance on the car. We try and use our car wisely for both economic and environmental reasons. My wife and I even had a conversation recently about whether we could do without a car. The answer at this point of time is no - we still need a car - but yes we are committed to reducing year on year the mileage we do.

That said there are things that can be done to reduce the petrol you use and therefore the amount of emissions you make. So here's my list...

(1) Take your bike rack, roof rack, canoe rack etc off the car when your not transporting your bike or canoe etc. It's simple aerodynamics and even an unloaded rood rack will add to your fuel use. While I'm on the point, why do people need bike racks? I thought the idea of a bike was to cycle it, not stick is onto your car! Ok, perhaps you want to cycle somewhere different - well take the train somewhere different and cycle home.

(2) Make sure your tire pressure is correct.

(3) Given the amount of energy needed to move anything is connected to its mass make your car lighter. Now I'm not suggesting that you remove bits of your car, but if your car is anything like ours then the boot becomes a storage point and you end up driving around with a boot full of stuff adding to the weight of your car.

Why not go for what I'm calling the double bonus - lose some weight - that way you save on your food bill plus your car does not have to work so hard to move you from A to B as you weigh less.

The reduce your weight idea also applies to how much fuel you put in the car each time you fill it, so try and run with your tank less than 1/2 full.

(4) If the journey is less than 2 miles then you really should not take the car. Ok so this is a little more difficult if you've small kids or a lot of stuff to carry, but in the first two miles or so your car is at its most inefficient and just guzzles the fuel.

(5) Stick to the speed limit, especially on the motorway. Now we should all be doing this anyway, but if you sit at 70 on the M-way then you know that there are a lot of people who are not. Fuel efficiency drops dramatically after approx 60 mph, so if your on eof those people who power along the M-way at 80+ then your costing yourself and the environment.

(6) Don't be a boy racer! When the green lights come on at traffic lights your not at Silverstone. Move away smoothly. When I was a kid we sometimes borrowed a relatives car. My Dad got far better miles per gallon than they did because he's an old smoothie and does accelerate aggressively.

Along with this select the right gear so your engine is working at its most efficient.

(7) AC in a car seems to be an ambiguous one with experts saying it does or does not add to your fuel bill. What there does seem to be agreement on is that for short journeys, say less than 20 mins then its not worth putting your AC on, just to leave your car to get all hot again. For long M-way journeys having a window open is going to cause so much drag that it will out weigh any saving made from not using AC. What we try and do on a long journey is have the AC on to cool the car down. Once the car and the air system is cool switch to the normal air vent system.

Anyone else got any bright ideas?

Carbon Neutral Mission

Last summer I lead a Youth Mission Trip to New Orleans to get involved in some relief work following Hurricane Katrina. We flew from Edinburgh to Atlanta and then on to New Orleans. I've calculated the CO2 for this trip  @ 1.6 t , and tried to work out how many tree's I'd have to plant to off-set this.

The amount of CO2 a tree will absorb depends on many variables, so any calculations are a bit of a guesstimate. I reckon 20 trees will over 4 - 5 years will off-set my CO2 for this trip.

So this month I'm going to give to Greenbelt. Not this Greenbelt, or that Greenbelt, but the Greenbelt Movement . This movement was set up by Wangari Maathai the 2004 Nobel Prize winner. What I like about it is that it's not just an environmental project planting trees in Kenya, but looks to provide employment for women, both in the planting of the trees and then in the management of the planted area.

For more than just my sins.

If you've been reading this blog for a while then you should have picked up that I'm passionate about the environment and about reducing our impact upon it.

This topic came up in conversation with someone the other day who is a global warming sceptic, so is not going to let anyone advise him, much less make him drive less! [in an earlier version of this post I said who this person was. This caused offense and embarrassment which was not my intention and for that I apologise for any offense caused. It was mean as an example to show that many people are glabal warming secptics and that persuading them otherwise is difficult. Thus was I propose below is meant as a third way, a reason for creation care that does not rely on proof or otherwise of global warming]. The next day Channel 4 showed a "documentary" called, The Great Global Warming Swindle in which the parade a bunch of scientist who disagree with the view that global warming has anything to do with man or the carbon we are pumping into the environment.

For the record, I think we are contributing to the rate of change in the global climate, but even it such a view was to 'scientifically' be shown to be wrong it would not change my attitude to the environment.

For me the issue comes down to a similar logic that Paul employs when he says, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!" (Romans 6:1 - 2) I do not deliberately sin thinking that "well God will forgive me anyway and transform me in the end", yet I've met many people who would use a similar argument to this for their abuse of the environement. "Why should I change my habits, I mean God's going to destroy the earth and make it all new anyway" is how the argument is some times framed.

Yet in Romans 8 Paul clearly links our salvation and transformation to that of the rest of the created order. Jesus did not just die for my sins but for the transformation of all of creation. It is perhaps no surprise in our self obsessed society that salvation is so often framed in solely personal / individual terms, yet throughout scripture we see that God's purposes are much wider than this. Thus just as I desire and know God's grace in my life effecting sanctification, so as agents of God's grace we participate in the sanctification in the transformation of the rest of creation. Fernando quotes the following from the Pope, the Christian people, in giving thanks to God through the Eucharist, should be conscious that they do so in the name of all creation, aspiring to the sanctification of the world and working intensely to that end.

There is so much more that could be said on this but the Pope's words seem good to end on, Amen.

Modest steps

I like and have found both encouragement and challenge in the following words from David Burrell;

"we [must] take the sort of steps which are on a scale modest enough to be incorporated into our own story ...if we begin to alter the pattern of our lives, however, we will have to explain those actions to ourselves and those close to us".

Trident

On the 4th of December this year PM Blair made a Parliamentary Statement about the UK's "nuclear deterrent". To summaries PM Blair states that the UK has had an independent nuclear deterrent for the "last half century" and that this not only made sense during the cold war era with the Soviet Union, but also makes sense in today's world. Given this PM Blair has indicated that he thinks it best that we renew or replace the Trident missile system which is stationed some 40miles from where I sit at home (as the crow fly's). The cost of this is an estimated 20Billion pounds UK Sterling.

Since this statement there has been much written and said about whither this is right or wrong. Stuart gives his thoughts as does Andy. So what so I have to add to what has already been said?

Much of the comment I've seen on TV has followed the line of reasoning that with the Soviet threat gone then we have no requirement for a nuclear deterrent. For me this is a false line of reasoning. Who knows what the political make up of the world will be in 25 - 30 years!

No - if we are going to say know to the UK maintaining or renewing a nuclear deterrent then the argument must be based on principle rather than mere political reasoning or some form of pragmatics. As a follower of Jesus the rational behind this principled rejection of nuclear arms must be based on the person of Jesus and the inbreaking of His peaceable kingdom. The church can, and must, speak into the political sphere. This is neither a perfectionist ethic or an over realised eschatology but rather is faithfulness to the message of Jesus and his kingdom.

It is from this foundation that we can then build our reasoning against nuclear arms. Such reasoning would question the need for such a system, the cost and thus the ethics of what any government could have spent this money on, and what message our renewal of a neuclear system would send to a world in which we want non-proliferation. In my opinion, if we divorce our reasoning from the peacableness of Jesus then we have nothing to say and no hope to offer.

exciting shopping

On the 1st and 3rd Saturday of each month there's a Farmers market in the park near to where we live and work. One of the veg farmers does a deal where of a tenner a week he'll deliver a bag of fresh organic veg.

We signed up for this a few weeks ago and now Wednesday has become a day of excitement as we wait to see what veg we'll get this week. This pic to the left is not our veg, our veg comes complete with mud, just the way it should be. This week we got some potatoes - they are honestly the best spuds I've tasted in years, onions, a bulb of garlic, a leek, some parsnips (my favourite veg) and a nice wee pumpkin (need to look our my recipe for pumpkin soup).

Along with the veg you also get a wee news letter from the farmer. Alison commented yesterday, "it's great you feel like your part of his family", as the letter not only tells you what's in the bag, it's nutritional "value" and suggestion of what to do with it, but also news from the farmer, the weddings he's been to, the struggles he had with some unexpected frost.

Our bag of veg also helps keep us in line with what's in season, as it's all local produce. On Saturday we bought the last of the Clyde Valley tomatoes from a stall at the market, so now I'll have to resist buying Tomatoes in the supermarket that have been flown half way around the world.