This is my dream: To live as my forefathers once did - in harmony with the land that sustains us. A project to investigate and innovate the creation of a low impact home with methods of living in a form of permaculture designed to sustain my family and improve biodiversity. To leave the land richer than before and in doing so enable others to do so.
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You are currently viewing archive for June 2008
An ecologically informed approach to education.
Posted 28/06/08 by Matt B in the Unspecified category
As ecologically minded people it falls to us to investigate if a more "natural" lifestyle and ecologically informed methods of doing things can have a positive benefit on commonly accepted practices.Take, for example, schools - currently children start school very early and are pushed academically right from the start. However, The Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) are suggesting that school starting age should be increased to seven years of age. [BBC News Story]
Child development expert Elizabeth Hartley Brewer writes in the Telegraph "Does early schooling harm our children?" asking exactly the same question (also of British Schools). The issue is raise in theage.com.au
Also raising the question is this academic study: Is Early Learning Really More Productive? The Effect of School Starting Age on School and Labor Market Performance by Peter Fredriksson and
Björn Öckert. (Germany).
This study shows clearly the school starting ages in different countries. Four years old being the youngest age (Northern Ireland) with a few countries opting for five years of age (Malta, Netherlands England and the rest of the UK) while the bulk opt for six years of age (Austria, Belgium, Norway, Portugal and many others).
» Read More: An ecologically informed approach to education.
What do we drink now?
Posted 25/06/08 by Matt B in the Feeding Yourself category
With the appalling story from the BBC "Sickness bug found in tap water, (BBC News)" echoing so closely the fears written about in "What replacements are there for main water?" (questions 20/04/08) we can no longer hide from the fact that water supply to any given area is a natural monopoly.As a result we have a shared resource and it takes only one person to make things very bad for us all.
In "Pissing in your own well?" I addressed the issue of Thanet and the risk posed to it's water supply. Until we have mass installations of personal rainwater reclamation systems this is a warning to us all.
Water is a commons. It is at risk.
Soap from trees
Posted 19/06/08 by Matt B in the Woodlands category
As Linda rightly says in her post "Petroleum-Based Cleaners" soaps made from pertrolium (itself derived from oil) are not a sustainable way to clean yourself or your clothes. Linda points out sources where you can purchase petroleum free soap but I want to take things a bit further. I'm going to look at using things you can pick yourself as soap.We'll start with conkers which are the seed from the Aesculus hippocastanum or horse chestnut tree. This is a tree that is common throughout most temperate areas and is a common sight in most parks in the UK. A mere 20 conkers are needed to make up three litres of washing water. The only caveat is that it should be rainwater if at all possible or softened in some other way.
In the past, Horse-chestnut seeds were used in France and Switzerland for whitening hemp, flax, silk and wool. They contain a soapy juice, fit for washing of linens and stuffs, for milling of caps and stockings, etc., and for fulling of cloth. For this, 20 horse-chestnut seeds were sufficient for six litres of water. They were peeled, then rasped or dried, and ground in a malt or other mill. The water must be soft, either rain or river water; hard well water will not work. The nuts are then steeped in cold water, which soon becomes frothy, as with soap, and then turns milky white. The liquid must be stirred well at first, and then, after standing to settle, strained or poured off clear. Linen washed in this liquid, and afterwards rinsed in clear running water, takes on an agreeable light sky-blue colour. It takes spots out of both linen and wool, and never damages or injures the cloth.
» Read More: Soap from trees
Eco Village Building
Posted 16/06/08 by Matt B in the Questions category
If you were to attempt to found a new eco village how would you do it?» Read More: Eco Village Building
Green Real Estate in Thanet, Kent
Posted 12/06/08 by Matt B in the Online category
I have been looking recently at the issue of houses. Let's be honest - we all need somewhere to live and as such the real estate industry is likely to be with us for a good long time yet. While this is, no doubt, good for the economy it is not necessarily so good for the planet.There is nothing that encourages the supply of ecologically balanced homes.
Take, for example, a very quick study I did of the search results for real estate in Thanet. Thanet is located in Kent (UK) and was recently awarded more blue flags (an indication of high quality beaches) than any other part of Britain. One would, therefore, expect the industry to be quite lively there.
The truth, it seems, is a little stranger. I ran a generic search term "real estate thanet" through the thanet finder search engine and then through Google before running it through the Green Moral Search engine (Green Search: real estate thanet). The result was, on the whole, a bit limited but only in some ways.
» Read More: Green Real Estate in Thanet, Kent
Ecovillages
Posted 05/06/08 by Matt B in the Unspecified category
In this video John Talbott the Director of Findhorn Ecovillage presents a different way forward for development and housing. I find it interesting that he says that modern towns and cities look like cancer cells from the air.
Findhorn Ecovillage is based at a Park, in Moray, Scotland near the village of Findhorn. The ecovillage's main aim is to demonstrate a sustainable development in environmental, social, and economic terms. The idea is simple - wastage is simply energy in the wrong place.
» Read More: Ecovillages
Planning...
Posted 02/06/08 by Matt B in the Green Moral category
I feel this can only be good news for my dream. It is time I feel to become a trend setter - to dream the undreamable and to think the unthinkable and most of all to do the impossible.Britain has tight rules on building new homes — which help account for Britian’s high house prices and pretty patchworks of green fields on the outskirts of big British cities.
But the UK’s population is swelling, putting pressure on housing space. Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he wants 3 million more homes by 2020, and all new build to be zero carbon from 2016 on.
Surely that plays into the hands of off-gridders seeking a life closer to Nature, where lunchbreaks entail a stroll in the woods rather than a frantic dash for an over-priced sandwich.
I have a plan. It is, as plans go, utterly insane, off the wall and completely without president and if it works it could pave the way for lots of people in the UK to live the dream. I will be asking for your support soon but for now all I ask is that you sign up for my feed (by email or by feed reader) so that you miss nothing.
Green living in the UK is about to get interesting.
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