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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Gordon Brown - defender of the earth?

Posted 21/10/09 by Matt B in the Online category

Gordon Brown (the UK PM) has told some of the worlds leading nations Once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice he added that The costs of failing to tackle the issue would be greater than the impact of both world wars and the Great Depression combined (source).

So why is the head guy in the UK choosing now to stand up for the planet?

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Pipe?

Posted 10/10/09 by Matt B in the Questions category

Pipe smoking in the great out doors - what do you think?

» Read More: Pipe?

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Twisted thinking in the pub game

Posted 07/10/09 by Matt B in the Unspecified category

n the county of Kent is a small family run brewer Shepherd Neame. After what they called "a hard year" they have profits of £6.9 million.

Apparently this is not good enough because last year they managed to scoop £8.7 million and in the insane world of big business infinite and unlimited growth is required or you are considered to be "failing".

Failing?

That amount of money could keep a family comfortably well of for over 170 years. But for Shepherd Neame this is not good enough so they are selling the lower performing pubs to help the balance sheet look better.

Forget having a healthy portfolio of pubs offering maximum potential reach, forget brand equity, forget customer satisfaction and forget distribution figures. No the only metric Shepherd Neame seem to care about is earning more this year than last year.

The twisted thinking that says only growth is stability is madness. That's like saying war is peace.

How can we have unlimited growth forever in a finite system? Stability is not growth it is evening an out such that the net present value of last year, this year and next are roughly equal within a reasonable set of tolerances.

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