Archive for October, 2009

I can’t believe this is the first time I’m writing about this. Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Today is Blog Action Day, and this year’s topic is climate change. That means that this post is one of over 7,000 in over 130 countries, with a readership of over 11,268,800 readers, writing about this issue today.

I first became engaged in the problem of climate change when I was offered a job fighting it. In fact, even that engagement happened pretty gradually - since it didn’t happen because it was necessary: it happened because it was unavoidable. Every day I’m exposed to two quite polar things: the evidence of the effects that climate change is already having on thousands of people every day; and the massive, powerful and inspiring movement working to combat it.

One of the researchers at Oxfam told me a story about workers at a banana plantation in Malawi. The plantation had been washed away by floods, and many of the (ex)workers, who were mostly women, headed to the towns to prostitute themselves, which of course led in turn to greater rates of HIV and AIDS. It’s astonishing just how broad and significant the far-reaching effects of climate change are. Even in my home town of Felixstowe businesses have been swept straight from the shore.

We have an opportunity not just to solve the problems of the present, but also to shape a beautiful future on an unprecedented scale

What’s equally strange, frustrating and wonderful is that the solutions to this problem are both readily available and very exciting. We have an opportunity not just to solve the problems of the present, but also to shape a beautiful future on an unprecedented scale. Finding and executing answers to climate change means creating new jobs, new communities, new businesses, new friendships, locally, nationally, internationally. It is a chance for a fresh start. And just as exciting - although we would prefer it to be unnecessary - is the movement campaigning for those with the power to support us in this fresh start to do so.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to meet - and be part of - another group in this movement: the UK Youth Climate Coalition. It was moving and motivating to spend several days with a group of people so selflessly and passionately dedicated to doing something so very vital. It was also reassuring: I feel secure in the knowledge that there are so many intelligent, brilliant people fighting for a clean and safe future for us all.

I would absolutely encourage you to do whatever you can, whatever you want to, to help combat the biggest problem humanity has ever faced

Getting involved can mean anything from civil disobedience to signing a petition, from climate camping or scaling the houses of parliament to painting your face blue or just dancing your socks off. But it is immensely rewarding to know that you have been involved in the fight for a better future for everyone, and I would absolutely encourage you to do whatever you can, whatever you want to, to help combat the biggest problem humanity has ever faced. This December, decision makers from around the world will gather in Copenhagen to decide what action to take on climate change. We need to ensure that the deal they come to is fair - insisting those most responsible for climate change support those least responsible, who are also those hit first and hardest - ambitious enough to tackle the problem, and binding. Now is our best - and perhaps last - chance to act.

Below are some great videos, and if you want to find out more I would recommend visiting the websites 350 and TckTckTck.

Posted in Books, Climate change, Films, Oxfam, Oxford, Personal, Politics, Science and technology • No comments

Power Shift ‘09 Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
A round up of coverage so far:

Friends on Facebook will probably already be tired of hearing about Power Shift, so I’m not going to say too much about it, rather let the coverage speak for itself. What I would like to say is that, not entirely - but predominantly - because of the event, I had one of the best weekends ever (it was also great thanks to sambucca, two shut-ins and a magician who read my mind and [literally] made my pulse stop). It’s unspeakably inspiring to spend several days in the company of a few hundred brilliant people who are all sincerely motivated and committed to such a monumental cause. The crew - all under 25 years old - who put together the program proved themselves to be a group of talented, innovative, passionate people who really are going to change the world with the support of the thousands that they teach and energise.

Here’s the video:

Posted in Climate change, Personal, Politics • No comments

Diary of a tourist in the USA Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

I wake up on my first full day in New York physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted.

On Friday night I took the snap decision to bus to London to celebrate Frida’s birthday. The upshot of this was two and a half hour’s sleep and a hefty taxi bill - both of which were fine since I would have regretted the alternative (staying in) even more. On the plane I watched The Notebook, which is probably the weepiest film I’ve ever seen, on Nat’s recommendation. Then when we arrived, a gaggle of my American buddies unexpectedly came to meet me in the city. I had forgotten just how much I love and miss these people. I think I dragged Thom and Ian around a bit in order to stay with my American friends, but they’re some of my favourite people in the world. When we said goodbye at the end of the evening I was filled with heartbreak and guilt - what was I doing in the States without having planned to see these guys for more than a few hours?

*

Sunday starts off badly. We go for breakfast at Tiffany’s; having not seen the film I’m not sure what the significance of this is, or if breakfast is even served there, but it sounds like one of the Things To Do while in NYC. Tiffany’s is closed, and we visit the Trump Tower, where Ian - a friend of Thom’s from Amsterdam - buys a golf towel for $20.69. It dawns on me that I am not in similar company. This is further compounded when our choice of restaurant for breakfast - pancakes with strawberries and a glass of orange juice - costs $25.

We amble about NYC for a while and finally hop on the boat to Islands Liberty and Ellis. This suits me. We are being Good Tourists. In the immigration museum, I wonder what happened between 1954 and now to make the US so viciously opposed to “aliens” moving in.

Back on land, Thom and Ian want to visit Macy’s, “the largest store in the world”. This does not appeal to me and I find that with every floor I rise up my communistic anger does the same. I take the escalator straight to the top and straight back down again, then sit outside in the Sun in the cycle lane for 40 minutes. One bicycle passes me. Later, I find out Ian spent $300 on a pair of sunglasses. I think I am going to hate him.

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Monday: we arrive in Vegas. Over the last few days I have come to realise - although surely I have always known this - that this holiday is totally unsuited to me. I have no interest in having lots of money, or shopping, or exorbitant over-indulgence. So I am surprised to find that, when we arrive in this bizarre, lego-brick town, I am entirely charmed by it. There is something beautiful in its gaudiness.

After paying an extra - and unanticipated - $300 deposit for our hotel room, I break my internet embargo to transfer some extra funds to the account that I brought a card for (I wisely left one card at home, thus limiting my potential losses). We set off across the casino floor and were seduced by a croupier at a blackjack table, where Ian placed a $50 bet and stuck on 9 when the dealer had 10. I was unsure whether to feel relief that I couldn’t possibly match this absurdity or panic that, in all likelihood, my own inexperience would result in similar humiliation. Then we set off to see Penn and Teller. They were entertaining, but performed only low-key tricks that had been done many times before - hardly worth the $90 ticket price.

I promise this blog post does get more positive.

Exhausted (now eight hours separated from our body clocks), we insisted on doing some gambling before bedtime. I played $1 in a slot machine, which involved inserting a bill and pressing a button. I realised instantly that this was going to hold no appeal for me. Afterwards, pacing the casino floor, I see person after person sitting solitary at these machines, idly and seemingly disinterestedly pushing buttons, time after time, to no avail. I can’t keep the image of a trained monkey out of my mind. What is the draw here?

Finally I settle at a table where the croupier teaches us Caribbean Stud Poker. It’s a dull but easy game, and at $5 a bet, stakes are low. I play for 20-odd minutes, my profits fluctuating, and come out $12 down on a $40 investment. But I am no longer a novice. I feel ready - for bed, for the next day, and for Vegas.

*

Tuesday. I have grown a beard, and it is infuriatingly itchy. Today I will buy razors - but this, amazingly, turns out to be the least exciting thing about my day. In fact, I don’t even know why I’m mentioning it.

The day begins with a visit to Stratosphere, where we are hung and propelled 900 feet above the strip in the name of adrenaline-based entertainment. Then we head to the Luxor - my favourite of the casinos so far - to see the famous Bodies exhibition. It’s fascinating and brilliant. One room houses embryos at various stages of development, from a barely-visible speck to a recognisable creature the size of a Ty toy. Some of them have had their bones injected with dye so you can see how they develop over the months.

In the evening I realised a ten-year ambition of mine, when we saw Cirque de Soleil perform live. They have had a theatre built especially for their show “Ka” at the MGM Grand. There are iron towers surrounding the auditorium, from which they climb, swing and leap. The stage is not a stage but a pit, its bottom invisible to the audience, and from it three platforms rise and rotate, and on them the circus perform their feats. And what feats! The movements these people make just sing. They are at once beautiful, astonishing, impossible and inspired. I can, without hyperbole, state that Ka is the most amazing and impressive thing I have ever seen. I left with tears in my eyes and no words to describe why. All I can do is encourage you emphatically to see the show if you have the chance.

*

Wednesday. I agreed to go with Thom and Ian to a shooting range, where they spent over $100 on a package allowing them to shoot paper targets of Muslims with weaponry matching that used in Iraq. One of the assistants actually said “Durka durka!” - the phrase used with such irony in Team America, lost on this one - as one of the shredded sheets returned. For the sake of getting involved I shot Dirty Harry’s 44 magnum at a zombie.

In the evening Thom and Ian elected to see a striptease. I’m neither prudish nor cheap, but the prospect of spending $60 on a striptease when there were six different Cirque de Soleil shows in town hardly appealed, so I saw Mystère by myself. Not as epic as Ka but still astonishingly impressive. As I left, the Bellagio’s midnight water show was beginning, so I stopped to watch. Thom and Ian visited some bars and got kicked out of a club. I feel I got the better deal.

*

Thursday was spent driving to Arizona in a Ford Mustang. We escaped the electric excess of Vegas and found ourselves thousands of feet up in the mountains, rolling through honest American villages where the only professions are teacher, preacher, barber and shopkeeper. This, I remembered, is the America I love. Out here everything is quiet, gentle, familiar. The real America, at least as I’ve seen it, is not the brash, violent, stupid America that its own media portrays it as, but these communities outside the city walls. Here people know each other, and if they don’t, they’ll befriend you. People in real America just seem to love life and people. Maybe I’m blinkered, but I feel like I’ve sen more of this country than many who don’t live here, and I think I’ve seen a side of it that is undeservedly unpublicised, unheralded - unseen. It is this quiet, friendly, happy America that I fell in love with and I would still love to live here one day.

We’re staying at the Red Feather Lodge - little different to your best Westerns or Holiday Inns, except that it is family-owned. There seems to be a current running through the building - touching anything results in a static shock. We take to touching everything metal as we walk down the corridors, to discharge and avoid sparks when we reach our rooms.

*

Breakfast on Friday was a croissant, a bowl of fresh fruit, a glass of fresh orange juice and a cup of tea. Man, I have missed eating healthily. One of the things I would (will?) find interminably difficult to adjust to if living in the States is the quality of the food. As a visitor, a healthy diet - let alone a vegetarian or vegan one - is a logistical challenge all by itself. But I suspect living, rather than visiting, here would make that far easier.

We spent this morning walking along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It’s everything it’s talked up to be - vast, beautiful, breathtaking. And it’s the most peaceful place I’ve ever been. If there are no birds circling or distant airplanes, the park is silent. Silent. There is no sound but your own footsteps. I suspect the hardest materialist could become the most prolific artists here. I think my 2011 epic challenge might be to hike across the Canyon.

This afternoon we were due to take a helicopter over the Canyon itself, but the price tag was far higher than I expected. Not only am I not able to spend $225 on a 45-minutes helicopter, ride, I’d also be unwilling to do so if I could afford it. It’s one luxurious expense too far and I can’t handle such a level of self-spoiling. Thom and Ian, whom I assume are on much higher salaries, or are much better at managing their savings, carried on without me. But Ian was incredulous that I would walk the 10-minute route back to the hotel rather than wait for a ride or take a taxi, so I suspect he has difficulty with perspective.

Here I am sitting in the shade in a tiny town by the Grand Canyon. This is my kind of holiday. Despite its glamour, glory, strange beauty and inspired extravagance, I don’t think I’ll be visiting Vegas again soon. I remembered today that when my Grandma died, the children’s orphanage in India that she supported so well and for so long dedicated a newly built tower to her. I want to find out where it is, and make my next holiday a trip to see the Kinley Bell, and meet the people she wrote to and helped.

Once Thom and Ian return, we plan to watch the Sun set over the Canyon, then take a full moonlit walk (at 7.30pm!) with one of the rangers. Tomorrow we’ll return to watch the Sun rise again, before we set off to the airport and return home. I’m glad our trip ended here, in this peaceful place, and I’m glad to be heading home. I really think that part of the joy of a good holiday is knowing that you have something just as wonderful to return to - and I do.

Posted in Personal, Travel, USA • No comments