Things you may not know about me #1
12 November 2005 @ 22:43 in Life
I'm a bleeding heart liberal. I support* both
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. The latter
because they actually play the game,
politically-speaking, and demonstrate serious
research and consistent lobbying. I'm a little
ashamed still to be supporting Greenpeace, as
their stunts often err on the side of 'what a
bunch of tossers', but I think they play an
invaluable role in keeping the environment on
the public's agenda. I just wish they'd be a
little less 'Fathers 4 Justice' about the whole
thing.
I also support* Trees for Cities – specifically a little copse on the South Bank. Though it's not a panacea, I love the concept of carbon offsetting, and like to think that I am in a very very small way helping to make myself carbon neutral. (Not a sentence you'll hear often, I suspect, viz: "What do you want to be when you grow up?", "Carbon neutral.")
In this vein, here are a couple of suggestions for an ethical Christmas. Friends of the Earth have teamed up with The Magazine Group to offer cheap subscriptions to a huge range of magazines. On top of the savings you make, FoE gets at least £8 for every subscription sold through this link. (If I might make a suggestion, I hear that this magazine is particularly fine...)
There's plenty of time still to get Christmas cards ordered from Card Aid, which supplies cards of various designs to support over a hundred charities.
Best of the bunch, though, is the fantastic catalogue I got through the post a few weeks ago detailing lots of ethical gifts, such as preserving an acre of rainforest for £25 or a £20 hive of bees to provide income for a disadvantaged family. There's a website too – check out www.goodgifts.org – and you can feel virtuous even just reading it.
To cheer up this post which has rather slipped into the po-faced, here's a picture of the rather lovely bottle of apple juice I bought the other day at a painfully right-on sandwich bar near my office. Quelle retro!
* Support in these instances doesn't just mean setting up a Direct Debit. I do try hard to join in debates, lobby my MP (the frighteningly glamorous Joan Ruddock) and generally muck in. But, like I say, bleeding heart liberal.
I also support* Trees for Cities – specifically a little copse on the South Bank. Though it's not a panacea, I love the concept of carbon offsetting, and like to think that I am in a very very small way helping to make myself carbon neutral. (Not a sentence you'll hear often, I suspect, viz: "What do you want to be when you grow up?", "Carbon neutral.")
In this vein, here are a couple of suggestions for an ethical Christmas. Friends of the Earth have teamed up with The Magazine Group to offer cheap subscriptions to a huge range of magazines. On top of the savings you make, FoE gets at least £8 for every subscription sold through this link. (If I might make a suggestion, I hear that this magazine is particularly fine...)
There's plenty of time still to get Christmas cards ordered from Card Aid, which supplies cards of various designs to support over a hundred charities.
Best of the bunch, though, is the fantastic catalogue I got through the post a few weeks ago detailing lots of ethical gifts, such as preserving an acre of rainforest for £25 or a £20 hive of bees to provide income for a disadvantaged family. There's a website too – check out www.goodgifts.org – and you can feel virtuous even just reading it.
To cheer up this post which has rather slipped into the po-faced, here's a picture of the rather lovely bottle of apple juice I bought the other day at a painfully right-on sandwich bar near my office. Quelle retro!
* Support in these instances doesn't just mean setting up a Direct Debit. I do try hard to join in debates, lobby my MP (the frighteningly glamorous Joan Ruddock) and generally muck in. But, like I say, bleeding heart liberal.
