Last updated: 26 November 2009
Steve Jones, permaculture teacher and green adviser to the Davies family, gives his views on sustainable living.
Going Green? Don't make me laugh!
Sustainable living has still not quite escaped its sandal-wearing, tree-hugger image from the 1970s for some, and there is a strong temptation to dismiss the whole thing on the strength of that. Add to that the emergence of green politics in the 1980s and perhaps it might seem that being green was a party political issue - that we had to make a choice between economic growth and comfy lifestyles or the environment.
Now it is nearly 2010 and the reality is that being green is the future. Rather than seeing going green as a strait jacket about lots of things we can no longer do, things we are supposed to feel guilty about or that we are now going to get taxed and charged for, being 'green' is actually a whole new take on life and outlook on the world. It is an idea whose time really has come, and not a moment too soon.
The clock on the wall is saying it's time for a change.
Do we have a choice?
By showing how our community in mid Wales works, we really hoped to convey that this green transition is more about having a new set of opportunities, a new set of aspirations and a new way of going about things. It is not a political choice, it is not an extra surcharge on what we want to do - it is more about catching up with inevitable change and getting ahead of the game.
Do we have a choice? Well, there are some big scary problems looming on the horizon, problems that will certainly affect our kids as they grow up, but in truth, things are already affecting us in our lives today. The price of fuel and the price of food are really good examples.
Climate scientists are expressing grave concerns that the billions of tonnes of CO2 and other gasses which we are dumping into the global atmosphere by burning oil, coal and gas is trapping in the sun's energy and making weather patterns more extreme. That same oil on which we depend for just about everything is also is set to fall into ever decreasing supply, according to the peak oil theory. The clock on the wall is saying it's time for a change.
The current global economic system has generated wealth like the world has never seen before, raising living standards and allowing the global population to grow massively. All of this is due to cheap abundant energy - oil - and, until now, we have been incredibly wasteful how we use it. It is time to get smart! So if it is anything, being green is all about embracing new, super-efficient clean technologies as fast as we can and finding newer, much more local and resource efficient ways of doing things.
We need to use the remaining oil to build things like solar panels and develop energy-efficient food growing systems, not on keeping us all driving endlessly around the M25 in circles pretending it's not happening for a few more years.
From age-old organic growing systems to smart new photovoltaic renewable energy generation there are tonnes of solutions out there. But the key question is, how do we implement them? How does everyone get involved and transform our creaking, old, dirty, oil-based economy into a modern clean smart one?
Going green is all about making this transition: it's a new way of seeing the world and it is a world full of bright, new possibilities. We will have much less energy to play with, so we will really need to work out lots of ways to be super-efficient. What energy we do have will be clean, cheap and endless in supply. So it's not exactly bad news - we just really need to get on with it because the clock is ticking.
Viewpoint from Steve Jones, Llanfyllin workhouse.
