vervet_monkey: (Green)
Conservation Resi went off almost without hitch, barring the almost not having of a bus... But I am now so so tired. They are always tiring, turns out when you're in charge and do all the cooking they are a lot more tiring!
 
Spent Thursday and Friday running round slightly manically. Food shopping for lots of people on Thursday. Took bus to Asda in town and brought loads, then dropped that off and headed into high street for fruit and veg. Lady in the grocers looked at me really oddly buying lots of apples, bananas, onions, courgettes and peppers. Then Friday sorting the bus, which was complicated and required lots of forms that no-one seemed to know where they were kept, but got there eventually!

Did get slightly lost getting there as although map I looked at went to the destination, the instructions that went with it apparently only went half way... but we made it. And had scrummy fish and chips (well, veggie burger and chips in my case) for dinner. I love resi evenings with everyone sat round eating and drinking tea together, especially as Amy (housemate last year who is in Germany this year) came so so did all last years people, which was awesome. Bed at about 1ish, but as we sleep on the floor in the village hall sleep is kind of the aim rather than what actually happens. I then got up at 7 to make porridge for 15 people! That's loads of porridge, in case you were wondering. Porridge with Mars bars (well, Asda equivalents) is the best pre-conserving breakfast. Mass lunch making and out by 9 to the site to get working. Removal of saplings from regenerating heathland. So not much big sawing but lots and lots (and lots) of loppering. 
 
Got back to the hall around 5.30 and made fajitas for everyone. Such a good big group meal, so easy to do and everyone can pick what they want. There was also loads and loads of food too, which was good. (Still have a container full of courgettes in the fridge). Then we were all in bed by 11 and fast asleep. Which is good but you sleep to deeply to notice that you really need to move to stop seizing up, so it always takes a bit longer to get going. Sundays of a resi are always slower than saturdays as everyone is achey and sleepy, but we still got a fair bit done and am now home and cozy while Paul does dinner :)
 
Also pretty much my last time in charge. Which I will miss, I think it will be odd going next term and just turning up. I think the new pres will do fine, but am a little worried about the task manager and her boyfriend dictating what he does. They are both very nice people, and very environmentally minded, but can be very dictatory and overpowering if you don't know how to argue with them. And find it very hard to see that environmentalists are just as biased (or more so) than the general media. So get very wound up about things and I think might drag SUCV into environmentalist things that it doesn't need to be involved in. I don't think that conservationists need to be environmentalists, that's what Green Action is for, so I think that could put some people off. But hopefully not!
 
France next week to see Jessica :D. Can't wait to have a weekend actually off without being in charge. Plus, Jess :D
vervet_monkey: (Green)
 Anyone else been watching human planet?

BBC have just managed to incorporate sustainable living into a show that was not publicised as a 'green' or 'environmentalist' show (I know natural history shows are by default, but it wasn't explicitly so, if that makes sense?) and without doom and gloom. We have a problem and we're going to have to fix it, so lets fix it. Rather than either glossing over it, or "we're all going to die, you're all evil people and what's the point anyway"

Well done BBC, I'm impressed. It might not be all the way there, but baby steps are better than nothing. If you haven't seen it, I suggest a watch.

(And I'm sure my environmentalist friends will have lots of negative things to say about it, but never mind, they can squabble between themselves... and that would be the other problem with environmentalism...)
vervet_monkey: (Green)
 I feel like I've done this before...

My week has been very climate change centred. Started with a talk by Danny, a UoS medical student who was part of the youth team that went to the Cancun climate talks and actually succeeded in getting their point across and policy changed. Not only did they get it changed, they got it changed more quickly than anything has EVER been changed in the UN and when everyone was telling them it was impossible. They rock, really. And make me feel very inadequate! 

One thing that was a little worrying was the lack of scientific backing that you have to have to get things through the UN. He was talking about evidence, but when we asked where this evidence was amassed from what he actually meant was collections of what people thought. Am I the only one that finds that scary? That these decisions are made up of what people (generally politicians) feel like at the time? (OK, I know it's a bit more complex than that, but if I say anything ever I have to have a paper to back it up, and I'm a lowly undergraduate, not the UN!)

Then watched 'An Inconvenient Truth' for our geography module. Nothing really new, although somehow even though I knew that Bush had beaten Gore to get into office, it never really occurred to me that that meant that Gore had been beaten by BUSH. Never have I wanted a parallel universe more to see just how different life would have been.

Then we had the discussion today. And I know there are people that don't believe in climate change, but in my head they are all uneducated and living under a rock somewhere. They are not university students. They are definitely not 3rd year geographers. But that was actually the feeling in the room today... that somehow this wasn't truth, that it was a political agenda, that this was somehow doubted.

What? How? What? Really? That pretty much summed up the Zoologists response to that. As far as I'm concerned we'd moved beyond that. Look at the evidence. It's there, in front of you. You can have Al Gores representation or the multitudes of research papers, either is fine. But look, please. Don't just believe what you are told, by all means look for alternatives, but don't not believe what you are told without checking out that its not the most viable option.

It scares me. That we are still working through 'is climate change human induced?' how? How are we ever going to get anywhere if we have to go through this every time?

And somehow every time this happens I'm surprised... 
vervet_monkey: (Calm)
Resi this weekend. So much fun :). Spent the first day thinning out woods and making a dead hedge and learning how to make charcol. In the rain but never mind. And it was Amy's b-day, so we had party games and yummy yummy dinner and muchus fun :). Then cleare a track for tractor the next day, which took half a day, then learnt how to make brooms and went for a walk to see... something (possibly the south downs?). And drove a tractor (in more than a straight line, which is all i got to do beforehand!) and used an axe. And i was sunny the next day too!

Now lots of work to catch up on... but am still going out this evening to green action and candle club, to be socialble and not sit and watch David Attenbrough (although I will watch him, just not tonight!)

And have yet to see Dollhouse this week, although I do her it is on ITV4, which is very exciting! But then not of for AGES, but hey, neve mind...

Parents down this weekend too, which will be fun!

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