putting away childish things

I've been reading James Lovelock's latest, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (from the library, of course, part of my ongoing curb the consumerist in me project). Boy, the future looks grim. If I understand it correctly, ''saving the planet'' is futile and we should instead adapt and survive. I'm all in favour of that, far more than saving stuff. This is a book I will recommend to everyone.

Part of the message is the future scarcity of land for food production. Is it a coincidence that there is now an increase in home food production? Apparently, in some urban parts, allotments and smallholdings are in such demand, there's now a ten year waiting list for plots. As the climate heats up and the population increases, food will become increasingly expensive due to demand and the reduction in food imports. Home produce will probably become even more significant to feed the predicted 100 million people in the UK.

This morning we walked the dog along the lane which leads up to Ciren. Park, the Earl Bathurst's estate. It takes you past several polo fields sometimes used, I believe, by our royal princes. There's several of these fields and they cover quite a big acreage of perfect, flat turf. I'm afraid all this will have to go under the spade, I joked, before realising it might not be far from the truth. I wondered if they still had polo fields during the war and the ''Dig For Victory'' effort. A different age, though. Every dog has its day.

on the future

Listen to James Lovelock talking to Oliver Norton of Nature.

This is the first occasion I've heard his voice. I don't know why, he must have been on YouTube before. I suppose, generally, I would only check out the dubious loons I come across in print, and their manner in person, on video, usually supports this first impression. It didn't apply to Lovelock when I read him and hearing him speak now confirms that opinion. And he seems like a real nice guy to boot, despite his message.

(i got the) home town blues

James Lovelock's informative and thought provoking Revenge of Gaia ends with a sober vision of desperate human survival in a hot, post climate change planet. Reading the book it's hard to get a handle on whether he's optimistic or pessimistic about the outcome of this crisis. In a newspaper interview he remarks he's an optimist; he knows climate change is going to happen. Enjoy life while you can is his advice. We may have as little as two decades left.

Enjoying life while you can means to me appreciating our world more. Not just nature, or what passes as the natural world in a man-made environment, but civilization; art, science, literature, and history, especially. I was looking for a site on Cirencester 21 - which I think is a local movement involved in transition, peak oil, energy etc. - and ended up on a BBC film archive watching 28 minutes of A Day Out in Cirencester, part of a series made in 1979. I don't know if there ever was a ''Golden Age of Television'' but programmes certainly looked gentler and more quaint in those days. But less superficial maybe. I can't imagine even the Beeb making a series like this today. It's all ''reality'' now, only it isn't really that real. Whereas A Day Out is.

Anyway, this has been my adopted town for the last eighteen years. Recently, I've been feeling an urge to move on to new pastures - maybe further west, or Wales. This little film has made me feel I belong here. I shall have to give it a little think.