Preparing to Avoid Disasters

It is after photographing and videoing a conference event that it becomes apparent how much stronger the motivation is to prepare for something imminent than it is for something in the distant future. This difference is at the heart of sustainable practices.

The preparations for the photography were carried out the day before. I familiarised myself with the loaned equipment by trying out as many functions as possible. This included keeping up with fast moving objects – in this case, swallows darting around hedgerows. I even visited the venues. This made real the practicalities of where to photograph from, the quantity and quality of light, how the camera’s noise might interfere with speakers, and whether a ladder shot would be too distracting for the benefit of its unusual perspective.

Come the event, the speakers talked about preparations (for water sustainability) that stretch so long into the future that it can be hard to imagine the connections between their discussions and the consequences of the political decisions influenced by them. Managing water supplies requires preparation on a grand scale. It involves facilities for collection, storage, purification, transport, maintenance, and the list goes on. Behind all this are decisions about ownership, responsibility, technology, regionality, trans-nationality and another list that goes on.

By comparison, my preparations for the day’s photography seemed disproportionate to the point of obsessive. And yet, a few days later, at a presentations workshop, our presenter tells us that a good presenter turns up early, checks out the venue, checks equipment, and even re-checks. As obsessive as it feels to prepare for events that are, in the scheme of things, small, the potential for disaster is a powerful motivator. How is it then that the potential for large events like ecological disaster fails to motivate our species in quite the same way?

We have plenty of data and perspectives on our predicament, yet movements from emotive affect to rationalised action are incremental and more the exception than the rule. There is in a sense a ‘preparatory lag’. Somewhere in our preparations for taking action in time for that action to take effect is a narrative overload that slows things down. There is the loud if minority narrative about distrusting the science. There is the ‘what about the jobs?’ narrative that assumes industries are fixed rather than in flux. So many of these narratives lead to an alibi narrative about someone somewhere else not taking responsibility (typically involving coal-fired power stations in China and India).

Raising alarm is the usual approach to foreshortening the distance between consequences and the actions that lead to them. And yet, newspapers are reluctant to give prominence to the latest research that shows the environment is coping with humans worse than we thought, simply because sales drop. This is the kind of news that few of us want to read. How are we to become motivated to avoid the larger disasters further down the line than small things that may go mildly wrong tomorrow? It seems to me that this is one of the toughest narratives: how the individual can act in preparation amid so many competing narratives. It is harder to answer the question ‘what does this mean to me?’ when establishing that meaning in an obscured scenario (as it is in relation to climate change). This matter of individual meaning is something I will return to here in due course, particularly with reference to Johanna Moisander’s assertion that green consumerism may be too burdensome.

Wool and the Meanings of Sustainability

When talking with stallholders at Woolfest 2011, it was apparent how difficult it can be to pin down what we mean by ‘sustainability’. As a buyer of wool carpets and clothing, I assumed for years that wool is a sustainable product, plain and simple.

Stallholders mostly confirmed this. I was told about the days when prices hit rock bottom. It was a waste of time for many trying to sell wool when only white wool was bought. Some fleeces were bought for a few pennies and used in fertiliser for gardens. They have even been burned because the cost at market barely covered the cost of shearing, let alone the cost of getting there. Wool is now seeing better days economically, as prices are up because of large-scale exports to China, and environmentally, its credentials help with sales. I was told how wool is eco-friendly when compared with its main oil-based rivals such as nylon and acrylic.

Interestingly, this point was one of many put to me when I asked what makes wool a sustainable product when it is a byproduct of a meat and dairy industry that is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. I was airing the paradox that insulation products, which cut CO2 emissions, are made from wool, which depends on an industry with high methane emissions. There is something of a recovery going on in this kind of sustainability. Wool traders emphasise that what they are doing is turning an otherwise wasted product into something useful.

Yet there are ambiguities. For example, sustainability is emphasised while, at the same time, environmentalists are becoming unpopular by pressing for actions that could limit sheep farming. These speculations may have referred to the Sustainable Livestock Bill ‘addressing the economic, social and environmental impacts of all stages of livestock farming and consumption’. Looking at the non-specific wording and the fact that the bill has only just gone for first reading (the earliest stage in its progression), I wonder to what degree the objections are to the uncertainties that come about from governmental imposition rather than any actual content of the legislation itself? The parliamentary research paper seems to centre on factory farming that entails feeding livestock with soya grown in cleared rainforest. This means the bill would mainly affect poultry and pig rather than sheep farming.

The various lobbies behind the bill are only mentioned in brief, and further evidence will be likely presented about what sustainable farming means because what we think ‘sustainability’ is has these multiple dimensions. In wool production, for example, the dyes, like the fibres, come from many different sources, which highlights the complexity to the make-up of products. And while on the one hand knitting gets regarded as part of sustainable living, on the other, sustainability is also regarded as in a camp that is separate from knitting practices and products: ‘The focus [at Woolfest] seemed to be more on sustainability, pure British wool and natural dyes. Which is all good, but a bigger venue would allow for both camps…’

This is a revealing comment. The idea that sustainability occupies a camp that is distinct from others suggests a perception of it as something apart. By this view, sustainability is something extra that is tacked onto other things rather than a condition integral to all material existence. Perhaps sustainability gains its meanings through the ways it is added onto materiality? From where and by whom are different definitions selected?

I come away from Woolfest with new questions as I consider meat and dairy reduction as my focus over the coming year. I came in thinking about the vegan argument that the eradication of animal products marks a shift to sustainability that would change practices rather than destroy farming. Now I wonder where the manure would come from for organic vegetable growers? Would we have to use more artificial fertilisers in order to eat less meat? And then there is tourism: what kind of landscape would tourists encounter in the absence of grazed farmland? Here is an industry that uses well-established romantic images of the past to inform the expectations of today’s consumer.

Changes to meat and dairy consumption imply more mental and infrastructural change than I first thought.

Hexham Hydro Project – Support for Funding Bid

There was something unhinged about this hydro electricity project that made me smile when I first heard about it. Yet having met some of the Transition members recently, and having helped in their community garden, the rationale to the experimental became apparent. What else are we going to do about depleting oil supplies? What if it just goes ahead without fuss? And what if one day the thought that there were once none is what makes people smile?

The practicalities will doubtlessly need to be examined should the funding go ahead successfully. In the meantime, last week’s online plea for 100 more supporters seems to have gained double that in a few days. More supporters are still needed. More here about the Transition Network.

Vegaphobia

In spirit with reading about veganism, its culture, politics, and of course, the environment, I attempt a pot of buckwheat with no intention of manufacturing something entirely different. The process is begun in good faith with advice from various internet sources. Toast and wash the groats. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes.

But the advice stops short of mentioning the production of a bubbling and spitting vat of glue. The remedy seems to be to sieve the results under running cold water until the excess starch is rinsed away. The remaining grains can then be added to with some salad vegetables and a dressing. The buckwheat is salvaged. But even if the glue is indicative of a missing stage, making the rinsing stage a mistake, the amount of electricity to toast and boil is considerable. Is this as nothing when compared with the CO2 required to process meat? It is as I wonder this and whether to blog it that I come across a paper that charges the media with generating negative press about veganism. Will I fall foul of the same crime?

Vegaphobia, by Matthew Cole and Karen Morgan, (The British Journal of Sociology 2011 Volume 62 Issue 1) is an analysis of newspaper articles that claims that they largely discredit veganism and tend to stereotype vegans. The points about derogatory language structuring understandings as negative ones ring somewhat familiar. Veganism is readily associated with hippydom and outlandish beliefs in order to other it as something that cannot be discussed because it cannot be taken seriously (perhaps this is a highly specific sub-category of ad hominem argument). The curious point the authors make though is that ‘The ‘difficulty’ of veganism in newspaper articles typically boils down to the ridiculing of vegans’ food as bland, unsatisfying, or impossible to obtain.’ (143) Today I overhear two delegates at an event making the latter observation as a vegan delegate abandons the buffet (and building) to buy some lunch. The newspapers seem to reflect / dictate popular views here.

Two things interest me about these findings in the texts analysed. Firstly, while these judgements are prejudicial as blanket judgements, they can apply in individual instances just as much as they can with meat and dairy foods. Any food can be bland, unsatisfying and unavailable. What this observation gets me to is, also conversely, whether these judgements are ever applied as blanket judgements to meat and dairy foods? Given that the newspapers studied are in the UK, it is striking that for a country that produces such popular carnivorous dishes as chips, cheese and gravy, UK food writers appear to be under the illusion that British people are satisfied by readily available meals that stimulate their palates with technicolor wonder. Yes, the UK has some wonderful food, but it also lives largely on pre-packed sandwiches and ready meals. The standards that vegan food is held to might be unrealistically high for any food.

The second thing that interests me is that the difficulty I encounter time and again is the learning curve (as with the buckwheat). Cooking and eating vegan meals in-between carnivorous and vegetarian ones entails eclecticism. Cooking and eating them everyday entails dedication to values specific to veganism, a considerable knowledge of nutrition, and a gradual dietary adjustment. There is a regimen to it that can make carnivorous and vegetarian meals seem like shortcuts. How much of this is down to labour? How much to changing habits? And how much is simply about pushing that rock up that learning curve? The inescapable reality is that all change has its difficulties.

Papers like Vegaphobia run the risk of alienating veganism from its potential converts by chastising them for their iniquities rather than enlisting them through education in the alternatives to the stereotypes they settle for. The trouble is, as the paper thoroughly details, and this is the double-bind, this education relies heavily on a media that is ranged against it. The paper ends up appearing like just another stereotype of hostile militancy because it dares to complain from the publishing corner it is forced into. It leaves me better informed yet wondering what alternative messages would reconstruct veganism into a common practice?

Surrealist Painting Horror

Getting high on paint fumes, I take a breather at the doorway, and immediately notice something lying there in the front garden. ‘Aargh! It’s a … lying there! The police …’ And then, ‘Oh! Right.’ The oil based and eco-unfriendly paint conspires with the peat-free and eco-friendly compost bag to produce an uncanny conjunction between surrealism and environmentalism.

Vegan Meat Ruse?

This is reminiscent of Man Beef, the hoax in which human meat was offered for sale online. I like the line ‘sewage mud is rich in protein because it is alive with bacteria’. A similar logic might give us the claim that photosynthesis is the way plants create energy because chlorophyll is green.

Thanks to Robert for the heads-up on this.

Veganism and Buffets at Climate Change Events

I am in discussion with a presenter at a climate change event about how the buffets at these events are not vegan. This is so apparent when, as can happen, someone has PowerPointed us about the kind of radical steps we need to consider in order to mitigate the greenhouse effect. Our discussion amid the ham, tuna and cheese might be a logical extension of buffet talk, given the context. Maybe it is a defensive or guilty reaction in the face of dire warnings.There we are, listing the consumption of animal products along with all those other things that need to be addressed, only to admit that few of us are even vegetarian, let alone vegan. We pause in a quizzicle examination of our triangular sandwiches.

Then I admit to occasionally cooking vegan meals by accident. I am asked how I can do this, so I describe my efforts at making cauldrons of soups for freezing. Then I discover I am not alone in cooking things in bulk with chick peas and cous cous. The presenter is a delight as we exchange our experiences of grains. I take the knowledge away with me that quinoa is as easy to deal with as bulgar wheat. I resolve to not leave my bag of it on a shelf until it expires. Is this another edging away from meat?

Some weeks later, I struggle with the quinoa, and wonder at the role the learning curve has in making veganism marginal. I wonder at how ‘mainstream’ 1% of a population is? One of the delegates emails the rest of us with his view that rather than cutting consumption, what we need to do is introduce a qualified ban on animal products. ‘Gosh’ I think, ‘is that likely to happen?’ There is something intriguing about veganism that has me wondering about it as an angle on researching ethical consumption.