Thursday 17 January 2013

Glass in my food...

Found this in my meal on Tuesday. Not the best photo - it's about 2 centimetres long. I bit down hard on it. Very lucky that it was horizontal at the time and not vertical. Could have torn up the inside of my mouth. We reckon it must have come from a jar of Ina Paarman's Pasta Sauce. Close one.

Wednesday 16 January 2013

I love the way this is said. I have no idea who wrote this, but it speaks to me and is undoubtedly one of the main drivers in my life.

"Environmental consciousness is a pivotal transition in the way that we human beings think and behave. Whilst the fashionable trend of ‘GOING GREEN’ is a positive step in the right direction, the subsequent step forward, is to become an environmentally conscious individual.


It has become increasingly apparent that the more we allow the Earth’s environment to become spoiled and disrupted, the greater the negative knock-on effect on us.

Because we did not pay sufficient attention to this simple fact in the past, we are now facing a number of serious threats to human health and wellbeing including:

Climate Change and Global Warming,
Pollution of our Air, Water and Soil
Loss of Marine Life and Earths Biodiversity
Natural resources being used up faster than the Earth can recover or reproduce.

While we do need to take remedial action to deal with these threats, it is important that we also look at the underlying causes. We need to recognize that all of these threats are symptoms and effects of the mind-set and value systems that caused them. If we wish to fix these symptoms and effects, then we have to begin by ‘changing our minds’.

We need to consider that there are sub-conscious values and drivers that contribute to the destruction of our Environment.

Destructive Drivers

Ignorance – simply not knowing any better
Short-term thinking – not taking the long term consequences into consideration.
Isolated or Insular thinking – not recognising that everything is interconnected and that therefore certain actions which may be beneficial for one aspect or part may actually be harmful when looked at in context of the whole.
Selfish thinking – not caring about the consequences and effect on others.
Greed – taking much more than you need.
Dogma – insisting on doing things in a particular way (irrespective of the consequence) because that’s the way they have always been done in the past or because that’s the way a certain Authority says that they should be done.
Combative attitudes – whilst competition can be healthy as it encourages growth and improvement, excessive and unnecessary competition (involving damage to or destruction of, a competitor or their resources) is not healthy for people or the environment.
Consumer culture – It is a recognised fact that human beings are currently consuming quantities of Earths resources faster than the Earth can recover or replenish these resources. This is driven by a cultural value system that implies that the more you have, consume and own, the higher your position in society. Each individual is therefore directly motivated by this culture to acquire an ever increasing quantity of material assets.
“If you keep doing what you have always done – don’t be surprised if you keep getting the same results”.

So if these values and mind-sets are the underlying drivers of our environmental and social troubles, then the next logical step is to identify the opposite ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS and values that can guide our actions toward a healthier planet and society.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS SHIFT

Ignorance; needs to be replaced by — Environmental knowledge and awareness
Short term thinking; – needs to be replaced by — Long term thinking & planning
Isolated thinking; needs to be replaced by — Systems thinking and holistic perspectives
Selfishness; needs to be replaced by — Care and consideration for the whole of Earth’s community ( human and non-human )
Greed; needs to be replaced by — Generosity and simplification of lifestyle
Dogma; needs to be replaced by — Logical, rational reasoning and understanding
Combative attitudes; need to be replaced by — Collaboration and co-operation
Quantity of consumption; needs to be replaced by — Quality of consumption whereby products are valued for their ;
Quality of performance
Durability of lifespan
Minimal environmental impact in both manufacture and usage
Values

There is no way that a sufficiently comprehensive set of EC rules could be developed that could adequately prescribe the appropriate responses to every conceivable situation that could arise in the future. This is why thinking about our current social and environmental challenges from a ‘value system’ perspective is so much more practical and useful. It empowers us to work out our own solutions to our challenges in our own way – simply applying an acceptable value system in a conscious way."

Sunday 6 January 2013


Took this photo of a fat caterpillar in our "garden" yesterday. Can anybody identify it? Taken in Table View, Cape Town, South Africa on 5th January 2013.