Geography and all that Jazz

If you have the chance to get to the RGS on Saturday 20th of October , there is what sounds like a fascinating day. INTERDEPENDENCE DAY In a host of talks, workshops, music, film, art and games, Interdependence Day will explore what it means to live in an interdependent world. For anyone who cares about the earth and the people we share it with. The new and extraordinary challenges that lie before us at the start of the twenty-first century - creeping globalisation, climate change, seemingly unstoppable and impossible to fully comprehend - can appear beyond the control of any one person. Finding ways to take a fresh approach to the defining questions of our time are the inspiration for Interdependence Day 2007. Speakers : Mark Lynas , author of High Tide: the truth about our climate crisis , Anuradha Vittachi , co-founder of the Oneworld Network, Andrew Simms , policy director of nef and author of Tescopoly: How one shop came out on top and why it matte...

Some of the most interesting new ideas of recent years have been included in reports by the New Economics Forum (NEF) They introduced me to Clone Towns and to Ghost Town Britain, and flagged up the increasing power of the multiples in our lives. They also explored the idea of whether we can afford to be Happy and what that means for the planet. Now they have produced a report which looks at the links that the UK has with the rest of the planet, and the key date of April 15th Once we have passed that date the UK has effectively used up its own resource capacity, and from that date for the rest of the year we are basically 'eating the planet', as we have exhausted our own resources. As the report says: "As our total consumption grows, the day on which we begin consuming beyond our environmental means moves earlier in the year. In 1961 it was 9 July. By 1981 Britain's ecological debt day was reached almost two months earlier on 14 May." The report is available to do...