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367 days ago
It’s Thanksgiving in the US, and today many millions of families there are sitting down with each other, enjoying a meal together to contemplate their gratitude. For Jon and me, we’re nearing the end of our journey, here on the Green Miles, and while we’re not making a turkey dinner, I did want to take this final post, and - in a sense - give thanks. As I mentioned in the last post, after 10 months of traveling, we’re finally in Sydney, slowly settling in. My bags are unpacked in a rented flat, I’m learning my way around North Sydney’s hilly shores, and I’m contemplating new horizons, like a job, and what to make for dinner. It’s certainly a different lifestyle, but I’m joyful to embrace it, and explore all the new experiences for me, here. As for what has happened during our travels, well, there’s a lot to tell. Too much. So, for now, I’d like to share the three things that have impacted me most. Modesty: my mother always jokes that I have “champagne taste on a beer ...
370 days ago
We’re on the job hunt, here in Sydney. Fresh from our bout-round-the-world, we’ve secured working holiday visas, slapped down a large sum of money on a month’s rent, and are zipping round our respective CVs like they are Viagra spam into overflowing junk-mail boxes. One thing is certain, and everyone we know tut-tuts while agreeing (especially my mother): it’s the wrong time to be looking for a job. Markets are sinking, people are getting sacked left and right, Christmas bills are creeping up from behind, and everything that was right with the past 5 years seems to be constricting into a fearful, sweaty corner. It’s a tale of woe, really. One thing that has been puzzling me, as I tout my experience and smile, teeth-gritted, into the pile of cover letters I’m farming out, is the issue of green jobs. Just as we see companies like CitiGroup axing 52,000 jobs, we see Obama’s “Green Jobs” plan being hailed as America’s next frontier for the US economy. Obama has promised ...
382 days ago
I recently read two of food journalist Michael Pollan’s books, Omnivore’s Dilemma & In Defense of Food , and was deeply affected, not only by the author’s thorough explanation of the western world’s atrocious industrialized food system, but by the shocking contrast concept of a small, quiet movement of biodymanic food producers known as “grass farmers”. Rather a philosophy than a profession, Grass Farming is based on the idea that – and flashback to that awesome Planet Earth episode, here – everything in the food chain depends on that miracle plant, grass, and that farming anything requires nurturing and managing the relationship between grass, animal, and human. In Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan turns up at the Virginian-based Grass Farm, called Polyface Farm, of Joel Salatin, who guides him through the clever intricacies of his grass farm. First, he’d grow the grass. Not one species, but hundreds of different kinds – wild and planted – whose growth, and worm-count, he’d ...
392 days ago
In the run up to the US Presidential election, Guest Blogger, Husband, & Frequent American Visitor Jonathan Tidd discusses the benefits & pitfalls to America's green culture. My 90-day tourist visa for the USA is up. We have departed the States for the South Pacific islands - a chance to sit on a beach and reflect on our 9-state tour. For the past 3 months, I've been viewing our state-hopping trip through a green lens: wondering what it’s going to take for Uncle Sam to fully commit to sustaining Planet Earth. Does the US matter? My first question, (being a non-American and avid reader of UK and international media) is: does the United States even matter? With GWB ruling for the past 8 years, the US government (and, some of us foreigners say, the rest of America) has passed on numerous opportunities to jump on board the green bandwagon, not least by signing the Kyoto Treaty. The rest of the world has ploughed ahead regardless, setting various targets to limit & ...
398 days ago
We flew west, into wind and sun and a smattering of sand-covered dots over water. I was expecting Samoa to be the stereotype of paradisaical island life: low-slung palms on crisp white sand, flanked by turquoise waters, curiously coloured fish and rainbow reefs. Some part of me was slightly disappointed that it lived up to my exceedingly high expectations. Seriously. Samoa, like, blew my mind. We stayed the whole eight days at Virgin Cove, a place I knew nothing about, which Jon dug out of some obscure Internet recommendation. Set remotely in a fishing village on the south of the island, and run by villagers and one Samoan/Swedish family, the rustic resort was simply a set of roughly constructed wooden huts - called fales (and pronounced "fall-eh") - left totally open save for rungs of palm-leaf shutters, perched high on the edge of the high tide sand. They only got electricity last year (thanks to the installation of a few small solar panels), and while the ...
