Category: Greenspeak

This will be my final Greenspeak column. When I moved to Ubud almost 20 years ago, I contacted the editor of the Bali Advertiser with the suggestion that I write a column. I didn’t know anyone here and it seemed like a good way to meet interesting people. Perhaps I’d been sitting up late with […]

The nights are so quiet in the dry season.  I don’t realize how much I miss the honk of frogs and toads until they crank up again after the first rain.  After resting for so many months through the heat it must be wonderful to feel mud and wet grass between those splayed toes. I […]

These days almost everything we wear is made and dyed chemically. Hundreds of millions of metres of synthetic textiles are made each year and natural fibres are increasingly rare. So it’s refreshing to find a project at our doorstep that celebrates natural hand-loomed fabrics and vegetable dyes. Threads of Life has been working with traditional […]

Although we seem to be surrounded by an abundance of food choices, the variety of foods available to us is actually shrinking. According to a new study by the UN, three quarters of the world’s food now comes from just 12 plants. Of the hundreds of species of beans, cabbage, corn and other vegetables that […]

I traveled to Canada in late February, a month not notable for its warmth and charm. On Vancouver Island, frozen snowbanks receded reluctantly from the roads and even the hardy Islanders were wearing woolly hats and gloves. The temperature, day and night, was below zero. My sister keeps her house heated at 17C which does […]

In October 2019 a sailing ship will embark from the United Kingdom on a two-year journey to raise awareness of the impacts of single use plastics in the world’s oceans. eXXpedition (note the clue of the double X chromosome in the title) is an all-woman scientific research mission which will cover almost 38,000 nautical miles […]

The principles of Slow Food are universal – to promote good, clean, fair, seasonal food and support local producers. Every Slow Food group operates differently according to its own context. In December I was fortunate to meet a dedicated young man who is bringing Slow Food principals mainstream in a corner of Rajasthan, India. Rohit […]

As 2018 rolls to a close, our thoughts often turn to gratitude. Let us consider and give thanks to that unloved and unlovely item of porcelain, the toilet. We assume that it will always be there, clean and functioning and discreetly disposing of our excretions. This fundamentally important article is taken completely for granted until […]