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November is a month notorious for consuming, with the often frantic lead-up to Christmas and the chaos that can be Black Friday. Born in the USA to mark the start of the Christmas shopping season, retailers slash their prices and shoppers can try and grab themselves a bargain, with varying levels of chaos. In the excitement, we may buy things we might not need, something I am definitely guilty of, to the dismay of my belongings that have sat in drawers or cupboards untouched for a while now! Whilst the savings can be great, there are hidden disadvantages to Black Friday that we often ignore.
One of the first things to consider is the environmental footprint of the increased amount of purchases, which all need delivering after all. Last year it was estimated that over 100 million transactions were made on Black Friday alone; that is a lot of deliveries! A rough estimate has placed the amount of carbon emitted caused by Black Friday last year at 386,243 tonnes, equal to that emitted on 215 flights between London and Sydney.
My relationship with nature has changed since I started working for Get Out More; in the last year, I have found that I feel much closer to nature. Before joining, I did enjoy going out and spending time in the woods and rivers, but the reasons I enjoyed it was more to do with being surrounded by the physical processes of our world. Now I more often approach nature without my geography cap on and instead engage with nature by spending time to think, appreciate and afterwards speak about my experiences. (more…)
Buddleia
The amount of land covered by gardens in the UK is over four and a half times that our our nature reserves. With urbanisation and intensive agriculture pushing nature to the margins, if we are lucky enough to have some outside space, we have an opportunity to really help the nature on our doorstep – and enjoy a beautiful garden too. Last month I blogged about how I create wildlife habitats in the garden. Now the gardening year is in full swing, I’m focusing on how planting can support the bees, butterflies and other pollinators and help stop their steady decline.
Sitting in the garden on a warm March day, I am watching a blue tit hop in and out of the nestbox that we fixed to a cherry tree; is it making a nest, or bringing food to a female already sitting on some eggs? Is it the same bird that inhabited the box last year, or is it one of the offspring that we saw take its first flight, now returning to raise some chicks of its own? Either way, it feels very special, because the nestbox was constructed by my husband and youngest daughter several years ago and has hosted at least one brood of blue tits every year since. There is something so rewarding that this small intervention is supporting the wildlife in our garden. In the face of urban development, the intensification of farming and climate change, gardens have become important refuges for many species of bird, insect, amphibian and mammal, providing habitats that may be absent elsewhere. Fortunately there are loads of things we can do to help out wildlife in our gardens and public parks. (more…)
Rivers have always felt like a bit of a getaway for me. The way they can wash out the noise of busy roads or warehouses makes it feel like you’re closer to rural areas than you are. I have always been close to rivers, whether it’s the River Aire where I live now, in Thackley or the River Humber and River Hull in Hull. I always found places for contemplation by rivers and walking along the River Aire is where I had the idea to write about them!
During my degree I tried to steer as much as my studies towards rivers as possible, which showed me the range of things we could learn about them. One thing I enjoyed looking at is the movement of material, this could be anything: boulders, pebbles, rubbish or pooh sticks. It’s easy to assign our binary day and night cycle to the processes in the world, as we go to sleep everything else does with us, but the processes are constant and are always changing and carving the landscape around us. I’ve noted small changes in the land around the River Aire, changing meanders, steeper banks, how the flow changes. (more…)