The original Santa is still the best

A new campaign has been launched to resurrect the original green Father Christmas. ‘Green Father Christmas’ calls for the festive icon to once again embrace his green coat, abandoning his allegiance with big global consumer brands. Launched by crowdfunding platform Abundance Generation, the campaign stands for a Christmas less focused on consumption.

Green Santa was last spotted in the 1920’s, before a well known drinks company expanded his waistline and donned him in red to promote its brand. Far removed from his modern image, Father Christmas once dressed in green, cut a slim figure, assisting children and those in need.

Abundance Generation, as well as helping Father Christmas find a healthier image, is suggesting its ‘Green Energy Investment’ as a meaningful gift this Christmas.

Bruce Davis, cofounder of Abundance Generation said: “Yes, we’re stealing Father Christmas from the drinks industry. We’re reuniting him with his green coat because, once again, Christmas is about far more than acquiring ‘things’. There’s a fast growing shift away from giving material goods, to buying gifts with meaning. We’re pretty sure Father Christmas would approve of our Green Energy Investments. A gift that’s helping to create a clean energy future, as well as a secure return for people.”

Modern Green Santa

In a rare interview, Father Christmas said: “The holidays are coming and I agree it’s time for a change. Representing a drinks brand was fun for a while, but the thrill of the ride has grown thin – unlike my waistline. Last year, the elves and I delivered fewer throwaway presents than ever before, this year we want to give better gifts and embrace the move towards a greener Christmas. I haven’t worn my green coat for decades but it feels great. It is, admittedly, a little tighter than it used to be.”

He continued: “Some of the elves at Abundance Generation have come up with a gift of a ‘green energy investment’, perfect for those boys and girls who already seem to have everything! Over the last few years I’ve received an increasing number of letters requesting less disposable ‘stuff’. I’m relieved really, I get great joy from making people happy but was really beginning to worry about the environment. All these things are being shipped around the world before arriving in Lapland, and millions of presents end up as clutter or in a hole in the ground.”

The gift of a Green Energy Investment includes Abundance Generation membership and a handful of their green energy debentures. You can gift an investment of £5, £10, £50, £100 or £1,000 in solar or wind power projects across the UK, helping friends and family be part of the shift to clean energy. This offers a fixed return of 6.65% IRR over a 19 year duration. Ideal as a gift for children, the investment can put into a bare trust until a child reaches 18 years of age. Gifting a Green Energy Investment is very simple and can be set up via the Abundance Generation online Christmas store.

It is important to note that, as with any investment product, there are risks. Part or all of the original invested capital may be at risk and any return on investment depends on the success of the project invested in. All products from Abundance are long term investments and may not be readily realisable (and their value can rise or fall). Estimated rates of return are variable and estimates are no guarantee of actual return.

The post Green Santa is Leaner but not Meaner appeared first on EcoHustler.

In the garbage, I see a rose.

In the rose, I see the garbage.

Everything is in transformation.

Even permanence is impermanent.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Two years ago EcoHustler explored the curse you put on your relationship by giving a Valentines gift with a dire ethical footprint in How Deep Is Your Love. The following year we looked at ethical alternatives in Turbo-Charge Your Love. This year we are keeping it short ‘n sweet with 3 reasons not to buy roses this V Day:

1. Ten thousand tons of roses are shipped from Kenya to England for Valentines Day. Kenya is a poor African country, highly susceptible to fluctuations in weather, prone to drought and last year suffered a serious famine affecting 10 million people. That gift to your lover is the biological capacity of Africa diverted from either feeding Kenyans or maintaining the local ecosystem distilled into a disposable product. As the roses rot in an English landfill vital goodness has passed from the Kenyan soil to a plastic lined cesspit via giant planes spewing greenhouse gas; nice gift!
2. The roses are grown in massive greenhouses on Lake Naivasha. The lake is withering away, the hippos are gone, the shore is crowded and polluted. In ten years the lake will have disappeared like the Aral Sea. The land will be dead and the multinational companies profiteering from the business will move to other similar lakes, for example in Ethiopia.
3. Your hard earned wages go into the pockets of unscrupulous English supermarkets and international agribusinesses that will do anything to turn a quick buck, including sticking a label on Kenyan roses saying ‘ethical’ despite the fact that the whole process is fundamentally unsustainable and absolutely immoral. Nobody benefits from the business apart from some corporate drones who manage to keep the suicide economy chewing up what is left of nature for a little while longer.

Don’t buy roses out of season. Give your lover something special. Like a meal, massage or ménage a tois!

“See roses really smell like POO-OO-OO
Yeah, roses really smell like POO-OO-OO”

The post Roses Are Shit appeared first on EcoHustler.

A taste of the upcoming feature documentary, Occupy Love. This is a community funded film. Please support our crowd funding campaign at http://www.indiegogo.com/Occupy-Love

“Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says ‘more for you is less for me.’ But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%.” ~ Charles Eisenstein

This short film was Directed by Ian MacKenzie http://ianmack.com
Co-produced with Velcrow Ripper http://www.velcrowripper.com
Camera: Ian Mackenzie and Velcrow Ripper
Editing: Ian Mackenzie
Interview by: Velcrow Ripper

Watch video with English/Spanish/French/Greek and many more subtitles

http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/06HYpGK1jhTJ/info/

CHARLES EISENSTEIN is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution.

READ CHARLES BOOK
Visit http://sacred-economics.com to learn more about his ideas for a new economy.

Transcript:

“This movement isn’t about the 99% defeating or toppling the 1%. You know the next chapter of that story, which is that the 99% create a new 1%. That’s not what it’s about.

What we want to create is the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible. A sacred world. A world that works for everybody. A world that is healing. A world of peace.

You can’t just say “We demand a world of peace. Demands have to be specific. Anything that people can articulate can only be articulated within the language of the current political discourse. And that entire political discourse is already too small. And that’s why making explicit demands reduces the movement, and takes the heart out of it. So it’s a real paradox, and I think the movement understands that.

The system isn’t working for the 1% either. You know if you were a CEO, you would be making the same choices they do. The institutions have their own logic. Life is pretty bleak at the top too – and all the baubles of the rich are this phoney compensation for the loss of what’s really important. The loss of community, the loss of connection, the loss of intimacy. The loss of meaning.

Everybody wants to live a life of meaning. And today, we live in a money economy where we don’t really depend on the gifts of anybody. But we buy everything. Therefore we don’t really need anybody, because whoever grew my food, or made my clothes, or built by house, well if they die, or if I alienate them, or if they don’t like me, that’s okay because I can just pay someone else to do it.

And it’s really hard to create community if the underlying knowledge is “we don’t need each other.” So people kind of get together and act nice, or maybe they consume together. But joint consumption doesn’t create intimacy. Only joint creativity and gifts create intimacy and connection.

You have such gifts, that are important. Just as every species has an important gift to give to an ecosystem, and the extinction of any species hurts everybody. The same is true of each person, that you have a necessary and important gift to give.

And that for a long time our minds have told us that maybe we’re crazy, that maybe we’re imagining things, that’s its crazy to live according to what you want to give. But I think now, as more and more people wake up to the truth, that we’re here to give, and wake up to that desire, and wake up to the fact that other way isn’t working anyway – the more reinforcement we have from people around us that this isn’t crazy. This is makes sense. This is how to live.

And as we get that reinforcement, then our minds and our logic no longer have to fight against the logic of the heart which wants us to be of service. This shift of consciousness that inspires such things is universal, 99% and the 1% and it’s awakening in different people in different ways.

I think love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says ‘more for you is less for me.’ But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings.

That’s love, love is the expansion of the self to include the other. And that’s a different kind of revolution. There’s no one to fight. There’s no evil to fight. There’s no other in this revolution.

Everybody has a unique calling and it’s really time to listen to that. That’s what the future is going to be. It’s time to get ready for it, and contribute to it, and help make it happen.

The post The Revolution Is Love appeared first on EcoHustler.

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Many thanks to Francesca and her team at The Green Belt Movement for sending in this update from Kenya in time for Valentine’s Day. Original article here. Please remember whatever you buy for V day has an impact on our world. If love is your main gift check yourself before you buy.

Red roses have become the quintessential symbol of love. This Valentine’s Day, boyfriends, husbands and lovers alike will flock to their local flower store to buy a dozen red roses – supposedly an embodiment of their love, passion and commitment.

Thousands of miles away, people in Kenya face a different reality on the 14^th of February. It’s not one of e-cards and chocolates but an effect of globalization – a side effect of so called ‘free-market’ capitalism that many are not aware of.

One in three roses sold this Valentine’s Day in the UK will be from Kenya. Despite the 4,600 miles travel, Kenyan flowers are often the cheapest; a dozen Kenyan red roses are as little as £2.99 or £4.99. Yet these prices do not reflect the social and environmental costs.

Lake Naivasha as it was. Source: http://makewealthhistory.org/2009/02/13/the-price-of-kenyan-roses-and-the-tragedy-of-lake-naivasha/

Nearly 75% of Kenya’s horticultural exports are a product of the cut flower industry around Lake Naivasha.  It is economically important for Kenya being the second largest export after tourism. Lake Navaisha was once a quiet community best known in the UK for being the home of naturalist and wildlife preservationist Joy Adamson who wrote Born Free about Elsa the lioness; for being one of the 10 best sites for bird watching in the world; and for its abundant plant and animal life – hippos, giraffes and zebras to name a few.

Drought starts to bite in Kenya. Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/03/climate-change-kenya-10-10

Today giant green houses occupy the banks of the lake, which has wrecked its aesthetic value as well as changed the local culture. While Maasai cattle may still be found roaming the area, private property rights and division of their traditional range lands have dramatically decreased the spaces that they can graze and access to the lake for water has become a source of conflict.

Western style consumerism arrives in Kenya

A new culture has been brought to the region that revolves around global capitalism and international trade. Lake Navaisha’s flower industry began in the 1980s and grew rapidly in the 1990s as European companies flew in to exploit the desirable growing conditions and year round temperate temperatures and seemingly abundant water supplies. The hundreds of thousands of pounds of flowers grown annually are picked in the morning and arrive in British shops by the evening.

The economic boom of the horticultural market has led to a dramatic increase in the local population. In 1969, 27,000 people lived in the surrounding areas and today that number has jumped to nearly 300,000. A direct result of Lake Naivasha’s industry is overcrowding of both people and businesses creating social and environmental instability.

Water levels in Lake Naivasha have fallen as a result of the flower industries that directly pump water from the lake to the green houses. The lake is currently being drained faster than it can be replenished. Erastus Mureithi, the chairman of the Kenya Flowers Council, says that small-scale flower farmers are likely to be banned from withdrawing water from the lake. Without the involvement of the major (non kenyan) flower companies, this move appears to be more of a public relations stunt than a solution to the environmental problems of Lake Navaisha.

What future for the children of Kenya?

Furthermore, the once clear waters of Lake Navaisha are now mucky and brown as a result of the rapid clearing of trees for agricultural production. This problem is not unique to Naivasha. Rapid removal of indigenous tree species around the country and particularly in water catchment areas has led to major siltation problems and has dried up rivers and threatened lakes.

Operating with these unsustainable methods will certainly result in the disappearance of Lake Naivasha and the further decline in the traditional livelihoods of the surrounding communities – a travesty that can be stopped.

In order to curb environmental degradation, organizations, such as the Green Belt Movement, are working at local, national and international levels. The Green Belt Movement has planted over 40 million trees in Kenya and works with communities who live in the uplands above Lake Naivasha to protect the watershed to empowers communities with the skills to think and act sustainably. However the issues surrounding the lake its self and access remain complex and sensitive.

Its founder, Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai, said in her keynote speech at the launch of the United Nations’ International Year of Forest on February 2^nd that “It is not that we do not know. None of us can claim ignorance. We know what to do. Much information is out there.”

Wangari Maathai

Let’s not claim ignorance this Valentine’s Day. Instead of playing a part in promoting the side effects of capitalism, think sustainably. Lets do as Wangari would do and plant a tree–a symbol of your love that will last for a very long time. As Wangari always likes to say:

“I cannot live without the green trees and nor can you”

A Green Belt Movement Nursery in Nairobi

Baby Trees in the GBM Nursery

The post How Deep is your Love (part 2) update from Kenya appeared first on EcoHustler.

Valentine’s Day is the culturally appointed moment when we affirm our love and appreciation for our partner. En mass we get amorous and consummate our passion. Naturally capitalism feasts on this kind of mass behaviour. In today’s world Valentine’s Day comes with a price tag and the costs are not just financial.

Many of the things marketed to us come with unpleasant impacts that we may not be aware of. By causing harm elsewhere these gifts dent our karma and unbeknownst to us muffle our mojo. Buying imported Kenyan roses, any kind of disposable tat or, god help us all, a diamond, actually reduces the total amount of love in the world. Is this what you want!? If it isn’t… avoid the dodge and go with the natural, free and sexy alternatives listed below.

Valentine’s Gifts that harm

1. Roses: Roses bought in UK supermarkets at this time of year are almost exclusively from Lake Naivasha. It is drying out like the Aral Sea, the hippos are gone and the people are denied access to the lake. Full story here.
2. Disposable tat: your partner may giggle when you first give them the plastic: heart, teddy bear, balloon… whatever… but it ends up in the Earth poisoning nature. Buying less stuff is the only real way to consume sustainably.
3. Diamonds: there is no such thing as an ‘ethical’ new diamond… even if De Beers says there is. They probably have human blood on them. If they don’t they have almost definitely been torn from the guts of the Earth from one of the biggest holes ever dug . Not nice.
   

   Lesotho mine in South Africa (world’s biggest)

Valentine’s gifts that turbo charge your love

We cannot ‘ethically shop’ ourselves out of the collapsing biosphere. We must buy less stuff. But don’t sweat! Research shows this makes us happier. Maximize your mojo with these cunning manoeuvres:

1. Massage: the benefits of massage are manifold and on Valentines day the chances of a ‘happy ending’ are high! If you are not the massaging type get down to Wahanda to get you and your partner a bargain massage.
2. Local Food: tastes better, fun to cook, better for you. Can’t be arsed to cook? Use this website to find a local restaurant serving local food… lovely!
3. Home made: cards, poems, pictures. Being creative boosts your well-being whilst showing you do actually give a shit.
4. Vintage: if you need to buy a ‘thing’ make sure you are reusing. Vintage diamonds and more can be bought at the enchanting Grays Antique Market in London.
5. Plant a ‘love tree’ together. If your partner won’t plant a ‘love tree’ with you… this probably means they are planning to dump you or that they are shagging your mate. Buy a native tree, grab your lover, find a good spot and get planting. Feels good right? that’s Gaia blowing you a kiss.

The Love Tree by Isdelth: http://isdelth.deviantart.com

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