Nature in June – what you can expect to see! Read more

After the natural philosophers, the main focus of philosophy was changed by Socrates – probably the most famous philosopher of them all. His position was that you begin to become a philosopher when you admit that you know nothing. Read more

This is a copy of the door to a wall cupboard, or mural cupboard (just the same word but from a Latin stem – posh). I wrote briefly about this local cupboard now in Cliffe Castle Museum here.  Read more

At the end of April, I went to a Trade Commission ‘civil society dialogue’ meeting Brussels in which Trade Commissioner Cecelia Malmstrom was seeking input on how to push forward the WTO globalisation agenda via the mechanism of the EU. Read more

It may seem like a strange question from an environmental organisation. But the way that we think nowadays didn’t just fall from the sky – it’s not ‘common sense’ and it hasn’t always been the same. We’re not born with a worldview – it’s something that we develop from what’s gone before. Read more

This is an idea that allows you to heat water via solar electric panels instead of exporting surplus electricity to the National Grid. This makes sense because it then means that you can do the work yourself instead of hiring an (expensive) accredited installer – plus you can use second-hand gear. Read more

Temple Druid Community is set in 56 acres of woodland, pasture, steams and meadows in North Pembrokeshire. We are looking for members to join us in creating a community based on the foundations of compassion and respect for nature, ourselves and others and a strong wish to tread gently on the earth. Read more

‘Liberalisation’ – sounds like a good thing, right – like ‘freedom’? It’s rarely named or explained, but underpins the trade agenda and ‘globalisation’. It allows corporations to become mega-transnationals. Read more

We are really excited to be re-opening the Share Offer for our community windfarm. We raised £734k from our first Share Offer before Christmas and now want to hit the £1,000,000 target. Read more

Ha Joon Chang, author of 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism and Economics: The User’s Guide explains that TTIP is not about ‘free trade’ – trade is already more-or-less free. TTIP is about helping corporations to sue countries if they dare to do anything – anything at all – that can be shown… Continue reading Ha Joon Chang: ‘increasing corporate power is at the heart of TTIP’ Read more

Reciprocal roundhouse build: call for volunteers. Gloucestershire, July – August 2016. We’re building a 9m turf roof roundhouse for the charity Farms For City Children and are calling for assistance. Read more

Trade deals (and in fact, the EU) exist to maximise growth and to orient our economies towards exports. From an environmental perspective, this is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Read more

Living in a cool and slightly windswept location in the South Shropshire Hills means that the arrival of migrant birds or the appearance of the first spring butterflies occurs a little later here than it does in counties further south and east. Read more

Can you take 10 mins to send this letter, or something very similar, to your MP? People have been asking MPs some of these questions and getting silly answers, which suggests we are hitting a nerve – so we need to keep on hitting it. Read more

We received an email recently with these sentences: ‘This idea of those evil corporations is mistaken because we are all involved in society and economy. There is no us and them we are all part of it and need to take responsibility for that.’ Read more

A report for the Bertelsmann Foundation has shown plummeting support for TTIP in Germany and in the US – down to 17% in Germany and 15% in the US, with 18% of Americans and a full third of Germans saying that it is ‘a bad thing’. Read more

There’s clever and there’s clever. There’s clever like a computer or a calculator, and then there’s clever as in wise. The first kind of cleverness is the technical type, that can work out how to build nuclear weapons, or to genetically modify food crops, or to cut through the branch that we’re sitting on Read more

Here’s a very interesting opportunity for a budding smallholder – either paid work or farm share, near Totnes in Devon. Over to Richard: Read more

Just listened to a ten-minute advert for Tesco on ‘You and Yours’ on Radio 4, masquerading as news. I have some questions: Read more

I don’t believe that any ethnic group anywhere in the world can truthfully claim that they have never carried out atrocities against another group. Every nation has been victim and perpetrator at some time. Read more