Owen Paterson, Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, said today that environmentalists who oppose GM food are ‘wicked’. This is why he is wrong. Read more

The terms “survival” and “bushcraft” are often used interchangeably and yet sometimes treated as separate, even competing, disciplines. As a bushcraft survival instructor I obviously have my own views Read more

Clay plasters are beautiful alright – see Clayworks’ efforts in a restaurant in London (above), and see here for more about clay plasters. But for those of you who want more evidence for the benefits of clay plasters Read more

Have you come across thermoelectric generators (TEGs)? They are a way of generating electricity from heat, using the ‘Seebeck effect’ – so, for example, they can be strapped to the side of a wood stove to provide electricity for lighting. Read more

You can’t change anything by voting. Or, as Emma Goldman put it: ‘if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal’. Politicians can rearrange deckchairs but they can’t steer the ship away from the iceberg Read more

Sometimes a story will remind us that things can be done differently. The Isle of Eigg story is one of them. For more details of exactly what happened on Eigg, see Alastair Mcintosh’s book Soil and Soul (available here). Read more

One of Lowimpact.org’s staff recently visited Grow Heathrow and was really impressed with their organisation, their gardens and their opposition to the damaging growth in air travel, airports and the proposed new runway at Heathrow. Read more

Here’s a blog I recently came across, by the ‘Archdruid’ – his argument is that the concept of ‘progress’ is now defunct and that science is just another story – a myth amongst many others that attempt to explain the universe. Read more

NB: for a larger image click here. Let’s get one thing clear, this is not about conspiracy theories. This isn’t about a powerful elite meeting in darkened rooms to fondle their fluffy white cats whilst talking in menacing tones. Read more

The lease has come up for renewal for a very popular pub called the Wheatsheaf in Tooting, south London, in a prime location opposite Tooting Bec tube station. Read more

Red diesel is a lower-taxed fuel, that the EU want to revoke from use by boaters in the UK. On my boat I’m living an incredibly low-impact, environmentally-friendly life Read more

Review of Why Marx Was Right, by Terry Eagleton. Yes, we’re all looking for alternatives to capitalism – it destroys democracy, it eats nature and it’s vacuous – but you don’t have to have read any philosophy or economics Read more

If you would like to see more community-owned co-operative renewable energy projects in the UK, there are practical ways that you can help. Over to Jon for some schemes you can invest in Read more

There have been exciting developments in the world of WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms) this month. The movement, which began in 1971, and links people who want to volunteer on organic farms Read more

Here’s some background to the Ecological Land Co-op’s project in Devon, and here’s a post celebrating the fact that they were successful in their planning application. Now they’re looking for people. Over to Shaun. Read more

We’ve had a bit of a heads-up from a Lowimpact.org partner (who wants to remain anonymous) and family who have been looking for land to start a smallholding for years, and are finally buying a bit of Scotland on the Cowal peninsula in Argyllshire. Read more

Monsanto, one of three companies that control 53% of the world’s commercial seed market, has sued hundreds of small farmers in the United States in recent years to protect its patents on genetically-engineered seeds. Read more

Almost twenty years ago I left the life I knew to live on an acre of terraced woodland in Pembrokeshire. A friend helped me to build an 8x12ft shed and I had the beginnings of my own home. In all naivety, I thought I could live on my own land Read more

Here’s a story. Some of you may know it, but I’m guessing that most people don’t, which is surprising because it has enormous importance for the way we live today, and how our children might live in the future. Read more

I’m writing this listening to a blackbird singing. Short bursts of song, a different tune every time. The blackbird occasionally drops down to the lawn, pecks around, pulls out a worm and flies off to eat it. Read more