Time, process and perspectives - being artists in a complex world

We want our listeners to share our wonder and curiosity about nature, embrace the complexity, take the time to enjoy the process of finding out more about our relationship with nature.

Taking the time is, also, what Harriet and Rob Fraser of Somewhere Nowhere encourage us to do: take time, develop a deeper connection with nature and a more mindful, respectful study of it.

They do this through the art of poetry, stories, photography and film to show the emotional element required to change hearts and minds, in addition to the facts and figures.

Art, they say, is not just about an object you can see and touch. It is about what happens between people, when they take the time to understand each other, and nature. It is this kind of art that transforms people, encourages new thinking, and, hopefully we add, positive action.

This bumper episode is the last in our second series, thank you for sharing this journey with us.

*** The views we and our guests express in this podcast are our own. ***

reference list

Ann Stevenson - The opening line of one of her poems was "Somewhere Nowhere" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Stevenson

Rebecca Solnit - Hope in the Dark

We are in the middle of an energy and cost of living crises, and widening gap between the very rich and the rest of the people, while our increasing energy demand is fuelling strife and wars around the world, not least the war in Ukraine.

We recorded this episode in late April, before the announcement of windfall tax and help with energy bills by the Chancellor in the UK. But these are short term solutions, we wanted to cover longer term ones. Besides how effective measures like those in the UK really are remains to be seen and we’ll get back to this topic again.

We talk about comparative advantages of different energy sources, like how to deal with fluctuations in renewable energy, developments in battery technologies, tidal-, nuclear- and geothermal power. Our Jill Duggan stresses that we need investment in research, for example to find out more about hydrogen. On a positive note, we can see that building renewable energy capacity is now cheaper than fossil fuels. We can hope for better prices in the future and a fairer supply of energy.

We also talk about what individuals can do like:

- turn down our thermostats

- insulation of our buildings

- heat pumps, photo voltaic

- install a smart meter and look at it – be aware of how much energy you use when

- use consumer power to push for better policies and products

When we talk about these actions, it’s not because we ignore those who live in fuel poverty and cannot even afford to put the heating on in the first place.

It’s because we want to recognise our social responsibility to lower demand even if we can afford the increasing bills and campaign for cleaner and fairer sources of energy.

For more tips on how to save energy - https://energy-trust.co.uk/

For trusted tradespeople - https://mcscertified.com/

For community solar power projects in the UK - https://solartogether.co.uk/landing

Ece caught up with Alla Ljungman with whom we first spoke back in February at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. We talked about birds, agriculture, energy technologies, what the Ukrainian Environment Ministry and others are doing, and a whale in the Pacific

It is clear that the impact of war on the environment is not just on the battlefield or the immediately affected countries but the whole world - from migrating birds to global movement of goods and cost of such movement. European Union's decision to minimise oil and gas imports from Russia will mean more tanker movement from elsewhere; decline in fertilizer / raw material provision from Russia will affect food production costs. To understand and want to reduce such impacts and costs of how we deal with war is not about not dealing with war. But perhaps solutions that will reduce costs lie elsewhere - like consume less in the first place through insulation, reduced meat consumption, eating locally and seasonally. These are all acts of defiance!

The whale - shipping lane visualisation Ece mentions is here: https://www.livescience.com/whale-stress-animation.html - of course this is not conclusive, timing is not clear for example. and maybe whales like chasing / being chased by tankers. There were a lot of comments on the Linked In post Ece saw. But she still feels sad about it.