The Government wants to introduce changes to Planning law that will restrict us from having a say in what happens in our communities. This will make it easier for big business to develop nuclear power stations, major roads, airport runways, out-of-town supermarkets, ports, reservoirs and waste incinerators.

photo by Brett Arnett

Government’s New Planning White

Paper

Continued on Page 12

JUNE5th June Environment Village, Victoria Sq.

7th June City Council Sustainability Forum on recycling, 6pm.

9-10th June BBC Springwatch Festival, Cannon Hill Park.

11th June BFoE AGM, 7:30pm

12th June Birmingham University Vale Festival.

18th June BFoE speaker event: Mark Lynas on climate change. 7pm Journey Metropolitan Community Church (opposite BFOE).

19th-25th June BFoE at Glastonbury.

21st June An Inconvenient Truth showing followed by Q+A with Lynne Jones MP and John Hemming MP, Electric Cinema, 6:30pm

JULY7th July, CoCoMAD Festival, Cotteridge Park.

10th July City Council Full meeting, presentation of and debate on Sustainability and Climate Change report.

12th-16th July Organic Beer Festival, The Anchor pub.

Farmers’ MarketNew St: 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month

King’s Heath: 1st Saturday of the month

Sutton Coldfield: 2nd Friday of the month

King’s Norton: 2nd Saturday of the month

Harborne: 2nd Saturday of the month 9-2pm

Moseley: 4th Saturday of the month

Solihull: 1st Friday of the month

Shirley: 3rd Thursday of the month except Jan and Feb

Bearwood: 3rd Saturday of the month

Visit this site for more info: http://thefoody.com/regions/centralfm.

3 - Diary

4 - Warehouse News

6 - Local Shops Day of Action

7 - Desktop Recycling

8 - Guest Article

10 - Rail for King’s Heath

11 - Pipeline Update

12 - PlanningWhite Paper

14 - Brave New Worlds

16 - A Green Wedding

20 - Summer Fun

21 - A Crude Awakening

22 - Donation Form

23 - Contacts

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A big thank you to everyone who came to celebrate the Warehouse’s 30th birthday party bringing their enthusiasm for Birmingham Friends of the Earth, photos of their time at the warehouse and in one person’s case, a fantastic simnel cake. Luckily it didn’t rain and whilst it was a bit nippy there was plenty of dancing and racing to keep everyone warm.

For me the reason for its success was down to the way people got involved both within the organisation and outside groups. For instance our neighbours Matt at BTCV offered us use of his archway to create a stage area and donated the power to run it. Rev Chris Dowd opened up the Journey Metropolitan Community church as a chill out room and let us borrow his very nice new chairs.

The driving force within the warehouse came from the birthday committee namely Greg, Jenny, Surinder, Gareth and myself, Greg organised all the different bands to play on the day, built the stage, provided all the equipment and was an absolute star especially as it turned out it was his birthday on 1st April as well! Surinder was incredibly positive and enthusiastic throughout the whole process and kept the vision going, Gareth made bunting till it was coming out of his ears and could now open his own bunting shop and Jenny was there to advise on risk assessments and other potential logistical nightmare. It was also great to have tenant support with Tina and John from the One Earth Shop offering much

needed additions to the guest list and filling me in on the Warehouse who’s who history. Mirabel and the Warehouse Café provided food and a beautiful cake and Andrew and Adrian at Sprockets were on hand to answer cycling queries and provide bikes for those wanting to compete in the slow bike race.

Last but by no means least I was very grateful to those people who gladly volunteered on the day be it stewarding, selling raffle tickets, compering, interviewing guests or taking photos as a record of the event. All in all a day that showed the kindness and generosity of others and the strength of people’s commitment to Birmingham Friends of the Earth and the Warehouse

Tamsin Mosse

Appeal for Volunteers at BFOE Do we have any building surveyors amongst our supporters that could offer Birmingham Friends of the Earth their expert advise on a flat roof and the external back wall of our Warehouse building in Digbeth?

We are also looking for fundraisers to help generate funds for various maintenance projects, if you have any experience in this field we would be very glad to hear from you.

Please contact Tamsin Mosse on 0121 6326909 for more details

One Earth Shop

-100% vegetarian and vegan

-A Large selection of organic and fairtrade products, most supplied and delivered by a workers co-operative

-Vegan owners - no meat or dairy products sold

Open Monday to Saturday, 10am-5pm

Midsummer’s special: celebrating the English summer and local produce

21 June, 7p.m.: to celebrate the longest day we will be sampling high quality local wines from Shropshire and Staffordshire, then sitting down

to a 3 courses, meal celebrating the plentiful local produce available at this time of year and traditional English summer flavours.

This evening will be accompanied by ambient English folk music from Little Sister www.myspace.com/littlesistermusic . Phone the café on 0121 633 0261 or reply to this email to book. Tickets are £18 including the wine tasting, 3 course meal, coffee or tea and mints.

Sprocket CyclesSales, service, repairs, accessories. Bikes also built to your own specifications.

Open Wednesday to Saturday, 10am-4pm

0121 633 0730

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On a very blustery Saturday on the 12th May, a group of Friends of the Earth went to the Fox and Goose to raise awareness about the application that Tesco has going through about building on a combined brown field and green field site. Tesco’s at the last minute expanded their plans to take more of the Brockhurst playing fields. Already in the area there are 3 supermarkets so don’t actually need another supermarket.

On the day we did a survey of the local shop keepers and the majority are worried how the arrival of the new supermarket will affect their business. Going by Saturdays trade they have a very popular shopping area at the Fox and Goose, with the arrival of Tesco this may change.

Around Birmingham the march of the supermarkets continue, with plans for a Tesco or a Co-op development in Stirchley. There is a Sainsbury’s being planned in Selly Oak. The green light was given to plans for a Tesco at the Swan Centre in Yardley and I heard that Asda is applying for a shop in the Chemsley Wood shopping Centre.

The trouble with supermarkets is that they compete with the smaller local shops who just cant survive against them. Some towns leave people with little choice of where to shop. It’s a huge loss to communities if their local shops close down - but big supermarkets are getting so dominant that smaller shops find it hard to compete.

National Friends of the Earth has successfully pursuaded the Office of Fair Trading to propose an investigation into the negative effects of big supermarket expansion. However, policy change takes time

and meanwhile local shops continue to close down or be taken over. Local shops boost the local economy, provide genuine choice and are a good environmental option.

The most important thing you can do is to buy more from your local shops - choosing local products wherever possible

Mary Baxter

Local shops day of action

Supermarkets compete with the smaller local shops who just can’t survive against them. Over the last few months here at

Allison St we’ve had a new set of computers installed.

They’re all faster than before, have a new operating system and came with lots of software pre-installed. Sounds familiar. How much did this cost? Only about £150 and the help of two skilled volunteers. All of the software is license free and includes an office suite, email, internet and lots of other programs. How did we do this?

Using an operating system called Edubuntu, based on Linux, all of our old computers now share the extra processing power of a single new (second hand in our case) server via an additional network hub. We now have ourselves a much improved computer system

compared to 6 months ago. An added benefit is that installing software and configuring printers is simplified as this only needs to be done once on a single machine the server.

Richard Rothwell of M6-IT a Community Interest Company who contributed his time and expertise to install the new system said, “Edubuntu is an ideal way for cash-strapped schools and voluntary sector business to keep their IT overheads down, benefit from the open source software community and recycle computers in-house”.

Speedie Computers of Digbeth, who recycle PC’s said, “We think the new Edubuntu system at FoE Birmingham is a great example of how to re-use computers and how Linux can be a viable alternative”

For more info check out: http://www.edubuntu.org/ http://www.m6-it.org

Ian Moore

Desktop Recycling

6 7

“The Vegan Society has recently relocated its Head Office from Surrey to Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. We welcome them to the city”

The environment is at last on the mainstream agenda. We are told to use low energy light bulbs and cut our use of cars and aeroplanes. However we don’t very often get told that livestock farming produces as much greenhouse gas as all transport put together.

The United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organisation report ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ states: “At virtually each step of the livestock production process substances contributing to climate change or air pollution, are emitted into the atmosphere.” The report concludes that 18% of total human induced greenhouse gas emissions are produced from livestock farming. This includes methane produced from cows, sheep and goats and nitrous oxide produced from manure.

Switching to a vegan diet will have a greater benefit on climate change than cutting car journeys.

The vegan diet is also a more efficient use of land and water. To produce a typical European omnivorous diet requires about 5 times as much land and 3 to 5 times as much water than a vegan diet.1

The benefits don’t stop there; about 60% of world deforestation has been to provide grazing for beef cattle2.

Increased soya bean production has also contributed to deforestation, but 90% of soya protein is transported around the world to feed poultry, pigs and cattle. People often talk about eating locally reared meat but 70% of animal feed in Europe is imported3.

Eating fish is not the answer; the fishing industry globally burns about 13 billion gallons of fuel a year to catch 80 million tonnes of fish, which is 1.2% of global oil production4. Switching to farmed fish doesn’t help: for every tonne of farmed salmon produced, three to four tonnes of wild fish are caught to produce feed pellets5.

Some people argue that the way forward is local, free-range, organic livestock farming. In the UK only 5% of people buy free-range poultry. To switch all poultry production to free-range would require an extra

700 square miles of land6. There is simply not enough land for this method of farming7, and of course the animals would still be producing greenhouse gases.

Veganic or stock-free farming provides the solution. This method of farming produces vegetables, fruits and grains with no animal manure or artificial fertilizers. Instead it uses green manures and crop rotation and there are commercial farms in the UK operating to this standard8.

Still not convinced? Then check out research published in The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition9 which evaluated the environmental impact of seven different diets.

Their conclusion: the vegan organic diet had the least impact on the environment.

Nigel Winter

References:1 A method to determine land requirements

relating to food consumption patterns, P.W. Gerbens-Leenes et al. Nutritional water productivity and diets, D. Renault and W.W. Wallender.

2 Sustainability and integrity in the agriculture sector, Goodland and D. Pimentel. Ecological integrity: Integrating environment, conservation and health, D. Pimentel, L. Westra, R.F. Noss, Island Press 2000.

3 European Parliament, Europe’s deficit in compound feeding-stuffs and agenda 2000.

4 Fueling global fishing fleets. Peter H. Tyedmers, Reg Watson and Daniel Pauly.

5 Feedlots of the sea, Worldwatch Magazine Sept/Oct 2003, J.C. Ryan.

6 BBC Countryfile. 18 March 2007.7 Chris Lamb, Meat and Livestock Commission.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6295 747.stm

8 www.veganorganic.net9 European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2006.

Evaluating the environmental impact of various dietary patterns combined with different food production systems. L. Baroni, L. Cenci, M. Tettamanti and M. Berati.

Switching to a vegan diet will have a greater benefit on climate change than cutting car journeys.

Veganic farming provides the solution... no animal manure or artificial fertilizers.

picture by Yael Frankel

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Nigel Winter, Vegan Society

In the West Midlands passenger numbers have shown a rapid increase in the last few years, probably due to the booming economy and the worsening congestion on our roads. The consequences of the relentless increase in road traffic are adverse effects on both human health and the local and global environment. Although railways still have an environmental impact it is considerably less than road or air travel. Railways, when they serve local communities, also extend the range for people relying principally on walking and cycling. Rail in urban areas can attract not only its own following but also enable car-dependants to make the switch. A substantial shift of passengers and freight from road and air to rail would benefit everyone through reduced congestion and less damage to the environment.

Nationally up to 24,000 vulnerable people are estimated to die prematurely each year because of poor air-quality, and transport is a major contributor to this problem through engine exhaust emissions.

Although rail carries 7% of U.K. traffic it emits only 0.2% of Carbon Monoxide, 2% of Nitrous Oxide, 1% of Volatile Organic Compounds and 2.5% of Sulphur Dioxide emissions.

So its hats off to Centro who thirty years ago took the ailing railways between Lichfield and Redditch, gave them a good shaking, and brought in a frequent train service. The Cross City Line has not looked back since. Trailing in the shadow of those bold moves comes Birmingham City Council who in 2006 commissioned a study into putting trains on another Birmingham route, the Camp Hill Line through King’s Heath.

Birmingham’s municipal leaders wanted to show their confidence in a revival of Longbridge and Birmingham as a place for local employment. Putting local trains on the Camp Hill Line, to link Bromsgrove to Longbridge, King’s Heath and Birmingham Moor Street shouts it out. Not only have the local MPs been supportive but also Network Rail, whose suburban railways were singled out by the Eddington Report for their importance, is currently resignalling the Birmingham railways and can accommodate the short new length of railway at Bordesley.

The only real uncertainty is going to be the Department for Transport who have spent huge sums of late on the railways and are being asked for money for London’s CrossRail and work elsewhere to expand railway capacity. That is where you, the reader, comes in . By writing to

your MP in support of Birmingham local rail you can make a difference.

Trains to King’s Heath can and must happen and surely can only be thwarted by one thing – Jeremy Clarkson being crowned King of Network Rail

John Hall

Editor’s note: A few years ago Birmingham consulting engineers put the cost at £19m. It is probably double that now. The new roof for New Street Station ‘Birmingham Gateway’ is priced at £500m and the A3 Hindhead road improvement is running at £394m.

Rail for Kings Heath

Much to the sorrow of the locals the pipeline has arrived in the Golden Valley on its way from Milford Haven to Tirley in Gloucestershire where it will link up with the national gas grid.

A working corridor of 44 metres wide known as the “ spread” snakes its way through fields and meadows. One such meadow has never been ploughed since mediaeval times and Turnastone Court Farm was purchased by the Countryside Restoration Trust specifically to preserve its ancient meadows with their mix of flowers and grasses and to restore its traditional farming methods. Not only has190 by 44 metres of the meadows been disrupted, but every time the pipeline crosses a road or field boundary the ancient hedge is grubbed out. What the lapwings and curlews will make of this remains to be seen.

Let us hope that the promised five year monitoring scheme will show

a good recovery to both flora and fauna. In the meantime those of us with wood burning stoves who don’t like to see good timber go to waste, wonder where all the timber will end up, especially the balks of timber used to cushion the arrival of the giant diggers.

Viewed from the hillside the huge scale of the operation can be appreciated. If all this ingenuity could have been invested in a sustainable energy system my reluctant admiration would be joined by positive feelings for the future. Instead I am left with a feeling of betrayal and remember my father saying 40 years ago that the great thing about our valley was that it wasn’t on the way to anywhere important, so we were safe from the coming national motorway construction programme. None of us could have imagined that one day we would be living near a super highway to more global warming

Pipeline update

10 11

It may be hard to believe, but Business and the Treasury seriously believe that their ‘rights’ are damaged by interfering local people, that planning is an invidious “intervention in the market” and that some types of development should simply be able to steamroller their way through the planning system unopposed. And you thought they did that already!

The Government has drafted a Planning White Paper that proposed a national planning commission to determine big infrastructure projects. This would benefit large developers by making it easier for them to sidestep local objections. Anything considered in the national interest will have a much easier ride to get the go-ahead. Most of the undesirable developments “in the national interest” are likely to be at odds with the Government’s claimed intentions about tackling climate change.

Whilst it may feel that we lose many planning battles already, it is still the case that many local groups and, when they are doing their job, councils, use the current planning system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to influence local developments for the benefit of the community; a route no longer open to them under these proposals.

The consultation period on the Planning White Paper runs from 21st May to the start of August.

At the same time a review of the power of supermarkets is also being held by the Competition Commission (CC). There is a real threat that the CC will back proposals in the PWP that will make it even easier for supermarkets to be built by removing the ‘need’ test which was already inadequate protection as the residents of Shirley, Yardley, Hodge Hill and Quinton are aware. Instead

the CC should recommend rules to allow real local competition to flourish, by reducing the dominance of supermarkets and promoting a diverse range of shops, including local independents. This review is open for feedback until December.

Friends of the Earth nationally is one of several organisations leading a campaign to stop these changes and maintain community rights. There is a specific call to action between 30 June and 14 July, and hopefully Birmingham FOE will be able to take

part in this as well as making its own responses to the consultations.

If you would like to get involved, call us here at FOE and we’ll let you know when and where to find the consultations and what actions or stalls we might be holding, OR go to the website http://www.planningdisaster.co.uk/ to take a quick email action

Karen Leach

Planning White Paper

There is a real threat that the Competition Commission will backproposals that will make it even easier for supermarkets to be built.

A talk on the effects of Climate Change over the next Century, bringing together the major scientific projections, degree by degree, showing how life will change on a hotter planet. Mark Lynas reveals why the Western US, Southern Europe and Australia are likely to become uninhabitable. He shows the chaos and destruction that will result unless urgent action is taken to cut back greenhouse gas emissions.

7pm to 8pm • Mark Lynas presents his talk at Journey Metropolitan Community Church followed by a short Q&A.8pm to 9pm • Post-talk book signing will take place at the Warehouse Cafe, where a special menu will be available. Bookings are available to avoid disappointment.This is a free event, for more information call 0121 632 6909 or email info@birminghamfoe.org.uk

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How many worlds do we live on and in? We currently live on just the one, but there seem to be many worlds within. And where you live can massively influence the way you live. Trying to live in an environmentally responsible way is one of those areas where actions may be taken almost for granted in one place, but impossible in principle or practice somewhere else.

I currently live in Leipzig, Germany. I have three car sharing stations (access to the whole car, not just a passenger seat on a specific journey) within a five-minute bike ride of home, a density which means that most people here have one within easy walking distance. People can thus opt to make use of a car for a few hours when they really need one, without having to own one. They are then more likely to use their feet, bikes and public transport the rest of the time.

Although the myriad of hurdles facing car clubs in Britain are now coming down (authorities, insurance issues etc.), car clubs are still pretty rare. I realise that not having a car club round the corner is ‘not the end of the world’, but it is one of those elements which affects how I live my life and view those around me. As I’ve written before, a car-sharing society is one sign of having a caring, sharing society. Of course, this isn’t the end of the road; I’d like to see clubs make electric vehicles available, and a goods bike or two, but progress is being made.

Another example is wind power. In Germany there are some 17,000 turbines up and running, and I also own a share in a wind farm myself. My share produces about 50 times more green electricity annually than my home electricity use. In Britain I have to put up with negative articles and people saying that wind turbines ‘don’t work’.

It really does seem to me to be a different world when I’m in England, even a different planet perhaps. Judging by the goings on around

me on some topics, I could quite easily believe that the air is simply too thin for wind power to work, or that because of some quirk of chemistry and household plumbing all water must be made drinkable first, regardless of the non-drinking use it is then put to.

I have now discovered a new world, one in which people of different nations live and work side by side, with plenty of space and no material

shortages, as long as you are prepared to spend a certain amount of time working to acquire them. As you’ve probably already guessed, this new world is unfortunately not a real one: it’s only a massively online computer ‘game’, or experience, where thousands of players online can interact in real time in a 3-d environment. And yet, having another realm of experience at my disposal in addition to my German and English ones has got me thinking about how many shared environments I can actually take part in and whether they can affect each other. What could be learnt here and taken into the real world?

Unless they provide real-world funding for themselves in the virtual world, citizens start off poor and have to work their way up over a period of months. After a couple of years of running, the economy has already reached the point where the basic raw materials are worth next to nothing, and the large number of gatherers are not fairly rewarded for their work. If someone were to fight for the principles of fair trade here, for example, that might also consciously reach players in their real lives too, where virtually 100% are playing the well-off side of the coin. As it’s not about actual life and death in the virtual world, it’s almost a challenge to put your nose to the grindstone, but the unfairness of then being paid a pittance is striking.

It’s still early days yet, but the registered population is already about half a million and rising. An

interesting factor may become the timescale of development. Whatever happens to this society, the odds are that it will happen much faster than changes to real-life society, just as human society has changed at a pace which must come as a complete shock to any gods who have been watching Earth’s progress according to geological timescales. Can we learn about different avenues that we may take by simulating them on virtual worlds with real participants? Green taxation, citizens’ income? Has the time come for Friends of the Earth to go virtual? Don’t just get a life, get a virtual one!

Jeremy Heighway

Brave New Worlds

Where you live can massively influence the way you live.

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How to make your “white wedding” a “Green”?

To many suppliers, weddings are a commercial dream but a rocky road for the environmentalist to travel. So when I got engaged in January this year I decided that I wanted to do my bit towards making my white wedding tinged with green; only tinged, because there have been some compromises along the way. As a general point, just because it’s a tradition, that doesn’t mean that you have to do it that way. We arranged our wedding our way, and not always sticking to convention.

There are quite a lot of sources out there to guide you through

the minefield of weddings to help create a green wedding. Look at the National Friends of the Earth forums and websites such as www.eco-wedding.com which are full of useful advice. Other wedding websites such as www.confetti.com have forums where you can pick up second hand items.

So here are a few of my ideas:Invitations and stationery

One idea I considered was rather than sending out formal invitations was to send out an email to everyone referring them to a website. I know that quite a few people have had success in doing this. However, time constraints and a majority of elderly guests who wouldn’t know how to get to a website meant that it was better to send out invitations. I ended up doing the design myself and buying recycled card to make them from. There are a lot of suppliers out there for recycled goods including the Friends of the Earth shop at the warehouse. My favourites were a craft card supplier www.eco-craft.co.uk and recycled product supplier www.recycled-paper.co.uk. I printed on the invitations, ‘printed on recycled paper’: no point in going to all this effort and no one realising the effort you have put in!

I also minimised our enclosed items by combining items such as the list of hotels and directions on one double sided page of recycled paper. As we were giving people options for food I also enclosed an RSVP

postcard so people could just send back the card in the post with no need for an envelope. Despite this effort some guests, still preferred an envelope: obviously they didn’t want the postman to know what they were eating at our wedding.

I tried to continue the theme on our invitations throughout the wedding. I decided as we were having a civil ceremony an Order of Service wasn’t necessary and would be a waste of paper so just put a few posters up around the venue telling people the estimated times for events.

Wedding dress

There is an astounding amount of choice when it comes to wedding dresses, from the sublime to the ridiculous. The most ethical and economical option is of course be to source a second hand or remade dress. Zero impact on the environment. No, its not boring, and yes you can have loads of fun doing it! Check out vintage and retro shops, such as those found in the Custard Factory and Oxfam Shops that specialise in wedding dresses. There are now also a lot of dresses made from fair-trade and cruelty free products and of course you or a relative with a sewing machine might exercise their skills. I had a wedding bag and a bolero jacket made by my mum, which I am already lining up to be used at other weddings I attend!

My cousin when she had her two piece wedding dress made for her requested that they make a shorter

skirt as well as the long skirt so she could wear it to functions afterwards. When I saw her at my wedding she told me that she had just retired the outfit last year- a good eight years of wear! So try and get something that you can either wear again or alter and wear again.

For the bridesmaids, I tried to choose something they could wear afterwards for parties. As for the groom, he got a new suit that he can hopefully wear again at other weddings and formal affairs or special days at work.

Flowers

My mother and I decided that we would do our own flower decorations (although we weren’t brave enough to go as far as the bouquets!) The difficulties of ordering locally grown, seasonal flowers for your wedding cannot be underestimated. Some flowers clock up energy-guzzling carbon miles to reach the wedding reception. Ask the local florist about

A Green Wedding

Ask the local florist about local growers and find out what is in season.

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photo by PinkCakeBox

local growers and find out what is in season. The Flowers and Plants Association website www.flowers.org.uk gives advice on what is in season. We went to the Birmingham flower market and could see exactly where the flowers had come from and got lots of advice.

For the vases, we had used olive jars I had collected over the few months up to my wedding. Just a few bits of decoration to the jar and no one noticed the difference. For ours we used raffia and some ivy leaves. This also meant that when I was offering the decorations to the guests to take home as a little present I didn’t have to worry about them returning the valuable vase, although I suppose I could start worrying about if they would deliver it safely to the bottle bank after use!!

And cut flowers are not the only option. You can think about buying plants and then they can be kept as a reminder of the day. We got a pair of olive trees from the Birmingham market as decoration for the day and some daffodils in pots. Even better with pots you can send your guests home with them as a reminder of the day. Also think about growing some of the decorations and flowers in your garden. I spoke to one person who grew hanging baskets for her daughter’s wedding. For my main table decoration and decoration for the cake, my mum also picked some wild flowers from the garden- some forget-me-nots, apple blossom and cowslips and all the greenery. Its all about thinking outside the box.

Confetti can also be considered when talking flowers, now there is a great choice of dried and fresh petals that can be used. There are quite a few suppliers out there, Shropshire petals can do them in most colours and will mix them for you see www.shropshirepetals.co.uk. We had dried rose petals and felt much happier in the knowledge that they would decompose slowly rather than end up in a soggy mess.

Food and Drink

When it came to food the hotel already had a policy of sourcing the food locally, so that fitted in nicely. So make sure that you ask the venue to source locally and organically. Also think simple - what do you love - Lancashire hot pot? Paella? Cream teas? What about elegant cucumber sandwiches and Pimm’s? One of my parent’s friends had a picnic in the local park. Obviously what

you do depends on the number of guests you have - but however you choose to cater, don’t be put off by tradition.

Also, think locally when it comes to wines. There is a lot more choice when it comes to English wine. We requested a wine that was made locally, the Three Choirs sparkling wine which was almost in the same county as my wedding – how was that for food, well wine miles!! And the hotel did it for the same price as the Italian sparkling that was offered in the package. For more information on English wine go to www.english-wine.com.

Venue and transportation

The best thing about having it in one venue is that it avoids the need to travel to and from places. We chose a hotel where we had both the ceremony and reception. This meant that we didn’t have the transportation issues how to get everyone from one location to another. Although, my green tinge to my wedding fades when it comes to transportation as my husband’s family came from far and wide, from all five continents, (I try not to think about the environmental footprint created by our wedding) but they did hire a coach from London to our venue so at least minimised the footprint after arriving in the UK. There are other ways of travelling as well such as a horse and carriage or as at one wedding I went to, walk from the Church to the reception in a procession in a carnival like manner.

This was a lively and cheery way to get from one to the other.

Wedding list and favours

For our wedding list we decided on having cash presents as we already have a home together and have all we need. We are hoping to use this money to put towards our next home, a much more helpful present from all our guests. Another idea is that many charities such as Oxfam or the Good Gifts catalogue have schemes set up for a wedding list. And as for favours, I was trying to come up with something useful or original such as wild flower seeds, very nice idea so that all the guests can plant the seeds as a memory of the day. However in the end my husband who is from a different tradition didn’t understand the requirement of favours and so decided not to go down this commercial route of more wastage created by weddings.

Afterwards

Share your photographs with your friends. Set up a website where everyone can upload their photographs and video clips and with our new world wide family this helps keeps us all in touch. Finally, make sure that those who were unable to attend get a piece of wedding cake. In our case, the cake was made locally by a farmer’s wife who also runs a catering business. A superb work of culinary art delivered in time despite the lambing season

Mary Baxter

Think locally when it comes to wines. There is a lot more choice when it comes to English wine.

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A Crude Awakening is a film about oil, “peak oil”. Peak oil is the idea that there is a limited amount of oil in the ground, and the remaining reserves are becoming harder to extract, while demand keeps increasing.Logically this means we will reach a point where production peaks and demand exceeds supply. When that happens, prices are likely to raise steeply.One question raised in the film is exactly when this might happen: 2008? 2500? Or has production already peaked? Although the estimation of oil reserves is very complex, with all sorts of financial implications for countries and companies declaring their reserves, the film settles on the answer - “just about now”.Given the state that the climate is in, running out of oil could be seen as a good thing - less oil burnt means less CO2 output, right? But it’s not as simple as that.As the price of oil rises, there is more pressure to use other fossil fuels, such as coal and tar-sands, which produce more carbon for the same amount of energy. There’s also the possibility of more wars to “secure” the remaining reserves.The oil and other fossil fuel reserves were laid down hundreds of millions of years ago, and are being released at a phenomenal rate. According to Jeff Dukes at the University of Utah, each year we burning more than 400 times more fossil fuels than are laid down (1997 figures).We all know the “greenhouse”

analogy for global warming - CO2 keeps the heat in like glass in a greenhouse. To work out what we need to do about it, the “blanket analogy” is better. Imagine you’re in bed, and it’s too hot. Someone is piling blankets onto you (think CO2 being added to the atmosphere). What will make you cooler? Asking them to slow the rate at which they *add* blankets (emit CO2)? Or reducing the number of blankets (reducing the actual amount of CO2 in the atmosphere)? It’s clear that merely slowing the rate at which we add CO2 to the atmosphere won’t work, unless we cut out emissions to the level at which carbon is stored by fossil fuel creation and other mechanisms.So what can be done? Nuclear won’t save us - there’s not enough accessible fuel, and many countries will not be “allowed” nuclear in the near future, and so it’s not a global solution to what is a global problem. With our current energy usage, biomass would require massive amounts of land. Carbon capture and storage is new and unexplored, but do we really believe we can lock the carbon back up for hundreds of millions of years? One of the major solutions is to reduce energy use, by greater efficiency and cutting out things we can avoid (e.g. flights).What this tells us is that whatever happens with peak oil, we need action to drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels - we can’t just hope that we’ll run out before the planet fries!Andy Pryke

A Crude Awakening

Birmingham has an amazing arts scene, with way too many things happening! World class theatre, comedy and art can be seen every week - if you only know where to look. Galleries such as the Ikon (Brindley Place), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Wolverhampton Art Gallery put on regularly changing exhibitions.

Arts Central (www.artscentral.co.uk) has information on around 100 events every week including theatre, poetry, music and comedy.

Birmingham Alive (www.birmingham-alive.com) is a good place to start for live music, as is The Metro free newspaper. The Symphony Hall (www.thsh.co.uk) has plenty of both classical and contemporary music.

What’s On magzine (www.WowBirmingham.co.uk) has previews, reviews and listings for all sorts of events in the city, you can pick up a free copy, along with lots of other flyers and events information in the foyer of the the Central Library.

In September there’s Arts Fest (www.artsfest.org.uk), the UK’s biggest free arts festival and the Moseley Folk Festival (www.moseleyfolk.co.uk) and to look forward to.

Out and About Birmingham Park Rangers provide hundreds of events each year and many of them are free. How about a guided “bat walk”, an afternoon findingout about the myths associated with trees, or more practical activities such as conservation work or surveys. See

www.snipurl.com/ParkRangers. You can walk in the city, Walk 2000 (www.snipurl.com/walk2000) have lots of suggestions. The Ramblers Association (www.snipurl.com/RamblingWestMids) provide details of walks in the region. There’s also train trips - a walk in the Peak District caneasily be done by train, or how about a day out at Warwick Castle orwalking by the river in Stratford?

Getting there:

The “UK Accessible Train Timetable” (www.traintimes.org.uk) is the easiest to use for trips by train, and Travel West Midland’s website will work out the best route from your door using buses, trains, and other public transport (www.snipurl.com/travelplanner). There’s lots to do in and around Birmingham, so cancel that flight and get local with your fun!

Andy Pryke

Summer Fun

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Contact us:Friends of the Earth (Birmingham) The Warehouse 54-57 Allison Street Birmingham B5 5TH

Tel: (0121) 632 6909 Fax: (0121) 643 3122

E-mail: info@birminghamfoe.org.uk

Web: www.birminghamfoe.org.uk

Friends of the Earth is:- The largest international network of

environmental groups in the world, represented in 72 countries.

- One of the UK’s leading enviromental pressure groups.

- A unique network of campaigning local groups, working in more than 200 communities in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

- Over 90% of its funds come from its supporters.

Birmingham FoE:Campaigns at a local level to effect environmental change (in ways which feed into national and international policy) through:

- Direct action

- Lobbying

- Education

- Empowering others to take action

- Participation and representation through public fora

Chair: Brett RehlingCampaigns Co-ordinator: Andy PrykeCampaigns Support Worker: Chris WilliamsGeneral Manager: Tamsin MosseTreasurer: Margaret LynchAviation: James BothamClimate Change & Energy: Jean-Francois MouhotMulti-faith and Climate Change Project: Rianne ten VeenWaste and Resources: Kate Nancarrow & Andy PrykeLocal Food and Trade: Karen LeachPlanning: John Hall & Benjamin MabbettTransport: Libby HaywardNewsletter Editors: Katy Barry & Deborah Woolaston-KovarWebsite Editors: Amanda Baker & Jean-Francois MouhotTalks: Paul Webb and othersAll enquiries and callers welcome.Find us on page 74 of the B’hamA-Z, grid ref: 4A

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