News

Infrequently Asked Questions – a game for grown-ups

A big THANK YOU to Eric Francis and his wonderful colleagues at Planet Waves – the most complete, most innovative and most switched-on astrology site on the web – for giving such a generous plug to my new project Infrequently Asked Questions.

The IAQ project launch was featured in the Friday November 18 subscriber edition and then again on the Daily Astrology pages on November 22. I have been completely blown away by the huge response and the number of people who have visited the site since then!

The project itself – which consists of two beautiful virtual decks of cards – is rapidly evolving. It is a game – but with a serious underlying purpose: to get us to ask more meaningful questions about our own personal and cultural issues. The decks are full of the kind of questions we often forget to ask when we are tired, stressed, overwhelmed or just caught up in the autopilot mode of modern life.

I hope visitors here will also take the time to explore the IAQ site, play with the cards and hopefully find it both interesting and enlightening. If so, let your friends know and please take a moment to tweet and facebook it so others can do the same.

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Join me at the Battle of Ideas festival 2011

Is big business ruining food? That is the question some of us will be debating on Saturday 29 October, 10.30am -12.00pm.

The debate is just one part of this year’s Battle of Ideas – an annual event organised by the Institute of Ideas and hosted by the Royal College of Art. The weekend event has a full programme of high-level, thought-provoking debate on issues that matter.

The Battle of Ideas festival, now in its sixth year, is very much about a public conversation. The emphasis is on audience participation, and the festival is open to anyone with intellectual curiosity and the courage to think critically. The weekend includes more than 70 lively debates which you can learn more about here.

I’m really looking forward to my tiny part in it all. Please come along and join in.

UPDATE: Listen to the full debate here.

A New Natural Health Website

People who know me will know that I am an advocate of alternative and complementary medicine. It is my preferred first line of care for myself and my family and has been for decades. I have built part of my professional reputation investigating and writing about healthcare, as well as the intersection of health and […]

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And the winner is

I am very happy to be able to say that last night, at a very glitzy ceremony at London’s Victoria & Albert museum, the Cows Belong in Fields campaign I ran for Compassion in World Farming scooped the prestigious Campaigner of the Year award at the Observer Ethical Awards 2011.

According to the Observer review: “Thousands of people voted for Compassion in World Farming and its high-profile campaign against the Nocton “mega-dairy“. I am told that it was a decisive win in our category (all the more amazing since the shortlist included chef and food campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and campaign group 38-Degrees). I’d like to thank everyone who voted for us. We were all really thrilled and delighted to be awarded what is widely considered to be the ‘green’ equivalent of an Oscar. Thanks goes once again to our partners on the front line in Lincolnshire, local activist group CAFFO, with whom we will be sharing this award.

For my part I take it not just as a vote of confidence for our campaign, but a strong statement about the public’s abhorrence of factory farming. Compassion in World Farming has made a bold commitment to end factory farming by 2050, and with the public behind us this commitment cannot fail.

It was ironic to be standing on the stage with my colleagues and our celebrity supporters, TV presenter/conservationist Bill Oddie and campaigner/vet Marc Abraham, accepting this award less than a day after the National Farmers Union issued a disturbing, rather sinister and grossly out of touch press release congratulating itself for its part in quashing a Women’s Institute resolution against factory farming.

The NFU is doing all it can to avoid the necessary conversation about where our food system is heading. At the same time we have a government, indeed we have had successive governments, that have formulated their food and agriculture policies on the idiotic assumption that if we can only make our food system big enough it will eventually be too big to fail (come on folks…where have we heard that one before?!).

As anyone can see from stories of rising food prices, failing crops, contaminated vegetables and farmers going out of business at an alarming rate, our food system is already failing. It’s failing our farmers, it’s failing consumers, it’s failing the environment and it’s failing our animals. Making it bigger will only make it a bigger failure. We can feed the world in a way that is ethical, sustainable, safe and compassionate. CIWF aims to be a leader in this important reform and to be the ones to really get that conversation going.

This award will be a great conversation starter!

Observer Ethical Awards 2011

Hurrah! The campaign I ran for Compassion in World Farming to fend off the Nocton mega-dairy has been shortlisted in the Observer Ethical Awards 2011.

OK I admit it I am really thrilled. Giddy even. Environmental campaigners don’t get many ‘wins’. Very often we have to dig down deep to find the will to keep going year after year with only incremental progress to show for our efforts. But Nocton was a decisive ‘win’.

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Avian Influenza – From the Archives

I see avian influenza, or ‘bird flu’, is bubbling under the news headlines again… The first time around I must have done 40 different radio and TV programmes. This ‘bird flu’ special from the BBC World Service was definitely the most interesting and the most fun. Here are some excerpts from the hour-long programme which […]

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Stop press…Nocton Dairies’ plans put out to pasture

On February 16, 2011 Nocton Dairies threw in the towel and withdrew their plans for the UK’s first mega-dairy. In a short, rather terse press release the proprietors cited the objection made by the UK’s Environment Agency as the main reason for their decision (and took a rather pointless and petty swipe at the NGOs and animal […]

Cows Belong in Fields – a crucial campaign

For anybody who has been wondering what I am currently up to…and why the blog hasn’t been updated so frequently lately… In September 2010 I took on one of the most complex ongoing campaigns in the UK – the campaign against Nocton Dairies. Working as a campaign manager for Compassion in World Farming, I have been fighting […]

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Stuffed Online – a great teaching resource

Stuffed Online – based around the issues in my book Stuffed: Positive Action to Prevent a Global Food Crisis – is a vital teaching resource provided by the Soil Association’s Food for Life Partnership. It sets out debates about the future of food, allowing teachers and students to explore the issues surrounding how our food is produced and what impact this is having on our environment, society and animal welfare. Each debate has resources – relevant articles, weblinks and information – that will confirm or challenge your understanding about the impact of our current food production and consumption.

Check it out here. For more about Stuffed see my books pages.

Deep Fried Planet special – Ecocide

A special edition focusing on the crime of ecocide, November 15. The current series of Deep Fried Planet has ended. But we’re not quite finished yet! In this extended special edition I speak to the initiator of the Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights, barrister turned activist Polly Higgins, about her campaign to make ecocide a crime. Can […]