howies®

The Do Lectures have announced their 2010 speakers over on their blog.

Looks like a pretty impressive bunch.

I’m especially looking forward to Maggie Doyne and Daniel Seddiqui. Read about them both over here.

On my lunch breaks I really enjoy trawling through the internet to find what random events are going on in London. 

Well today I stumbled across this film festival Birds Eye View- celebrating women filmmakers.  It’s on at the BFI Southbank from the 4th- 12th March. (tickets are on sale through their website)

They have some amazing UK film premieres, that even if you cannot make it to the event are well worth a look.  I particuarly want to watch Amreeka- the story of a mother and son immigrating to the US in a post 9/11 world.  This film was written and directed by Cherien Dabis, Palistinian herself but brought up in the States.  Should be really thought provoking!

Here’s a trailer for the festival itself…

here’s a taster of the Shared Interest lecture we had at the shop last week, there was some very interesting stuff about how a Fairtrade Co-operative really works.

information about our next talk will be up here shortly!

Shared Interest is a co-operative lending society that aims to reduce poverty in the world by providing fair and just financial services. We have been part of the fair trade movement for 20 years and work extensively with community-based businesses in Africa and other continents to help them make the most of fair trade.

We work primarily by providing finance up front to producers, often via their buyers, to enable them to buy raw materials, tools and the other things they need at the time they need them. We also offer longer term loans and other credit facilities to support the development of fair trade businesses.

We currently have more than 8,700 members who have invested over £25 million to allow us to make a range of financial services available to fair trade producers and the businesses that buy, market and retail their goods.

There’s plenty more info here on the Shared Interest website.

It is taking place on Tuesday, 26th January at 7:30pm here at the Carnaby Street shop, drop us an email at carnabyst@howies.co.uk or give us a ring on 0207 287 2345 and reserve your tickets. As always we will have Organic Beer and Fruit Juice available, and we look forward to seeing you all!

Total obsession!

Stewart Brand TED talk

I don’t know about you, but all the complicated talk about climate change and it’s potentially terrifying consequences is a bit overwhelming and gets my mind in a pickle.

To remedy this I went to a lecture by Stewart Brand and Brian Eno as part of Bristol’s fabulous ‘Festival of Ideas.’ Stewart Brand has been at the forfront of Environmentalism since the 60’s in America. He says that he wants to foster an ‘un-idealistic, practical view about how to get things done’.  He was the guy who got NASA to first publish images of Earth from the Apollo Space missions which changed our view of our planet forever. And for the computer nerds, you might like to know that he was there at the inception of the internet, developing a way of linking environmentalists via a system called ‘The Wall’. He has faith in human beings to do the right thing when given the opportunities and feels that the appropriate tools are key to this. He optimistically believes that we can create a world we believe in.

Watch his video on TED to judge for yourself. I learnt much from the talk I went, and I would like to share with you the information that is still ringing loud in my ears now, how does this information sit with you?

1. How do we frame a problem in a way that it’s solvable? (apparently engineers do this alot!)

2. Instead of refraining from things, we need to do more things.

3. There is a movement for ‘open-source genetic engineering’ so farmers everywhere can use it to modify their crops as they have done through breeding for generations. This could potentially stop world food sources being controlled by controversial giants such as Monsanto (one of the biggest fears of anti-GM campaigners). There is a book called ‘Mendel in the Kitchen’ by an American couple who write about combining the best of organic growing principles and GM technology.

4. He believes that there is currently a regular mis-use of the precautionary principle. Many things have un-intended consequences both positive and negative and it is best that we keep an eye out for both.

5. The new 3rd generation of nuclear power generators have the options to be small modular reactors, that can de-centralize power supplies, even a floating barge in Russia. Uranium supplies are from stable countries such as Australia and Canada.  Third generation reactors can use the waste from first and second generation as fuel. Amusingly, 10% of America’s nuclear fuel comes from old soviet weapons, how’s that for recycling?! New methods of uranium processing are being developed to prevent any waste from the process being used in weapons. 

He didn’t have time to talk much about his positive views on mass migration into cities and population growth, which is a shame.

If you went to the talk or have heard him in his video, let me (Amy) know what you think? He made me question my opinions, has he done the same for you?

Apologies if some of you may have already heard of this.

This is a game you play where every right general knowledge question you answer in the quiz generates free rice that’s sent to those in need. It was founded in Oct 2007 and to date has donated 73,466,848,890 grains of rice.

About FreeRice (from their website)

FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program. Our partner is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide education to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

This is made possible by the generosity of the sponsors who advertise on this site.

Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your education can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.

Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.

A brilliant essay type blog post by Maria Kalman for the NY Times about Democracy and America’s fast food troubles. Well worth a read.

Thanks to cho for the tip off.

P.S. Those muffins look a 1000 times worse (but still mesmerisingly appealing I must admit) than UK ones… I didn’t think that was possible!

John Nese is the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA. He stocks hundreds of varieties of independent Sodas (or fizzy drinks to us).

The stuff this guy says are spot on. Watch it through to the end, it’s worth it…

(via rubenlightfoot)

and here is a clip from our BioRegional Wee Do!