News from 'The Renewable Way' for New Year 2010

Sustainability – a change of vision

About the time I took the picture currently on the Front Page of this web site, humanity is believed to have been moving into an unsustainable relationship with the global system because the rate at which we convert energy from forms that we can use into forms that we cannot or do not use became greater than other biological and chemical processes can covert energy back into forms that are beneficial to us. If the science based ‘rule of thumb’ that it takes around thirty years for the effects of past human activity to be fully felt, then the coming decade is likely to become problematic for everyone of the six billion human beings on this planet and the range of symptoms will be far greater than just ‘climate change’, which was the headline focus of the United Nations Conference held in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. That gathering showed how competition between nations, organisations and individuals is preventing us from facing up to a common problem, which is as threatening to our survival as thermonuclear warfare. This is a disquieting message to take into a new year and a new decade.

We desperately need a change of vision to enable the majority of humanity to see the problem. Many people see the world we inhabit as reassuringly solid, stable and separate, much like the picture of the Cotswold countryside near Stow on the Wold that I took on a sunny and warm day towards the end of September (which now seems very far away from the cold weather that we are currently experiencing). The reality is that we are part of a moving stream of energy that is constantly changing, like the water in the River Windrush that passes through the neighbouring town of Bourton on the Water. Archaeological evidence shows that people (including some of my ancestors) have been living in this area for thousands of years but the Cotswold views that visitors come from all over the world to see have to a large degree been shaped by much more recent human activity. It seems very easy for people to become possessive about what they claim to be ‘their place’ but the truth is that we are all just ‘passing through’. I believe that we can choose to contribute to our surroundings, influence what others can also experience and enjoy without the necessity to compete or destroy.

With this in mind, I have updated the ‘Places’ section of this web site and added some pictures I have taken of North Norfolk, the Sefton Sands, Cannock Chase and the Manifold Valley, all of which are places that I have visited (or revisited) and enjoyed with my family in the last year. My wish for all who read these words is to experience the uplifting of the spirits that I have felt in whatever place they find it. Have a happy and fulfilling new year.

Paul Newman

January 2010