Think global, act local

It's been another busy week here, updating and improving site code, shrink wrapping pallets (ahh, so much fun, the kind of thing you'd love to do as a kid) and planning a short break to the Lake District (Tom - this week) and the Netherlands (Pete - next week). Yesterday was Maya's birthday (the girl with the glasses), being a responsible kind of a person I walked round to her and Tylers house and ended up getting soaked (it was blowing a gale up here last night), it was a cosy kind of an evening once inside though.

Until next week here's some food for thought;

Food for thought

Milling used to be a process whereby wheat was ground betweeen two large circular stones. This process produced quarter of a ton of wholemeal flour per hour.

Since the late 1800's flour has been milled with steel rollers working under very high pressure. This process is known as refining. The flour that is produced is much finer but approximately 10 ten minerals and vitamins are destroyed by this high pressure process.

To compensate for this loss "improvers" are added though not in the proportions in which they were destroyed.

(Co-incidentally, gluten allergies have vastly increased in the past century.)

By 2003 two companies produced two thirds of Britain's (mainly white) 9 million daily loaves! The two companies own a few very large bakeries. One of these giant bakeries uses 820 tonnes of flour each week, 13 tonnes of fat and a mere 12 tonnes of "improvers" mixed in batches of one quater of a tonne.

There are 3,500 craft bakers in the UK. Compared with 35,000 in France!

(...with thanks to our local bio-dynamic farmer.)

 

Jetting off...

How do you escape the office? Boat, Train or Plain? Or do you pile the kids, grandparents, dogs and cats into the car and cruise off into the sunset? With cheap airfares and a dodgy, overpriced rail network chances are you will fly somewhere at least once this year. So as you dream of sun, sea and skis, get your knashers around these figures:

A return flight form London to Miami produces, per person, 4830kg of CO2.

A year's worth of driving your car produces on average 1061.8kg of CO2.

The average British home produces 500kg of CO2 per month.

A television left on stadby for a year - 436.9kg of CO2

London to Moscow return by train 254.6kg

And your phone charger left plugged in for FOUR years 124kg of CO2.

[source: Guardian G2 supplement "Flying this Summer? Read this first", Thursday 07.07.50]

 

Nuclear know how:

At the end of the cold war/beginning of the 1990's countries with nuclear weapons signed a general test ban treaty. The American Department of Energy only agreed to sign after throwing its toys around and demanding more money.

During the cold war the U.S.A. spent US$3.8 billion a year to design, develop and manufacture nuclear arms. Latest figures show the U.S.A. to be spending upwards of US$5 billion a year to design, develop and manufacture bigger and better nuclear weapons.

In doing so, the US is in direct contravention of its obligations to a number of non-proliferation treaties.

The U.S.A has 70,000 nuclear weapons (excluding uranium enriched weaponry) at least 2,000 of which are ready 24hours a day to be launched at the press of a button!

Donald Rumsfeld has not ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in "his" "war on terror". Given Bush's incisive mind and first-strike doctrine it is clear this is not meant as a deterrent.

Want to know more?www.odemagazine.com

Don't feel helpless do something positiveC.N.D. No To Star Wars


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