Round Ireland with a Fridge

‘The media likes to hype up what an awful place the world is, but a hitch-hiker will tell you otherwise.’ In the summer of 1997 Tony Hawks (comedian, travel writer, philanthropist, broadcaster) was a hitch-hiker, in Ireland, with a fridge. The book he wrote about his adventure ‘Round Ireland with a Fridge’ was a bestseller and it is soon to released as a film, more about that in a bit, I want to talk about ‘The Fridgehikers guide to life’. Fridgehiker is an abridged version of the story dotted with the lessons Tony learned on his journey. What’s all this got to do with education for sustainability? Well, here are a few of Tony’s bits of advice along with my interpretations of them:

We need less than we think we do
Anyone who has spent anytime on the road know the value of a lighter load, but this is equally true in our everyday life. When we are less materialistic, we have less stuff to buy, look after, clean, insure, worry about losing, use, justify owning and so on. We think we need lots of things, but we have been conditioned to think this by the world around us.

Slow down and create some moments of peace
Life is all bit fast these days and I’m as guilty as most, trying to fit as much in as possible all the time, I enjoy the wide experience of life that this gives me. But, I try to make sure I don’t rush too much between things so I can enjoy the journey. I also try to catch at least ten minutes ‘slow’ time (it often goes on for longer). No writing, no talking, no reading, no eating, no screen watching, just peace and quiet with open eyes and open mind.

You don’t need to show off
Bling is immature, eco-bling is a contradiction, status symbols are shallow, no one likes a show off. Sure we should celebrate and share our talents, but no one likes someone who over does this. Sustainability requires a bit of maturity and humbleness, well actually a lot more than is currently around.

Worrying is not a good use of our time
There is no point worrying about environmental problems, or making others worry about them. We just need to get on with living lives that ease or solve these problems; it is not (despite what we are led to believe) difficult to be green. As Tom Hodgkinson says the best thing we can do about environmental problems is nothing at all. By this he means literally do nothing, unplug, slow down, stop shopping and so on. A better use of our time is to assess exactly where we are now and then decide what is the best course of action to make the future as good as possible. Just get on with life that is simple in means and rich in ends. That is the main thrust of what the Fridgehiker can teach us!

So, the film… Tony Hawks needs extras for ‘Round Ireland with a Fridge’, here is the info:

'Hi there,

I thought you might like to know that Round ireland With A fridge is finally going to be made into a film, with the incredibly creative casting me playing me. I don't know how we thought of it. Anyway, there are a few scenes where we'll need some extras, and since it's an incredibly low budget film, we can't afford to pay anyone! We'll need some extras in the scenes we'll be shooting in pub interiors around the Wimbledon and Tooting areas in London. If you, or anyone you know might like to take part then do get in touch. It would most likely be a day's commitment though, so you'd best be aware of that. (The dates we're likely to need you will be 14th and 15th May.

If you can't help in this regard, please make sure you go and see the film when it comes out. Then you can say that you were asked to be in but that you turned it down.

Cheers

Tony'

(If you want to be in the film contact Tony via his website)

Book review - Crap at the Environment

It is painfully obvious that it is difficult to be ‘Good at the Environment’ when you are a stand-up comedian in the English speaking world. Poor old Mark Watson is crap at the environment because he has to fly back and forth from the UK to Australia to make people laugh. I am struggling to find anything positive to say about this book as a piece of education for sustainability. The one thing I can say that his self pitying honesty does at least highlight something that needs to be better understood by environmentalists. His story basically explains that he has plural rationalities. This is what is meant by plural rationalities: From an environmental perspective, Mark recognises that it is not rational for him to fly to Australia. However, from a career perspective, it is completely rational for Mark to fly to Australia. Mark therefore has two competing rationalities. He then has to make a decision, should he stay at home and not be crap at the environment, or fly, further his career and be crap? On a smaller scale, he faces these sorts of competing rationalities in many other areas of his life, take a one mile taxi ride or walk through the rain, use the lift or walk to the 20th floor of his hotel, eat delicious red meat or eat vegetables.

We all face these decisions; they are basically choices between taking the easy or more desirable option, or taking the harder or chore-like one. We all have plural rationalities. The result of this is that we are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the environment when it does not feel like too much like a sacrifice or chore. Environmental education can make us more motivated to take the environment into consideration when we make decisions. For Mark, the main sources of his environmental education were Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’, George Monbiot’s ‘Heat’ and Mark Lynas’ ‘Six Degrees’. These three sources are pretty sensational in their findings and delivery, with a real ‘act now’ message. The pleas to the ordinary citizen are framed as sacrifices for the sake of the planet. The questions of why we travel, why we shop, why we eat red meat are not really asked. The reaction is to carry on doing the 'crap' things but in a slightly less environmentally damaging way. I wish Mark Watson had been a little less self-pitying and a bit more analytical about why he and his followers are crap at the environment. The book wasn’t very funny anyway, so he may as well have gone a bit deeper. If you haven’t read this book read Tom Hodgkinson’s ‘How to be Free’ first.

Tom Hodgkinson - Love your neighbour

I am not normally prone to getting out of bed at 8am on a Sunday morning to catch the 55 bus to central London, but today was an exception. I have been to a Sermon at the Old horse hospital (behind Russell Sq tube station) put on by The School of Life and starring the author, journalist and champion Idler, Tom Hodgkinson. I've been holding back on writing about Tom for a while, I read his second book 'How to be free' a while back and thoroughly enjoyed it and have always enjoyed his monthly column in The Ecologist.

Today he was talking about the importance of loving your neighbours, which he suggests is something that we, thanks to our cultural and political upbringing, are not doing enough of. As a resident of a block of flats on Hackney Road, I know only too well how having estranged neighbours fuels our individualism, breeds discontent and does little to deter careless door banging. In his talk, Tom began by explaining the formerly sinful activity of usury. I remember reading about this at length in his book. Up to about 500 years ago lending money and expecting repayment with interest was frowned upon heavily, it was seen as a callous, lazy (perhaps idle) way of profiteering from the financial misfortune of others. Given recent events in the mystical world of finance, the modern position of lenders as heroes who let us fulfil our material dreams has been slightly lost. But in general, usury is no longer portrayed as a sin, just a tiresome and tolerated fact of life. It is also probably true that many people would howl with cries of unfair play if all of a sudden this practice was to end.

The idea of having these secular sermons on a Sunday morning does not need to be spelled out. What I found interesting is that Hodgkinson returned often to the morals of Christianity, pointing out how many of the values sorely lacking in modern society, were prevalent in more Christian times; loving your neighbours being just one of these. There are things in the Bible that are a bit hard to swallow in modern times, but a lot of the values taught by it are sound ones and ones we could probably very much do with reminding ourselves of now. There may be no scientific evidence for God and a Heaven and Hell, but should we really throw the baby out with the bath water?

In my thesis I wrote this about Tom Hodgkinson:

Hodgkinson regularly points out the anxieties and stresses created by modern consumer culture and goes as far as saying that the environmental movement, with its emphasis on technological development creates even more stress and should therefore be handled with caution. His articles also point out the importance of finding meaning in one’s life and living in the present and not worrying too much about money. His philosophy can be summed up by the following quote: ‘When you stop working and stop spending you start living’ (Hodgkinson, 2008).

Simms and Smith (2007), in the 'Do Good Lives Have to cost the Earth' book that they edited, introduce Hodgkinson’s chapter and sum up his recommendations as follows:

His main advice for us is that to tackle climate change, possibly the best thing we could do is nothing at all. But he means it literally, not in the sense of just keep on doing what you are doing. He wants us all to stop and take it easy. No more shopping, no more upgrading consumer durables. The answer he says is to ‘decommodify our fun.’

Maybe environmentalists are trying too hard and just complicating things. Tom Hodgkinson is an excellent environmental educator, whether he likes it or not (I’ve not asked him if he considers himself one). He understands that rather than trying to lessen the environmental impact of our current consumer obsessed culture we actually need to shift that culture out of way and let a new one in. As an environmental educator, he is in a minority.

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