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Ethical Banking: Consider moving away from the large corporate banks, whose greed and ineptness has caused global distress and hardship, and towards smaller scale co-operatives. If you have shares are you fuelling a company who puts (shareholder) profit above ethics? Maybe it’s time to move them to companies that don’t.

Boycott: Some companies, e.g. Vodafone don’t play by the rules we’re all meant to, but they still want your business. Consider taking it elsewhere. Take a look at how all the corporate giants do business, including the big supermarkets, and ask yourself how few of them put ethics above profit.

Diet: Apart from the ethical issues involved, meat consumption has a big environmental impact, so consider eating less, or even avoiding altogether.

Donate: Most people in the ‘developed’ world lead a good quality lifestyle compared to the majority in the Third World, so you could help redress the balance by making a small donation to a reputable Third World charity. Suggestions are welcome, and we will list them on this site.

Fairtrade: Another way of helping those in less affluent countries is by buying the varied range of Fairtrade products, which extends far beyond food.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Martin Luther King Jnr.

Each subject will eventually have its own page.

Turn the tables - have a laugh on the Banks!

Dave Allen had them sussed well before the current crisis, as the video below shows.

(Warning: strong language).

Did You Know?

Bees pollinate 35% of human food sources.
Livestock are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Descendants of the conquering Norman elite still own one fifth of UK land. After the Norman conquest of Britain, commoners could have limbs amputated for killing animals for their own consumption in the forests controlled by the Norman barons and the Crown, and could also be thrown off their land by those in authority (including the Church), if they wanted the land for themselves. This abuse of power continues by some of their descendants today.
Before the introduction of the Plimsoll Line, some ship owners used to deliberately overburden and sink their ships so that they could claim the insurance value. Capitalism has always been morally flawed and there are countless examples in today’s world too. For starters: banks; pharmaceutical companies; property development corporations. You can no doubt think of many more!
Current global warming trends could result in a 30% reduction in maize production in Africa by 2030, and a 10% reduction of rice, millet and maize in South Asia.
By 2050 the world’s population is expected to increase from the current 7 billion to between 9 and 11 billion, with most of the increase being in underdeveloped countries, but a global temperature increase exceeding 3C would reduce the world’s crop yields.
In the longer term, a gradual decline in fertility rates could result in global population peaking between 9 and 11 billion, after which a global population decline would help to reduce pressure on resources. However, this could be offset by reducing crop yields, ocean acidification (which reduces organisms at the bottom of the food chain) etc.

Check back later for more facts, and contact us with your suggestions.

Desolate

Out

Far across the nocturnal darkness

Across the field, lies the shapeless

Something

Where the wind

Steals by uneasily with a wrathful quiescence

As a cat past foreign shadows.

Massive,

Poised purposeful,

Inert.

From which come lifeless sounds in pre-set sequence:

Machinery; metallic

Breath

That drives on in the night with unknown resolution.

Colder than the air that draughts through the

Dark to the senses

In incoherent moans.

Here burns the light of a thousand death-white beacons

Which stare out through oblivion, unflickering,

Like sightless eyes:

Lightening the symmetrical shadows

Where nothing moves, where nothing proves

Thought -

Shines bleakly through the trees

Which stand like leafless corpses, black

Against the lighter haze obscuring stars

That might bring reassuring sanity.

Whose withered arms strive vainly to protect

The lovers’ dreams that haunt the retrospect

Against inhuman non-existence.

You can change your world

Music

Note: Suggestions from all genres including classical are welcome.

U2 - One

One of U2’s best, and an inspirational video.

The Youngbloods - Get Together

Peace and Love: it’s nothing new…..

Memeza African Choir - The Rainbow Song

A song to celebrate the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela.

Micheal Franti - Hello Bonjour

A modern take on Peace and Love…..

Show Of Hands - Columbus (Didn’t Find America)

Columbus didn’t find America. But in those days the old imperialist nations used to think that the world revolved around them…..

Insidious Prophet - Big Brother Is Watching You

A present-day rebel ‘underground’ song with lots of energy and anger, accompanied by a thought provoking video.

King Crimson - Epitaph

A chilling vision of a nightmare dystopian future.

Roy Harper - Once

A very beautiful and inspiring song, featuring Dave Gilmour and Kate Bush. “Here for the wonder of under the stars, for the one and only Once.” Do you want to leave some legacy for future generations?

Dave Matthews Band - Seek Up (see the YouTube window above).

A thought-provoking song with a superbly assembled video montage. Here is a great alternative live version: Part One Part Two

John Lennon - Imagine

Timeless and visionary. John and Yoko came from two diverse cultures, but found harmony.

Moody Blues - One More Time To Live

Despite some sloppy editing, inspiring footage to a beautiful song.

Pink Floyd - Welcome To The Machine

Are you part of the machine, or a free spirit with an individual mind?

The Who - Won’t Get Fooled Again

A classic anti-establishment song from the 1970s.

Peter Hammill - Material Possession

“Stars shine alike upon the ditch, and on the land of Plenty…..”

The Beatles - I Me Mine

A great song by George Harrison which questions selfishness. The poster’s comments about the Hindu connotations are worth reading.

Baaba Maal - Tindo Quando

Beautiful music from a Senagalese musician. Please sign Baaba’s Avaaz petition to help 18 million facing starvation and drought.

Sandy Denny - Been On The Road So Long

An early and very beautiful gem from this much missed folk troubadour.

Jon Anderson - Open

This one’s not for the fainthearted - it’s in two parts and it’s over 20 minutes long! Very beautiful and spiritual, however; the former Yes frontman here performs his own self-arranged opus with a full orchestra. Click here for Part Two.

Roy Harper - I Hate The White Man

If you’re white and this song makes you feel a little uncomfortable, then Roy has done his job. Written in the early 1970s, when the very real threat of nuclear holocaust could have taken with it the ‘third world’ paradises whose peoples had no say in the matter.

Richie Havens - On The Turning Away

Now linked to studio version: a very moving rendition of Pink Floyd’s song from the Woodstock icon.

Peter Gabriel - Not One Of Us

Cliquism: surely a major cause of most of the world’s social unrest.

Patty Griffin - When It Don’t Come Easy.

A moving and inspirational soul ballad. Check out this alternative live version too.

Emili Sandé - Read All About It (Part III)

A beautiful song from the 2012 Olympic closing ceremony. The whole tournament was a positive communion of diverse cultures.

Roy Harper - The Monster

A song that sums up much of today’s political hypocrisy.

Peter Hammill - A Better Time (Acapella)

Believe it or not, there’s no better time to live (or act) than now. Life-asserting.