Shades of Blue and Green

The title to this post is taken from the title track of a wonderful album recorded by Lorraine Craig with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (NYJO).

This song, with it's hot-chocolate smooth sweet vocal, is a regular contributor to the continuous-play soundtrack in my head. My little internal DJ, my psychic iPod, always set to shuffle.

It has a sense of humour. It likes to surprise me, and occasionally it tries to force its way forward into my speech - dares me to respond to a question, or complete a sentence, with one of my favourite lyrics.

I am still in awe of my Dad, who, once, in a Very Important Meeting, heard a colleague say "And the question is ... " and found himself responding out loud with the only appropriate answer ...

Can this white man sing the blues?

Green, greener, greenest

Mary at A Breath of Air has blogged rather provocatively about her quandry over attending the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition now on at the Natural History Museum in London.

The exhibition looks amazing, and as Mary says, supporting the idea, the artists, the campaigners is definitely a reason to get down there and fork out the exhibition entry fee ... but, there is the not-small matter of the fact that the competition is sponsored by Shell. She reports that there have been protests over their selection as exhibition sponsor, due to their environmental record. For Mary this presents a quandry. Does her visit tacitly endorse selection, imply approval, say on some level "hey, you guys ain't so bad"? I have to be honest, it might not have occurred to me to question it if she hadn't pointed it out. Which probably says more about my ability to just gloss over such issues than it does my lack of concern for the planet.

I think it's so hard ... on the one hand, they're clearly shafting the planet. On the other hand, in order for people, groups, companies, nations to change we have to believe they have the capacity to change. Even my dog requires this space to learn new behaviours - requires my recognition that my expectations are part of the pattern too.

Are Shell genuinely concerned about their impact on the planet or are they just concerned to appear concerned? Does the end result outweigh the motivation? Do I, as an individual, do enough of the easy, tiny things each day that would make a difference? If I find it so easy to buy a drink in a plastic bottle, to take my car to the supermarket, to buy avocados that have clearly arrived by air ... how do I judge others?

I do pretty well - we only throw out half a black-bag of non-recyclables to the refuse collection each week. We compost, we recycle, we feed the chickens on scraps and make their bedding out of (hand) shredded paper. But I have a bigger car in order to accommodate my dog. I try to drive it at sixty rather than eighty to save fuel, but I still drive it. I switch the lights off, don't leave the TV on standby, but I still fill my life with electricity gobbling gadgets. I still buy clothes that were made in far off lands. I shop in stores that sell things cheaply and push away the nagging questions about how much the people who made these goods were paid. I freecycle but I still have more than I need.

Looks like a great exhibition anyway ... not sure I can resist :)

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