Each morning, pull back bed covers to allow moisture to escape. Open a window to allow moisture to escape from the room.
Open curtains and blinds during the day to allow air to circulate around all parts of the room and prevent moisture from being trapped around windows.
Use your bathroom / kitchen extractor fan when bathing or cooking. Clean the bathroom extractor with a damp cloth, removing fluff that might reduce efficiency. Clean the kitchen extractor by removing the cover and washing in a solution of washing-up liquid.
If you dry wet clothes indoors, place them on a clothes horse (not a radiator) near an open window or in a room with an extractor fan.
Dehumidifiers reduce humidity levels by sucking in air from the room, removing moisture, then blowing it back out, adding warmth in the process. Portable humidifier can be deployed where needed.
Source: Item in Good Housekeeping, April 2019
Sunday, 29 December 2019
Sunday, 22 December 2019
Its Up to Us to Save the Planet
Experts say we all have to act now to push back climate change. Sarah Rodrigues has put together a list of how we can help in a typical day.
Note: I've added in some of my comments as well. And I'm lucky as my town of Bradford-on-Avon (which is now focusing on being plastic free) has Christine's Sustainable Supermarket where I can take along my own containers to get dry goods (muesli, oats, rice, red lentils, seeds, nuts and dried fruits) and liquids (washing up detergent, hand wash, shampoo and conditioner, laundry detergent, toilet cleaner). Buy eggs and they'll be in a re-used egg box, bread goes into a paper bag (one elderly male customer uses the same bag for a month). How is your town doing?
6.30am: Wake up with a wind-up alarm clock.
7.00am: Use packaging-free bars and soap (e.g. Lush) or get refills (e.g. Faith in Nature) or choose products in glass bottles (e.g. Neal's Yard Remedies and Tata Harper). Take a short shower with a low-flow head. Don't run the tap while cleaning teeth. Use recycled toilet paper.
7.30am. Coffee time? Nespresso has a recycling scheme for its pods, while better still others offer compostable pods (Eden Project and Dualit).
8.00am: Avoid fast fashion - shop your wardrobe, swap items with friends, use charity shops and shop local. Some stores have recycling schemes (M&S and H&M).
8.30am: Public transport, car-pooling, running, walking and cycling are the way to get to work. For short distances electric cars are good and there are more charging points around.
11.00am: Keep your mobile phone for longer before upgrading, and when you do recycle the old one (council run sites often now have special containers for electrical items), as they contribute to landfill from incorrect disposal.
1.00pm: Take your own lunch using leftovers, putting items into reusable containers and using washable wax-impregnated cotton squares (e.g. BeeBee Wraps).
4.00pm: Peak time for internet searching, so use search engine Ecosia, which donates at least 80% of its profits to tree-planting projects.
6.00pm: Run, walk and swim instead of using gym machines that use electricity. Wear eco-friendly kit made from bamboo (e.g. BAM Active and Asquith).
7.00pm: Home-cooked is best - cuts out delivery and packaging. Cut back on meat - we don't need large amounts and eggs, beans, lentils, soya are all useful sources of protein. Check your fridge before shopping; use up what's left in soups, casseroles, etc.); don't over-buy; don' throw away items just because they are out of date - use your eyes and nose to check as they'll often be still good to eat.
9.00pm: Consider the options: staycation in UK rather than going abroad; train travel for some overseas trips. One long-haul trip is better than several short-haul ones (most emissions are at take-off and landing) and the carbon footprint of a business class seat can be three times that of an economy one.
10.00pm: Reading in bed? Use your local library and second-hand shop.
From October, Good Housekeeping subscribers will get their copy in a paper envelope; issues with supplements at news-stands will have a paper 'belly-band'; issues with heavy supplements will move to a recyclable plastic wrapper.
Source: Your daily guide to saving the planet by Sarah Rodrigues in Good Housekeeping, September 2019
Note: I've added in some of my comments as well. And I'm lucky as my town of Bradford-on-Avon (which is now focusing on being plastic free) has Christine's Sustainable Supermarket where I can take along my own containers to get dry goods (muesli, oats, rice, red lentils, seeds, nuts and dried fruits) and liquids (washing up detergent, hand wash, shampoo and conditioner, laundry detergent, toilet cleaner). Buy eggs and they'll be in a re-used egg box, bread goes into a paper bag (one elderly male customer uses the same bag for a month). How is your town doing?
6.30am: Wake up with a wind-up alarm clock.
7.00am: Use packaging-free bars and soap (e.g. Lush) or get refills (e.g. Faith in Nature) or choose products in glass bottles (e.g. Neal's Yard Remedies and Tata Harper). Take a short shower with a low-flow head. Don't run the tap while cleaning teeth. Use recycled toilet paper.
7.30am. Coffee time? Nespresso has a recycling scheme for its pods, while better still others offer compostable pods (Eden Project and Dualit).
8.00am: Avoid fast fashion - shop your wardrobe, swap items with friends, use charity shops and shop local. Some stores have recycling schemes (M&S and H&M).
8.30am: Public transport, car-pooling, running, walking and cycling are the way to get to work. For short distances electric cars are good and there are more charging points around.
11.00am: Keep your mobile phone for longer before upgrading, and when you do recycle the old one (council run sites often now have special containers for electrical items), as they contribute to landfill from incorrect disposal.
1.00pm: Take your own lunch using leftovers, putting items into reusable containers and using washable wax-impregnated cotton squares (e.g. BeeBee Wraps).
4.00pm: Peak time for internet searching, so use search engine Ecosia, which donates at least 80% of its profits to tree-planting projects.
6.00pm: Run, walk and swim instead of using gym machines that use electricity. Wear eco-friendly kit made from bamboo (e.g. BAM Active and Asquith).
7.00pm: Home-cooked is best - cuts out delivery and packaging. Cut back on meat - we don't need large amounts and eggs, beans, lentils, soya are all useful sources of protein. Check your fridge before shopping; use up what's left in soups, casseroles, etc.); don't over-buy; don' throw away items just because they are out of date - use your eyes and nose to check as they'll often be still good to eat.
9.00pm: Consider the options: staycation in UK rather than going abroad; train travel for some overseas trips. One long-haul trip is better than several short-haul ones (most emissions are at take-off and landing) and the carbon footprint of a business class seat can be three times that of an economy one.
10.00pm: Reading in bed? Use your local library and second-hand shop.
From October, Good Housekeeping subscribers will get their copy in a paper envelope; issues with supplements at news-stands will have a paper 'belly-band'; issues with heavy supplements will move to a recyclable plastic wrapper.
Source: Your daily guide to saving the planet by Sarah Rodrigues in Good Housekeeping, September 2019
Tuesday, 17 December 2019
RIP Great Britain and United Kingdom
The results of the 2019 General Election DO NOT properly reflect the mood of the country.
The Conservatives won because of the first-past-the-post voting system. In a transferable vote presidency, Johnson's 43% of the poll would have lost.
In fact if national voting figures are used, the combined anti-Brexit parties (53%) got more votes, with the Tories and the Brexit party together getting a decisive lower vote (47%). If this was a 'second referendum', it was not in favour of Brexit and won by a larger margin for Remain.
There was no great Tory swing: they increased their party's vote share by just 1.2% over Theresa May's election two years ago. (While they lost votes in some areas, they gained more in other areas.) Labour lost votes in all regions, mostly with people tactically voting Conservative. In contrast, the Liberal Democrats increased their share of the vote nationally but failed to translate this into seats.
It might have been possible for the Conservatives to be defeated if Labour and Lib Dems had done constituency deals, so not splitting the anti-Tory vote across the country. But even with this, while both Johnson and Corbyn were widely disliked and mistrusted throughout the country, it came down to who was disliked the least, which was Corbyn, who sat on the fence too many times and was seen to be ineffective in dealing with issues within his party.
The five things that helped Johnson. 1. Repeating again and again that he'd get Brexit done. 2. Focusing on a small number of promises (Labour was far more wide-ranging.) 3. Safety first in their pledges - nothing controversial (e.g. no mention of fox hunting). 4. Traditional Labour voters seem to have either stayed at home, or voted for the Brexit party. 5. Despite being unpopular, Johnson was the stronger campaigner.
Can the Tories deliver any of their manifesto promises - most based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand - who knows? No-one - least of all Johnson.
The Electoral Commission has now published how much was donated to political parties during the election campaign. (Parties are required by law to declare how much is donated.) The combined total was £30,721,998!!! (My verdict: that is serious money that would have been better donated to the NHS, social services and the prison, probation & police services.)
There were some sizeable donations of over £7,500 in the final two days of campaigning.
However, over the entire period, the union Unite gave the largest non-individual donation of £3.2m.
Interesting fact: There are more female MPs in this Parliament than ever, at 220 out of 650 (34%). The Liberal Democrats actually have more female than male MPs (7 out of 11 at 67%), Labour are next with 104 out of 202, so just slightly over 50%), then SNP with around 30% female MPs and not surprisingly the Conservatives trail with just under 25% out of 365 MPs (so less than a quarter).
Sources: various including BBC Election results analysis and General election 2019: Surge in Tory donations before polling day.
The Conservatives won because of the first-past-the-post voting system. In a transferable vote presidency, Johnson's 43% of the poll would have lost.
In fact if national voting figures are used, the combined anti-Brexit parties (53%) got more votes, with the Tories and the Brexit party together getting a decisive lower vote (47%). If this was a 'second referendum', it was not in favour of Brexit and won by a larger margin for Remain.
There was no great Tory swing: they increased their party's vote share by just 1.2% over Theresa May's election two years ago. (While they lost votes in some areas, they gained more in other areas.) Labour lost votes in all regions, mostly with people tactically voting Conservative. In contrast, the Liberal Democrats increased their share of the vote nationally but failed to translate this into seats.
It might have been possible for the Conservatives to be defeated if Labour and Lib Dems had done constituency deals, so not splitting the anti-Tory vote across the country. But even with this, while both Johnson and Corbyn were widely disliked and mistrusted throughout the country, it came down to who was disliked the least, which was Corbyn, who sat on the fence too many times and was seen to be ineffective in dealing with issues within his party.
The five things that helped Johnson. 1. Repeating again and again that he'd get Brexit done. 2. Focusing on a small number of promises (Labour was far more wide-ranging.) 3. Safety first in their pledges - nothing controversial (e.g. no mention of fox hunting). 4. Traditional Labour voters seem to have either stayed at home, or voted for the Brexit party. 5. Despite being unpopular, Johnson was the stronger campaigner.
Can the Tories deliver any of their manifesto promises - most based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand - who knows? No-one - least of all Johnson.
The Electoral Commission has now published how much was donated to political parties during the election campaign. (Parties are required by law to declare how much is donated.) The combined total was £30,721,998!!! (My verdict: that is serious money that would have been better donated to the NHS, social services and the prison, probation & police services.)
There were some sizeable donations of over £7,500 in the final two days of campaigning.
- Conservatives: £1.4m (including £500,000 from John Caudwell and £375,000 from Sir Ehud Shelag)
- Brexit Party: £50,000 (2 gifts of £25,000 from former Tory Christopher Harborne, who had already donated more than £3m since the summer)
- SNP: £14,929
However, over the entire period, the union Unite gave the largest non-individual donation of £3.2m.
Interesting fact: There are more female MPs in this Parliament than ever, at 220 out of 650 (34%). The Liberal Democrats actually have more female than male MPs (7 out of 11 at 67%), Labour are next with 104 out of 202, so just slightly over 50%), then SNP with around 30% female MPs and not surprisingly the Conservatives trail with just under 25% out of 365 MPs (so less than a quarter).
Sources: various including BBC Election results analysis and General election 2019: Surge in Tory donations before polling day.
Sunday, 15 December 2019
Hidden Cause of Disease?
Despite decades of research, scientists still haven't worked out what causes many diseases: they include heart disease, Alzheimer's, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. Worldwide 70% of all deaths are attributed to these conditions: in the UK it is 90%.
These conditions usually start showing symptoms later in life, and more of us get them as we live longer. What they have in common is (A) inflammation, the method our immune system uses to kill invading cells and (B) they are not communicable to other people.
New evidence indicates that bacteria are covertly involved, invading organs, co-opting our own immune systems to boost their own survival and causing our illnesses. They tend to work very slowly, stay dormant for long periods or hide inside our cells. This makes them hard to grow in lab cultures. Now DNA sequencing has found bacteria in places they were not supposed to be, manipulating inflammation.
The worst culprits seem to be those that cause gum disease, which seem to play a role in a wide range of illnesses. Incidence of gum disease is: US 42% of those over 30 and 60% of those over 65, and in Germany 88% has been recorded. Many of the diseases of ageing - from rheumatoid arthritis to Parkinson's - are more likely, and more severe, in people with gum disease. There is evidence that treating treating gum disease goes with a lower incidence of heart attacks, diabetes, strokes and cancer.
Your mouth hosts more than 1,000 species of bacteria, in a stable community with the potentially bad ones kept in check by others. Elsewhere in the body, communities of bacteria live on a continuous sheet of cells, where the outermost layer is constantly shed, getting rid of invasive bacteria. But your teeth can't shed a layer like that, so bacteria live on a hard surface that actually pierces through the protective outer sheet of cells. The bacteria live in the plaque that builds up on your teeth. When plaque builds up enough to harden and spread under the gum, it triggers inflammation: immune cells flood in and destroy both microbes and our own infected cells. Untreated an oxygen poor pocket develops between gum and tooth. A few bacteria take advantage of this and multiply. In particular on of them, Porphyromonas gingivalis, disrupts the stable bacterial community and prolongs inflammation.
Most pathogens try to block or avoid inflammation, which normally kills them. But P. gingivalis perpetuates inflammation in a weakened form, which never quite destroys the bacteria but keeps trying - and killing your own cells in the process; the resulting debris is eaten by P. g, which unlike other bacteria feeds on protein. The process also liberates iron which the bacteria need, and which the body normally keeps locked up. The bacteria is able to escape into the bloodstream before the infected tooth falls out.
Once in the blood, the immune system makes antibodies, but these are more an indicator of its presence than protection, as P. g changes its surface proteins so it can hide in the white blood cells of the immune system. It also enters the cells lining arteries, but remains dormant; though it continues to activate or block different immune signals and may change a blood cell's gene expression to make it migrate to other sites of inflammation to feed on debris. The bacteria have been detected in inflamed tissue in the brain, aorta, heart, spleen, liver, kidneys, joints and pancreas in mice and, in many cases, in humans.
More than two thirds of all dementia is Alzheimer's, which is now the largest cause of death worldwide. A recent study found that gingipain, a protein digesting enzyme produced only by P.g, was found in 99% of brain samples from people who died with Alzheimer's, at levels corresponding with their condition. P.g was also found in the spinal fluid samples. Giving mice P.g caused symptoms of Alzheimer's, and blocking the gingipain reversed the damage. Half the samples from people who died without Alzheimer's also had gingipain but at lower levels. This was expected as damage can accumulate for 20 years before people show symptoms. Researchers in Sweden found that people with the highest genetic risk produce a specific form of an immune protein called ApoE that is destroyed in the disease, and that gingipains are better at destroying that ApoE than other forms.
Researchers have found P.g in the fatty deposits that line arterial walls and cause blood clots, causing heart attacks and strokes. P.g affects arteries much like high-fat diets and triggers atherosclerosis. Treating gum disease improves hardened arteries but doesn't reduce heart attacks or strokes because it doesn't get rid of the the P.g already in blood vessels.
There is also a link to type 2 diabetes, where sensitivity to insulin is lost. Diabetes worsens gum disease, but gum disease also worsens diabetes and treating it helps as much as adding a second drug to the treatment. Other evidence shows P.g acting directly in the liver and pancreas to cut insulin sensitivity.
People who drink more alcohol tend to have more P.g and are more susceptible to gum disease. Tobacco helps P.g to invade gum cells. Exercise, the only known way to lower your risk of Alzheimer's, improves gum disease by damping inflammation and ending P.g's feast of dead cells. One researcher believes that diet is also a factor; if our blood contains many dormant bacteria, they can be activated with free iron. A diet rich in red meat and sugar, or with too little fruit and vegetable, both increase the amount of free iron in the blood.
How can we stop P.g? It dodges our defences, hiding inside cells where antibodies can't reach it, and lying dormant making it invisible to antibiotics. Many of us already host P.g and routine gum abrasion, through eating and brushing your teeth, can release the microbes into your bloodstream, so spread it through your body. People with gum disease already make antibodies, but these seem to do little to stop it, so vaccines are unlikely to help. In studies on mice, it rapidly became resistant to antibiotics. Trying to block inflammation could leave us unprotected against other pathogens and conditions. It may be better to concentrate on blocking its ability to cause disease, perhaps by blocking gingipains. Pharmaceutical companies are working on drugs that block only specific inflammatory signals, but this is complex and will be a difficult challenge.
Source: The hidden cause of disease by Deborah MacKenzie in New Scientist, pp.42-46.
These conditions usually start showing symptoms later in life, and more of us get them as we live longer. What they have in common is (A) inflammation, the method our immune system uses to kill invading cells and (B) they are not communicable to other people.
New evidence indicates that bacteria are covertly involved, invading organs, co-opting our own immune systems to boost their own survival and causing our illnesses. They tend to work very slowly, stay dormant for long periods or hide inside our cells. This makes them hard to grow in lab cultures. Now DNA sequencing has found bacteria in places they were not supposed to be, manipulating inflammation.
The worst culprits seem to be those that cause gum disease, which seem to play a role in a wide range of illnesses. Incidence of gum disease is: US 42% of those over 30 and 60% of those over 65, and in Germany 88% has been recorded. Many of the diseases of ageing - from rheumatoid arthritis to Parkinson's - are more likely, and more severe, in people with gum disease. There is evidence that treating treating gum disease goes with a lower incidence of heart attacks, diabetes, strokes and cancer.
Your mouth hosts more than 1,000 species of bacteria, in a stable community with the potentially bad ones kept in check by others. Elsewhere in the body, communities of bacteria live on a continuous sheet of cells, where the outermost layer is constantly shed, getting rid of invasive bacteria. But your teeth can't shed a layer like that, so bacteria live on a hard surface that actually pierces through the protective outer sheet of cells. The bacteria live in the plaque that builds up on your teeth. When plaque builds up enough to harden and spread under the gum, it triggers inflammation: immune cells flood in and destroy both microbes and our own infected cells. Untreated an oxygen poor pocket develops between gum and tooth. A few bacteria take advantage of this and multiply. In particular on of them, Porphyromonas gingivalis, disrupts the stable bacterial community and prolongs inflammation.
Most pathogens try to block or avoid inflammation, which normally kills them. But P. gingivalis perpetuates inflammation in a weakened form, which never quite destroys the bacteria but keeps trying - and killing your own cells in the process; the resulting debris is eaten by P. g, which unlike other bacteria feeds on protein. The process also liberates iron which the bacteria need, and which the body normally keeps locked up. The bacteria is able to escape into the bloodstream before the infected tooth falls out.
Once in the blood, the immune system makes antibodies, but these are more an indicator of its presence than protection, as P. g changes its surface proteins so it can hide in the white blood cells of the immune system. It also enters the cells lining arteries, but remains dormant; though it continues to activate or block different immune signals and may change a blood cell's gene expression to make it migrate to other sites of inflammation to feed on debris. The bacteria have been detected in inflamed tissue in the brain, aorta, heart, spleen, liver, kidneys, joints and pancreas in mice and, in many cases, in humans.
More than two thirds of all dementia is Alzheimer's, which is now the largest cause of death worldwide. A recent study found that gingipain, a protein digesting enzyme produced only by P.g, was found in 99% of brain samples from people who died with Alzheimer's, at levels corresponding with their condition. P.g was also found in the spinal fluid samples. Giving mice P.g caused symptoms of Alzheimer's, and blocking the gingipain reversed the damage. Half the samples from people who died without Alzheimer's also had gingipain but at lower levels. This was expected as damage can accumulate for 20 years before people show symptoms. Researchers in Sweden found that people with the highest genetic risk produce a specific form of an immune protein called ApoE that is destroyed in the disease, and that gingipains are better at destroying that ApoE than other forms.
Researchers have found P.g in the fatty deposits that line arterial walls and cause blood clots, causing heart attacks and strokes. P.g affects arteries much like high-fat diets and triggers atherosclerosis. Treating gum disease improves hardened arteries but doesn't reduce heart attacks or strokes because it doesn't get rid of the the P.g already in blood vessels.
There is also a link to type 2 diabetes, where sensitivity to insulin is lost. Diabetes worsens gum disease, but gum disease also worsens diabetes and treating it helps as much as adding a second drug to the treatment. Other evidence shows P.g acting directly in the liver and pancreas to cut insulin sensitivity.
People who drink more alcohol tend to have more P.g and are more susceptible to gum disease. Tobacco helps P.g to invade gum cells. Exercise, the only known way to lower your risk of Alzheimer's, improves gum disease by damping inflammation and ending P.g's feast of dead cells. One researcher believes that diet is also a factor; if our blood contains many dormant bacteria, they can be activated with free iron. A diet rich in red meat and sugar, or with too little fruit and vegetable, both increase the amount of free iron in the blood.
How can we stop P.g? It dodges our defences, hiding inside cells where antibodies can't reach it, and lying dormant making it invisible to antibiotics. Many of us already host P.g and routine gum abrasion, through eating and brushing your teeth, can release the microbes into your bloodstream, so spread it through your body. People with gum disease already make antibodies, but these seem to do little to stop it, so vaccines are unlikely to help. In studies on mice, it rapidly became resistant to antibiotics. Trying to block inflammation could leave us unprotected against other pathogens and conditions. It may be better to concentrate on blocking its ability to cause disease, perhaps by blocking gingipains. Pharmaceutical companies are working on drugs that block only specific inflammatory signals, but this is complex and will be a difficult challenge.
Source: The hidden cause of disease by Deborah MacKenzie in New Scientist, pp.42-46.
Sunday, 8 December 2019
Recycling on the High Street
Some brands are now making it easier to recycle things.
Apple
Return your old Apple device and, if it's still serviceable and can be refurbished, you could receive an Apple Store Gift card (value depending on device) to put towards a newer model. If the item cannot be refurbished, Apple will recycle it and recover some of the materials.
Currys PC World
Run a similar scheme for old phones, tablets, laptops, smart watches and electricals such as toasters and kettles.
Levi's
Drop off clean, unwanted garments or shoes at branches and receive a voucher for 10% off full-priced clothing in store.
Lush
Return five of the little black pots that some products come in to any store and receive a free face mask. The pots are ground down and turned into new packaging.
Tesco
Earn Tesco Clubcard points by returning empty inkjet cartridges (via Freepost) to The Recycling Factory (therecyclingfactory.com/Tesco/)or use the scheme to donate to Tesco Charity Partners. Only certain cartridges are eligible for Clubcard points, but all are accepted for recycling.
Boots Opticians
If you wear disposable contact lenses, return the blister pack and foil cover as well as the used lenses themselves. Drop off at any Boots Opticians stores and some independent opticians across the UK (terracycle.co.uk/en-GB/brigades/acuvue)
Walkers crisps
Has its own crisp packet recycling scheme. It accepts crisp packets from any brand, which can be dropped off at a collection point (find them at walkers.co.uk/recycle). Or start a workplace collection and have them picked up by courier once you've collected 400 packets or more. After shredding, the packets are use to make products such as outdoor furniture, trays and flooring.
Coffee chains
The plastic lining on'paper' cups requires specialist recycling. Most cafes are happy to make your drink in your own reusable mug and some offer a discount when you do.
Source: Good Housekeeping, June 2019
Apple
Return your old Apple device and, if it's still serviceable and can be refurbished, you could receive an Apple Store Gift card (value depending on device) to put towards a newer model. If the item cannot be refurbished, Apple will recycle it and recover some of the materials.
Currys PC World
Run a similar scheme for old phones, tablets, laptops, smart watches and electricals such as toasters and kettles.
Levi's
Drop off clean, unwanted garments or shoes at branches and receive a voucher for 10% off full-priced clothing in store.
Lush
Return five of the little black pots that some products come in to any store and receive a free face mask. The pots are ground down and turned into new packaging.
Tesco
Earn Tesco Clubcard points by returning empty inkjet cartridges (via Freepost) to The Recycling Factory (therecyclingfactory.com/Tesco/)or use the scheme to donate to Tesco Charity Partners. Only certain cartridges are eligible for Clubcard points, but all are accepted for recycling.
Boots Opticians
If you wear disposable contact lenses, return the blister pack and foil cover as well as the used lenses themselves. Drop off at any Boots Opticians stores and some independent opticians across the UK (terracycle.co.uk/en-GB/brigades/acuvue)
Walkers crisps
Has its own crisp packet recycling scheme. It accepts crisp packets from any brand, which can be dropped off at a collection point (find them at walkers.co.uk/recycle). Or start a workplace collection and have them picked up by courier once you've collected 400 packets or more. After shredding, the packets are use to make products such as outdoor furniture, trays and flooring.
Coffee chains
The plastic lining on'paper' cups requires specialist recycling. Most cafes are happy to make your drink in your own reusable mug and some offer a discount when you do.
Source: Good Housekeeping, June 2019
Sunday, 1 December 2019
How Religion has Influenced the Rise of Civilisation
Has Religion been good or bad for humanity? by Harvey Whitehouse
The debate over whether religion makes us better people or brings out our basest instincts has gone on for a long time. In order to try and establish which it is, in 2010 Pieter Francois, Peter Turchin and Harvey Whitehouse began building a history databank. The project was named after the Egyptian goddess of record-keeping, Seshat. The databank currently contains information on more than 400 societies that have existed around the world over the past 10,000 years.
It seems that religions always promoted social cohesion, but how this was achieved depended on the size and nature of human groups. Modern eyes see good and bad religions, but what happened was that in the past people have changed their ideas about what constituted good cooperative behaviours.
For most of pre-history, humans lived in small groups, often on the move, whose members all knew each other. Today such small societies tend to favour infrequent but traumatic rituals that promote social cohesion, for example initiation rites that include scarification.
As people began farming, groups got larger and individuals did not always know everyone else. They did not need to risk everything for one another, so the level of social cohesion needed was lower. They did still feel the need for a group ethos, with a moral code and system of governance, especially when groups merged through military conquest. New kinds of rituals developed; these were usually painless practices like prayer and meeting in holy places.These overcame the free-rider problem and ensured compliance with government. (e.g. Egypt.)
In turn this made them vulnerable to power-hungry rulers. The despotic god-kings raised militias and priesthoods, using practices such as human sacrifice and slavery. However, these states rarely grew beyond 100,000 people, as they in turn became unstable, and more liable to invasion.
Around the middle of the first millennium BC, novel notions of equality altered the relationship between rulers and ruled, stabilising societies and allowing them to grow in size and complexity. A handful of important prophets and spiritual leaders emerged - Buddha, Confucius and Zoraster (Zarathrustra).
Societies that grew to a million or more found a new way to build cooperation, with Big Gods. They demoted their rulers to the status of ordinary people, began to develop democracy and the rule of law, and a more equal distribution of rights and obligations. They began valuing social justice above deference to authority. (e.g. Judaism, Christianity and Islam.)
Today many societies have transferred religions community-building and surveillance roles to secular institutions. Some of the wealthiest and most peaceful have atheist majorities. But these societies also face big problems in absorbing migrants, and containing social tensions and xenophobia. Studying how the different elements of religion have changed our view of civilisation could help us find a way to deal with these issues.
Source: article in New Scientist, 6 April 2019
The debate over whether religion makes us better people or brings out our basest instincts has gone on for a long time. In order to try and establish which it is, in 2010 Pieter Francois, Peter Turchin and Harvey Whitehouse began building a history databank. The project was named after the Egyptian goddess of record-keeping, Seshat. The databank currently contains information on more than 400 societies that have existed around the world over the past 10,000 years.
It seems that religions always promoted social cohesion, but how this was achieved depended on the size and nature of human groups. Modern eyes see good and bad religions, but what happened was that in the past people have changed their ideas about what constituted good cooperative behaviours.
For most of pre-history, humans lived in small groups, often on the move, whose members all knew each other. Today such small societies tend to favour infrequent but traumatic rituals that promote social cohesion, for example initiation rites that include scarification.
As people began farming, groups got larger and individuals did not always know everyone else. They did not need to risk everything for one another, so the level of social cohesion needed was lower. They did still feel the need for a group ethos, with a moral code and system of governance, especially when groups merged through military conquest. New kinds of rituals developed; these were usually painless practices like prayer and meeting in holy places.These overcame the free-rider problem and ensured compliance with government. (e.g. Egypt.)
In turn this made them vulnerable to power-hungry rulers. The despotic god-kings raised militias and priesthoods, using practices such as human sacrifice and slavery. However, these states rarely grew beyond 100,000 people, as they in turn became unstable, and more liable to invasion.
Around the middle of the first millennium BC, novel notions of equality altered the relationship between rulers and ruled, stabilising societies and allowing them to grow in size and complexity. A handful of important prophets and spiritual leaders emerged - Buddha, Confucius and Zoraster (Zarathrustra).
Societies that grew to a million or more found a new way to build cooperation, with Big Gods. They demoted their rulers to the status of ordinary people, began to develop democracy and the rule of law, and a more equal distribution of rights and obligations. They began valuing social justice above deference to authority. (e.g. Judaism, Christianity and Islam.)
Today many societies have transferred religions community-building and surveillance roles to secular institutions. Some of the wealthiest and most peaceful have atheist majorities. But these societies also face big problems in absorbing migrants, and containing social tensions and xenophobia. Studying how the different elements of religion have changed our view of civilisation could help us find a way to deal with these issues.
Source: article in New Scientist, 6 April 2019
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