Sustainababble

Pity our tiny little brains. For some reason that escapes us now we thought it would be jolly interesting and not at all SODDING BEWILDERING to attempt to understand Bitcoin. That sobbing noise you can hear? That's us. Why? Well it may *look* like a harmless bunch of nerds sending each other made up money over the Internet, but it's also playing a not inconsiderable role in knackering the planet. With 1% of the world's electricity - and rising - being spaffed on cryptocurrencies, we thought we should at least ask: right, what the bloody hell's going on? Is Bitcoin contributing anything useful at all to humanity, particularly given - y'know - there's a climate crisis going on? And whatever would Dr Emmet Brown make of it? Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell at Design by Mondial. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon

Pulp, the greatest band of all time, once sang that grass is "something you smoke". Perhaps that was true in 1995, but in the cool light of 2021 we sure as hell wouldn't advise smoking what's appearing in a depressing number of British back gardens. For fake grass is all the rage, despite it being FAKE SODDING GRASS. So this week, sounding like the pair of old codgers they are, Dave and Ol get all worked up and confused about a thing other people apparently like but is very obviously abominable. NB you can vent your spleen in the direction of the UK parliament by signing this petition. Also this week, oyster-related emails from drunk babble listeners, and the best eco video you will see all year, courtesy of the wizards at Greenpeace (check it out). Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.pa

Remember the past? A simpler time. A time before doxing and pile-ons and Katie Hopkins. A time when wholesome telly presenters on wholesome telly programmes told us that in the future we'd all be running our cars on chip fat and everything would be fine. Well we're in that future and EVERYTHING IS NOT FINE, PHILIPPA FORRESTER. Chip fat in cars is now a thing.* So much so that Yerp insist a certain percentage of motor fuel is chip fat. Which would be super (and previously supper) if it didn't indirectly mean rainforests getting walloped. Which, it transpires, it does. Also this week, a quick canter through the impressively apocalyptic goings on since Babble #211 (a thinning stratosphere, LOL) and a look at some premium economy eco-guff from Etihad. *Don't believe us? Try it for yourself. Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love

Jo, a babble listener from Letchworth in the UK, sent in a question that kinda stumped us. What the hell, she asked, does one say to people who can't see the point in doing anything for the planet? Sweary and shouty retorts aside, the answer isn't immediately obvious. So we asked you, the wise, generous-hearted, and magnanimous babble army what *you* would say. And you didn't let us down. So, herewith a rather splendid and dangerously uplifting 47 mins of "What's the point?! I'll TELL you what the point is, you little... " featuring superlative contributions from Amelie Edwards*, Sam Longman, Isabella Fisk, and Krystal York, only one of whom uses the word "nobhead". *Do also check out Amelie's excellent climate-y audio drama 5 Years from Now available from Spotify and elsewhere. More info on Amelie's website. Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by

Alleluia! One of the great plot twists - perhaps only rivalled by Harold Bishop returning to Neighbours with amnesia (look it up) - is celebrated the world over today by people smashing umpteen chocolate eggs down their gullets. We briefly consider the obvious question (what the hell have chocolate eggs got to do with Jesus?) before moving onto safer territory to explore what looks like - but turns out not to be - a nailed-on babblefest of ludicrous luxury eco eggs and supermarket packaging claims. Also this week, the cringe-gasm that is corporate April Fools day gags. Volkswagen - a company already known for its complicated relationship with the truth - should perhaps have steered clear of attempted PR lolz. Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble. MERCH: sustain

Push is beginning to come to shove, climate action-wise, particularly when politicians ponder the fat piles of cash made doing things that are Very Bad Indeed for mother Earth. Here in Britain, peak pondering occurs re the North Sea, a large grey puddle used by continental Europe to buffer itself against certain Tories, and also home to vast reserves of crude oil. Crude oil (and just as crude gas) that for decades has buttressed the UK economy, but will for millennia buttress a ballsed-up biosphere if continually drilled and burned. You see the dilemma. This week some fancy words were published detailing a 'sector deal' between government and oil industry, supposedly charting a path forwards. But when you read those fancy words - and Dave has, god bless him - you discover just how pushy and shovey those pushes and shoves really are. Spoiler: lacking in oomph. Also in this episode, and in yet more shoving news, we report on the lack of plastic being shoved back into vending machines from whence it cam

The UK Government sometimes surpasses even itself. The 'Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill' is a new bit of legislation so universally hated that even Brexiteers and Remainers are united in its opposition.At its heart is a transparent attempt to outlaw all protest beyond a tut and a roll of the eyes, following highly inconvenient Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter demos in recent years. Not content at stopping there though, the Bill also takes aim at Gypsy and Roma communities, essentially criminalising their way of life. We can't quite believe it's as bad as it all sounds, but Rosemary Harris, a political campaigner at Friends of the Earth, joins us to explain that it most definitely is; to assess the likelihood of it becoming law; and to chew over the implications for anyone wishing to protest the state of things if it does. Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur S

Cos capitalism, cos inhofes, cos LIFE, it's all but impossible to be the planet's BFF most of the time. Having kids arguably makes that task even harder. BUT, despite the onslaught of baby marketing, and despite grandparents-to-be going all in for conspicuous consumption, there are loads of practical things parents - new ones, not very new ones, and expectant ones - can do to lessen kids' impact on poor ol' Mother Earth.* It is Mothers' Day, after all. To hear how it's done, we're joined by Jen Gale, host of the Sustainable(ish) podcast and author of 'The Sustainable(ish) Guide To Green Parenting', a new book which does precisely what it says on the tin. Pleasingly, neither the tin, the book, nor Jen pretends this stuff is easy, or always possible, or that any parent should feel bad for sometimes falling short. Amen to that. The book is out on 18 March. You can pre-order here or in all the usual places. *Obviously, not having kids, or having fewer kids, will reduce one's footprint. We purposely d

Saving the planet isn't really about the planet at all, it's about people. People who, for instance, currently have jobs in industries that aren't compatible with a 1.5 degree world. Or people who don't have jobs at all but need them. Which is why green campaigners are desperate for governments to invest in green jobs. These are jobs that will do some of the things that urgently need doing to curb emissions, but also jobs that do what jobs are supposed to do - give people meaningful employment and a career with prospects. Young people, particularly. So a new report from Friends of the Earth, calling for £billions of investment in job guarantees and green apprenticeships, is surely a good thing. Inevitably, it contains an awful lot of numbers to make its case. Which gets us wondering - do numbers ever help win an argument? And how *do* we get people like that nice Mr Sunak to invest in the green jobs of the future that are so patently necessary? Read Friends of the Earth's excellent report here. A

"Where'd ya read that then, Wikipedia?!?@!" used to be the refrain of bell-ends everywhere who couldn't be bothered to engage with an argument. But like most insults, it carried a grain of truth because the internet's crowdsourced encyclopaedia was, well, ropey.Not any more. In fact, in a world eating itself alive with fake news and misinformation, Wikipedia is one of the few shining lights of humans doing Admirable Things online in the name of public interest. Not least on climate change, where the wealth and - more importantly - accessibility of information is exemplary. But who are the unseen elves keeping climate pages accurate and Inhofery-free, why do they give up their free time to do it, and are they in fact some of the most influential climate-y people on the planet? Alex Stinson, a Senior Program Strategist with the Wikimedia Foundation and a Wikipedia editor with focus on climate change joins us to pull back the curtain and share some really big numbers. Numbers like 319 (different language w

It's awful confusing when those who've spent decades saying climate change is a hoax suddenly ask us to join their 'Green Revolution', but that's what's happened at one of the UK's least reputable tabloids, the Daily Express. More famous for its obsession with the Royals, the weather, Brexit, and unsubstantiated 'miracle' health breakthroughs, the paper appears to have had a damascene conversion and now touts its 'Green Britain' campaign loudly from the front page. So. Many. Questions. Not least: why?do we believe them?how the hell are we supposed to feel about it? Also this week, season ticket holders at the stadium of babble, Coca-Cola, are back with their latest greenwashing wheeze, a paper bottle. Yeah, us too. Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRETA THUNBERG! Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies

Stop it. STOP IT! This is a terribly Serious and Important thing, all to do with industrial fishing and delicate marine ecosystems and we could do without any sniggering at the back. Or the bottom. So then, fishing. A political lightning rod of an industry, but an absolute minnow, economically speaking. Largely out of sight and unknown, modern industrial practices make an 'orrible mess of the ocean floor as super-trawlers dredge, scrape and otherwise embugger delicate aquatic ecology. Which is why this week's news that bottom trawling (STOP IT!) is to be banned in certain so-called Marine Protected Areas is welcome. Welcome, but also begs the question 'why the HELL were you allowed to trawl the ocean's bottom in Marine Protected Areas in the first plaice'? To answer that and myriad other fishy enquiries, Chris Williams, a marine economist at the New Economics Foundation, joins Dave* for a chinwag. Let's hope he doesn't clam up. Or carp on. *Ol continues to flounder in the face of covid and is ther

Many of us are reluctant activists, perhaps so reluctant we barely consider ourselves 'activist' at all. So how do we become less reluctant? How can we expand our comfort zone so trying to save the planet doesn't seem so freakin' terrifying? The answer is almost certainly in a new book, The Trembling Warrior,by author and coach Gill Coombs, who's written what she says is a 'guide for reluctant activists'. Gill natters to us about finding one's true voice; why some people (*ahem* Ol *ahem*) are so scared of what other people think; the perils of social media; and ukippers whacking songbirds out of the sky with solar panels.Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble. MERCH: sustainababble.teemill.com Available on iTunes, Spotify, Acast & all those types of things, or a

Where once this small island in the mid-atlantic was famous for exporting cricket, heavy industry, global oppression and the rule of law, we're now known for the contents of our bins. For, despite a promise by Boris Johnson (we know, we know) that the UK would stop sending our crap abroad, it turns out we're still doing just that. This barefaced porkie has provoked a child to start a petition, now signed by hundreds of thousands of irked humans. So this week we jump aboard the irk express and ask why TF we can't sort out our own rubbish in our own country.PLUS, we celebrate a non-maniac becoming world boss; get all goo-ey about the Guardian doing a green thing; blow gaskets at a Cumbrian coal mine; and expose Ol as the consumerist Inhofe he truly is. Two petitions for you to sign: * Stop the UK exporting its plastic waste https://www.change.org/p/boris-johnson-stop-the-u-k-from-exporting-its-plastic-waste * Stop Whitehaven coal mine in Cumbria https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/568475 Lov

The last few weeks stateside make earlier Trumpgasms appear almost normal by comparison. Armed insurrection, an attempted coup, social media bans, a manatee having 'TRUMP' carved into its back. Srsly. Perhaps worst of all, though, is the uneasy feeling that Americans may be at the beginning of a very unpleasant period in their history, not the culmination of it. Still, the bellicose bell-end IS on his way out, to be replaced by someone who would like to stop the planet frying. Woop and yay! To celebrate, and to commiserate about the ongoing descent of his country into civil war, we talk to actual American and recovering Babble veteran (see episode #30) David Turnbull, Strategic Communications Director at Oil Change U.S.. Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble.

Among today's intractable divisions, few are more bitter, more incendiary than that between the washing-up-by-hand loyalists and the using-the-dishwasher hardliners. So which *is* better for the planet? And while we're at it, what about vegan leather vs real leather, or soy bean tears compared to almond sweat? Thankfully for prospects of world peace, Georgina Wilson-Powell has written a thoroughly well researched book - 'Is It Really Green? Everyday Eco Dilemmas Answered' - that resolves the hitherto unresolveable. Georgina, a journalist and founder of Pebble magazine, joins us to natter about what she discovered along the way. Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble. MERCH: sustainababble.teemill.com Available on iTunes, Spotify, Acast & all those types of th

Ever wound up in the ocean with human faeces on your head, or a used sanitary product bobbing by? Us neither, thankfully, but many UK surfers have, which is why a bunch of them campaign for cleaner seas with Surfers Against Sewage, a national marine conservation charity headed up by Hugo Tagholm. For this opening episode of 2021, Hugo joins us to explain why Dave should try surfing (he really shouldn't, ed.), why lobbying MPs in wetsuits is effective, and to shed light on the, well, shitty practices of water companies.Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble. MERCH: sustainababble.teemill.com Available on iTunes, Spotify, Acast & all those types of things, or at sustainababble.fish. Visit us at @thebabblewagon and at Facebook.com/sustainababble. Email us at hello@sust

Well here we are, a festive season distinctly lacking in bantz. BUT THAT'S WHAT YER BABBLE IS FOR! So strap in for an unashamedly lol-centric and straw-clutchingly positive look back at 2020.As we learned in Sustainabaubles 1-5, there are few things more Christmassy than a shameless Coca-Cola ad. So we dig out their 2020 Christmas offering, in which - astonishingly - not a single piece of their whale rectum-clogging plastic is featured. Though given what a miscreant known to this podcast recently emailed Coca-Cola after one too many single malts, the less said about rectums the better.AND for the first time, we unceremoniously ditch Dicky Moore and instead provide our own musical accompaniment on keyboards, tambourine and recorder, none of which either of us can really play. We too have had enough of experts, so it seems.Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by

These days energy companies fall over themselves to tell us how good for the planet they are, with varying degrees of chutzpah. When it comes to actual goodness though, Good Energy is unquestionably, well, good: buy leccy from them and you can be confident it comes from the sun or the wind or Jeremy Clarkson's backside, no funny business. More to the point, your money will directly lead to *more* wind and solar power getting built, thereby negating the need for JC's derriere altogether. Juliet Davenport has been the firm's boss for two decades, and joins us to explain what makes energy good or miserable, why she can't be doing with moving to Mars with Elon Musk, and why she's letting children run her company.Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble. MERCH: sustainababble

Had 2020 been a bit less pandemic-y, we'd be celebrating / commiserating the conclusion of another mahoosive climate shindig about now. A shindig in Glasgow no less, hosted by the UK Government. Deep-fried pizza canapés all round, etc. etc..Offensive cultural stereotypes aside, there's LOTS at stake at COP 26, not least countries announcing how they'll do the thing they all agreed was a good idea five long years ago in Paris, i.e. stop the planet burning.Good hosts that they are, Bojo and co have just revealed what the UK will be bringing to the table, planet-saving wise, so we fire up the babble-ometer. Also this week, we sink our teeth into lab-grown meat. Is it good? Is it the worst thing ever? Would Jeremy Clarkson punch anyone for cooking it badly? Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patre