Tight Clothes, Nature and Angst

When I worked with the wise and delightful Monty Don on Radio 4’s Shared Planet, I remember him saying someone had asked him the secret to being happy and content. His answer struck me as worth spreading around – wear loose clothes and spend time outside. Now that is sensible. Wearing tight clothes can have the effect of making our brains feel constrained too, I certainly can’t relax or breathe so well when I am aware of edges, buttons, belts – things that inhibit.  I think it is harder to give out to the world when your body feels drawn in.

Monty Don

And going outside – well how much more evidence do we need to show that breathing outside air, feeling soil, smelling the scent from trees, grass and flowers, feeling rain and sun, seeing green and grey and blue – all calm our emotions and help healing.  I only wish major international meetings on war, weapons, refugees, the environment and so on happened outside in a meadow or wild garden, instead of inside constraining rooms.  I think we would come to different decisions.

Some trees are particularly good at helping.  In days gone by German village elders would hold judicial meetings under lime (linden) trees, and that is not a surprise.  Lime trees were said to evoke wise thoughts.  The scent of lime, particularly in the summer, is intoxicating and was said to help cure epilepsy, headaches, insomnia and bad nerves. This poem is by Wilhelm Müller

Der Lindenbaum

By the fountain, near the gate,
There stands a linden tree;
I have dreamt in its shadows
so many sweet dreams.
I carved on its bark
so many loving words;
I was always drawn to it,
whether in joy or in sorrow.

Today again I had to pass it
in the dead of night.
And even in the darkness
I had to close my eyes.
Its branches rustled
as if calling to me:
“Come here, to me, friend,
Here you will find your peace!”
The frigid wind blew
straight in my face,
my hat flew from my head,
I did not turn back.

Now I am many hours
away from that spot
and still I hear the rustling:
“There you would have found peace!”

The Japanese have a word for the sense of peace you get from a woodland walk -  “wood air bathing” shinrin-yoku, breathing in the healing, enriching oils emitted from trees that lowers blood pressure, boosts the immune system and calms thoughts. Throughout Japan there are shinrin-yoku walks where families have picnics and be together to de-stress.

Last week Iseemed to come across yet more horrible stories of  young children increasingly suffering panicattacks, depression, stress and low self-esteem and many other words for a mind in turmoil.  Teenagers too.  I know of a few young people now who have dropped out of university recently because of depression.  How much of this is related to the increasingly indoor, removed-from-nature life so many of us lead today is unsure, but it is hard not to draw some connections between the two. Children live virtual indoor lives, not real out door ones.

I watch the school kids from the local secondary school walk home each day along our very city-centre street right in the centre of Bristol.  They are bursting with that feeling of wanting to run, shout, mess around, kick balls or whatever.  But in the middle of the city there is nowhere to do that – just cans to kick, and swear and shout and lots of pushing each other around, which annoys middle-aged people who shout at them and complain to the school. I wish they had a big field to go to, somewhere to let off steam, and maybe even find something interesting to look at that for a short while takes the mind to other realms.  But this doesn’t happen, instead all of this youthful energy gets bottled up and who knows where it goes.

So – would a GCSE in Natural History help encourage kids to go outside? Get them to really look, smell, touch, sense the world they live in – even a local park? Would it help give their minds a break to think where swallows come from or how snakes shed their skin and why an egg is the shape and colour it is? And if it taught the connection between well-being and nature – would that help?  And if, through having access to nature-literature, they learned ways of expressing feelings that only natural things evoke  – would that go some way to stemming this awful spread of youthful angst? Concentrating on awe, wonder, joy, beauty, mystery, fear, trepidation, etc.  Those are the feelings that come from knowing the natural world.  Re-engagement with who and what we are on a living, breathing, vibrant planet can only ever be good.  We are a long way from that at the moment - let’s do something to try to change it.  Please sign the petition.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/176749

Ethical Carnivore - Louise Gray

I loved this book -  Ethical Carnivore  by Louise Gray - it got better the further in and I found myself thinking about it quite a lot.  Louise comes across as a kind, determined, vulnerable woman who wants to be honest about what she does.  She eats meat - so what is the honest thing?  Kill it for yourself and don't hide behind plastic packaging and anonymous looking chunks of pink stuff.

Louise comes from a farming/shooting background and so the idea of picking up a gun isn't totally new, although it seems her brothers took to it as children more than she did.  When she made this decision to spend a year only eating meat she killed herself, at least she had her dad to teach her how to handle a gun and take her out to shoot rabbits, I wouldn't have a clue who to ask.

The first chapter is less strong than the rest, it feels a bit - well- shaky.  She finds it hard to manage the gun and can't dispatch a rabbit without tears.  I probably wouldn't have started this way, but her vulnerability comes across straight away, and that is good. She isn't a campaigning, tattooed activist who lies in front of lorries, she is a normal, sensitive westerner who has been removed from the reality of food and now has decided to face up to what it means to eat meat.  I liked that - I identified with her fears and squeamishness, I couldn't have done what she did.

She delves headlong into abattoirs and intensive chicken farms, eating road kill, going on fishing trawlers and breaking the necks of roosters.  Eventually she tackles shooting a deer. She visits farms where animals are simply units to be processed and others where they are loved until they die humanely. She describes being in a large abattoir as being in hell and was deeply traumatised.  Addressing the question of whether CCTV should be be installed in them she says no - no one should see what happens, it is like being in a vile dream. But how else do you despatch enough animals to supply the ever growing demand for meat in this country? Around 8 billion animals (livestock and fish) are killed each year in the UK for food. Can that really be true?  This figure is taken from a vegan website which says:

The total number of animals killed in British slaughterhouses in 2013 was over a billion.

This included 9.8 million pigs, nearly 15 million sheep, 18 million turkeys, 14 million ducks, over 945 million chickens and 2.6 million cattle. Add to that 4.5 billion fish and 2.6 billion shellfish you have a total of over 8 billion animals killed in the UK each year.

This equates to around 22 million animals slaughtered every day; 919,000 an hour; 15,000 per minute and 255 every second.

I was particularly interested in reading this book after making "Would You Eat An Alien?" for Radio 4 - a whacky look at the intelligence and sentience of farm animals.  It was such an eye-opening set of programmes to be involved with and taught me a lot.  We are strange creatures, we don't treat chickens as real birds, or cows as real mammals - somehow farmed animals are different to their wild relations.  But of course they are not.  Maternal and social bonds are just as strong, the ability to feel pain and fear is just as strong - but it is far easier if we don't acknowledge it.  If we had to kill pigs or cows ourselves I am sure most would be vegetarian pretty quickly.  But we don't and we absorb the Old MacDonald farm image and turn a blind eye to reality.

I went to see Louise give a talk at the Birdfair this year - she asked if the audience would rather be a chicken or a pheasant? Clever and brave for that venue - the majority of whom would be opposed to pheasant shooting. Most of the people there, and I am sure more generally, would choose to be a pheasant - given than it lives a wild life until shot (or run over or eaten by a fox).  Surely better than living for only 6 weeks, bloated and full of chemicals, hardly able to stand and never seeing daylight. She was courageous, polite and definitely, in my opinion, held the moral argument. There is no doubt pheasants - agree with their existence in the UK or not, have a better life than your average broiler.

Therefore I applaud Louise - she didn't pretend everything was fine - she found out for herself, carried on eating meat but did the honest thing and killed it with her own hands.  And the surprising thing is - she carries on trying to eat only the animals she kills, which has had a drastic effect on how much meat she eats.  She now eats mainly vegetarian food with occasional meat thrown in.  That seems to be a very healthy and sensible way to live. We all know the dangers of too much rich, animal fat.  Many people in the West overdose on protein they don't need (my family for a start!)

Well done Louise - well written, direct from the heart, not one ounce of preachiness and its challenging. Its a great read. And if I was asked round to Louise's for a squirrel supper, I think I would look forward to it very much.

BBC Wildlife Magazine - Faith and Nature

I wrote an article for the March edition of  BBC Wildlife Magazine on the role religions can/should/must play in conservation.

Faith in Nature

Obama, Grylls, Muir and TV

A while ago I suggested a BBC TV programme where Obama went to Glacier Point with one of today's top environmentalists, say David Attenborough, George Schaller or David Suzuki, and they reenact the landmark meeting of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt in 1903.

                         
In the Muir/Roosevelt meeting, which lasted 4 days and involved the president sleeping out with Muir as the snow fell, Muir persuaded him to save large parts of the nation's wild places as National Parks.  It was heralded as the most important conservation meeting ever to have taken place.  National Parks were not only established throughout America over the coming decades but the idea spread around the world.  Today over 15% of the land and over 3% of the ocean is protected. In some way that protection relates back to the Glacier Point summit.

I never heard what happened to my idea but seeing Bear Grylls meet with President Obama in Alaska was the kind of thing I had in mind.  It was much tamer than the Roosevelt meeting.  For many obvious reasons it only lasted a few hours at most and there were 50 presidential people behind the camera.

Obama came across as fun, relaxed and intrigued by Gryll's exploits, and I thought Bear Grylls asked some excellent questions.  The one that struck me was when Obama was asked what advice he gave to his daughters.  His reply was simply wonderful - I paraphrase -  "Be useful and be kind, then where ever your passions lead you will get the most out of them."  Gryll's response was immediate - the kind bit is the hardest of all. Very true - more on that later in another blog.

Obama talked about climate change and how he would like his legacy to be a pathway to solving the problem.  The two end up looking over Harding Ice Field, a glacier that has retreated on average by 30 feet a year since 1973. "This climate change agenda is important as anything I will ever do."

Well, Paris has happened and the USA helped secure what has been called a landmark agreement. "We met the moment," said Obama.  Time will tell if countries really do stick by their agreement to phase out fossil fuels but it has to be a deal worth celebrating for now.

Did Bear Grylls help consolidate the president's commitment?  Did the sight of a shrinking mass of ice shock him into more determined action? Who knows.  But there is one point I didn't agree with.  He called Grylls a great ambassador for the planet.  A fabulous survival expert, tough as old boots and a genuinely good man for sure - an ambassador for the environment?  Hmmm - not really.

Bear Grylls has always seemed to me to be someone who sees the wilderness as something to battle and conquer.  He is an expert in survival but gives no indication he knows anything about the places he takes on.  As long as they are extreme, tough and remote that is good enough to demonstrate skill, and he is good at that for sure.  But to suddenly begin to talk about saving the planet turned his true authenticity into hollowness. I have baulked at him catching and eating wild animals on camera just for the shot. He has reverence for the landscapes that challenges him but he seems to completely lack compassion and wonder at wildlife. Animals are something to eat, not save.

Look at the youtube clips of him eating a live frog, salmon and octopus.

Does it matter?  Maybe not.  It is only telly, but I think many people find celebrities who suddenly find that the green message fits their agenda disingenuous.

I don't want to be churlish.  I thought it was a great watch and I admire both men enormously.  But I would have felt more uplifted if Grylls had been more upfront.

Extraordinary light show on St Peter's, Rome

Start viewing about 10-15 mins in - amazing show of photographs of wildlife with a soundscape projected over the church...

Sex On Earth - A Review

Sex On Earth - A Celebration of Animal Reproduction by Jules Howard

This is a very enjoyable read.  Many books about natural history fall into one of two camps.  They can be rather dry and anoraky, a bit more like train spotting manuals for geeks rather than written from a place of joy. Or, they can stray into Posers Corner and try too hard to be meaningful and clever - too arty - conjuring contorted associations and mystical images and far too often they seem mournful and somewhat tortured.  These are of course extremes, but not many fall easily into the middle section of factual and fun. This book does, and that is what I like about it so much, natural history could do with some more humour and irreverence.

Sex On Earth is written for anyone who likes animals, who is interested in how life carries on and isn't too squeamish about terminology.  Spanning the intimate encounters from mites to pandas, racehorses to ducks the private bits of the animal world are put on full show.  Your head will reel at the diversity of appendages males have developed and the physiological tricks a female's body can employ.  You will never dismiss a mite again as boring and you will look more tenderly upon the jackdaws blocking up your chimney.

Jules laces his text with personal insights about science and scientists which are sensitive and intelligent. He really likes and admires the range of academics he interviews and who let him peek into their weird world of observing and analysing animal sex.  Does Dr Chris Wilson really have a hand knitted rotifer on his desk?  Does Sharon Flint, the caddisfly genitalia expert, really look like a gothic princess?  Jules laments the passing of the hands-on skills of naturalists of old and the lack of contact with nature that is so talked about today.  If only children knew more about the mating strategies of sticklebacks and slugs they would not need a smart phone to amuse them.  He is saddened by the progress of science which looks like it might render as obsolete those who possess the manual dexterity to prize apart the genitalia of insects under a microscope.   A shame to lose such people, the odd bods who find the minutiae of life infinitely fascinating.

This book could only be written by someone who loves nature in all its strangeness, grossness and beauty.   Jules really does love life, the pages smile at you and ask you to come on in and be amazed at the extraordinary ordinary creatures that pepper our daily lives. Slugs and fruit flies, dogs and ducks may be unremarkable fare but their sex lives are far from ordinary.

There are many interesting observations about science, such as the seeming obsession with male sexual organs and by comparison the little interest in female ones.  Why?  Will that change as the gender balance in scientists gradually shifts to being more female?

There is a frank and explicit discussion on the sex supremos -bonobo chimps - the porn stars of the animal kingdom - but Jules sensibly pulls short of going on to talk about us. So many have done so in the past and it is a cheap trick. Each species is unique and comparisons are hollow.

Jules is a fine scientist and a skilled writer.  Sex is a fun topic under his pen.  If I have one quibble Jules - I HATE the phrase ""to knock her up" but that is my only quibble and a personal one.  Have a good time reading this and I guarantee the world will seem sexier and more intriguing when you do.

Is it only humans that experience emotions?

It is high time we stopped batting off the difficult and potentially highly inconvenient questions around animal sentience. Let's just recognise that life other than humans have feelings and emotions says Mark Bekoff from the University of Colorado at Boulder.  Very true says Christine Nicol from Bristol University, who is applying animal behaviour to our treatment of livestock.  She has already made big improvements to the lives of chickens by helping formulate the recent legislation for higher standards which took account of her research.  Hens, after all, are domesticated junglefowl with many of their original instincts and behaviours, to ignore them is downright cruel.


    Commercial free-range hens indoors

There is a tangible move in some spheres (nowhere near enough though) towards living in a kinder, more compassionate world.  I am very glad, the pain caused by a cold us and them approach to life on earth is reaching desperate proportions as meat eating soars and more and more animals live short, brutal lives for our plates.  I am not against meat eating by any means (my family eats meat) but I find I am increasingly anxious about the way we treat life on earth - domesticated and wild.

What research is increasingly showing is that we are not that different from our furry and feathery fellow travellers.  We are not the only species to feel empathy, grief, affections, bonding, trauma, distress, pain, depression, joy etc.  As the evidence piles up I hope it filters through to the rest of us in society.  We need to hear these things, we need to be able to let this extraordinary and challenging research seep into our thought processes and help guide what we buy and what we eat.  Human beings are complex creatures and it takes time for us to change our ways, but the more we can identify with other life, the easier it will be to push through meaningful reforms.

I love the idea that a chicken can display delayed gratification, can recognise and react to distress in other hens and can communicate with their chicks while they are still in the egg.  My forthcoming book on John Muir gives examples of how he recognised that farm animals have similar feelings to us.

Tim Birkhead, Professor of Animal Behaviour at Sheffield told me recently that it is time for the science of ethology to look at emotions more carefully.  He believes the stage has been reached where this is no longer a taboo.  His study of guillemots on Skomer (the subject of a Living World on Aug 17th, 6.40 am) has convinced him these long-lived, communal birds who form life-long partnerships feel real affection for each other.

Science is challenging the long-held notions about what it is to be human and it seems theological research is a couple of hundred years behind the times.  Religion is too important to the way the world works for it to carry on as though ideas on what constitutes a human being has never changed.  It has and continues to present new aspects at an increasingly fast rate.  Fascinating and challenging ideas are arriving thick and fast and the world's faiths and would do well to consider them.

Jesuit Pope and Life on Earth

 Its too early to tell how Pope Francis will re-invigorate the Church but two things strike me , one - he is a Jesuit, and two - he chose the name Francis. I have long admired Jesuits, their intellectual rigour, the lack of pomp around their manner and dress, their belief in living and working in amongst the people, their use of the imagination as a powerful tool for prayer. Many seem to be able to walk with their head in the stars but their feet placed firmly on the ground. Some of the most impressive and "real" people I have ever met are Jesuits. I was honoured to be asked to address the Superior General of the Jesuits (Father Adolfo Nicolás) at a meeting of the British Province a year ago and found him to be a gentle, charismatic man who was at once humble but insightful. I wonder if Pope Francis will have the same qualities. He seemed to exude them from the pictures on the balcony.

The Jesuits as a a worldwide order have also made a commitment to place care for the natural world at the heart of Jesuit teaching and action.  They have formulated plans and projects to promote careful, sensitive, respectful living in all their communities.  See the EcoJesuit website.

 St Francis is known for both his compassion for, and action on behalf of, the poor and for his love of nature. The legends that surround him are many, preaching to birds, talking to wolves, contemplating the stars, rescuing fish, calling an insect his sister and so on. He obviously had a deep passion for nature and one of his famous sayings is: "If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men." Now that is worth hearing time and again in our world today. When we see the cruelty, the disrespect and the utilitarian way much of the world treats not just animals but the whole of the natural world, then I wonder if we are just a few steps away from terrible atrocities everywhere. We are so good at de-sensitising ourselves to suffering.

 He taught that all of the natural world, animate and inanimate, are our brothers and sisters. How forward thinking is that. We still are no where near accepting what Francis knew to be true 600 years ago. We still don't accept we are all in this together, all of us are related and interdependent, for many it is too challenging a thought. But if we accept we are 98% chimp then we are also 60% fruit fly and 50% cabbage. Truly we are not that different. In his book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" Bill Bryson writes: “Every living thing is an elaboration on a single original plan. As humans we are mere increments – each of us a musty archive of adjustments, adaptations, modifications and providential tinkerings stretching back 3.8 billion years. Remarkably we are even quite closely related to fruit and vegetables. About 1/2 the chemical functions that take place in a banana are fundamentally the same as the chemical functions that take place in you. It cannot be said too often: all of life is one. That is, and I suspect will for ever prove to be, the most profound true statement there is.” That is a wonderful statement arrived at through looking at the evidence and the conclusion is earth shattering. St Francis knew it way before DNA was even heard of.

 I'm not sure we will see much of doctrinal change but we may see an awakening that some way down the road may lead to more open ground. Pope Francis seems to be someone who puts social justice (and that includes justice for all life) at the top of the agenda. The fact he uses public transport, not limos, lives in a flat not a palace etc are just wonderful ways to lead by example.  Nothing will happen quickly in terms of changing the controversial teachings, but journeys are not always about speed. As long as we can rid the Church of the image of negativity, rejection, disapproval and arrogance and welcome everyone no matter who or what they are, then it will be a Church I will be proud of.

 Pope Francis has the chance to change the mood for many people but he has to carry on doing what Francis said - "It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching."

Robin Pictures

I have added pictures to the robin podcast...