Nature with a capital N

The Prince of Wales is at it again. In The Times he writes about our need to reconnect with Nature.

You may believe that I have some reactionary obsession with returning to a kind of mock medieval, forelock-tugging past. All I am saying is that we simply cannot contend with the global environmental crises we face by relying on clever technological “fixes” on their own.

His enemy is Modernism. His answer is Harmony. “In denying the invisible ‘grammar of harmony’ we create cacophony and dissonance.”

Complexity is key to life. The diversity that made up this complexity was bulldozed in the pursuit of simplicity and convenience, creating an appeal that continues to fuel the conspicuous consumption and throwaway societies we see everywhere.

Not a Darwinistic struggle but a community effort, then: “Biology shows that (…) life seeks balance. Every organism works together to produce a harmonic whole.” Well, I try.

Hot air on climate change?

Over before it began, in the sense that nothing actually happens until we report it here, the first meeting of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on Biodiversity and Climate Change of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) took place in London from 17-21 November 2008. Did AHTEG consider either the impact of climate change of the diversity of crops and their wild relatives, or the need to crops and their wild relatives to mitigate the impacts of climate change?

Our source does not say, and I simply don’t know, and a quick glance at the list of meeting documents is no help. Someone, enlighten us, please.

Slow Food on the move

The Slow Food movement is evolving, its founder says: “People who sniff a cheese and talk about how it has the most wonderful aroma of horse sweat. Think how incredibly boring we would be if we were still just a gastronomic society.”