This week on Earth Beat we look at green guilt – what we worry about and whether acting on it actually makes us better people. Also, eco-fasting options for Lent, and peeing green – NOT literally!
ECO LENT
Carbon fast for Lent
When many of us think of the build-up to Easter, we think of piles of chocolate bunnies and candy-coloured eggs. But for the more Christian-minded among us, the 40 days of Lent are a time for giving up those very pleasures. But for some, abstaining from chocolate or alcohol isn’t enough; this year Bishop James Jones of Liverpool and his congregation went on a carbon fast.
Lent Roulette
There are many conventional eco Lent options – whether losing a lightbulb or eating less meat. But guest Mikey Lear chose a more extraordinary option; he decided to give up peeing indoors for forty days and forty nights. Marnie asked why he thought that going in the open was something he had to do.
PEE STORIES
Peeing outdoors
It might surprise you to know that outdoor pee-er Mikey Leary is not alone – every April 19th is World Pee Outside Day, started by PeeOutside.org. But is it really a sustainable idea? Pee may be mostly sterile but it’s powerful stuff… once upon a time it was even used in making gunpowder. Marnie speaks to University of Bristol ecologist Stephen Harris to find out if peeing outdoors is really a good idea.
Peeing in the shower
If peeing outdoors isn’t the solution, how else do we avoid wasting water with each flush? The answer may lie in a Brazilian video campaign encouraging people to pee in the shower. It ends with the line “Pee in the shower, save the rainforest”, picking up on the fact that rivers feeding the Atlantic rainforest are shrinking as water is siphoned off for public use. Ana Ligia Schachetti from the NGO behind the film, SOS Mata Atlantica, spoke to us from Sao Paulo.
Watch the viral video
Envirominute
Fiona Campbell gives us 60 seconds about the peepoo - a new human waste disposal product that could save lots of lives.
Watch a video about the peepoo
GREEN GUILT
Green guilt around the world
Earlier in the program we discussed environmentally-friendly sacrifices people are making for Lent. Lent is one of those guilt-based holidays. It makes you stop and think about things which you know, deep in your heart, you shouldn’t be doing. And it seems that more and more people are feeling guilty about the environment. We went out on the streets of Sydney, Nairobi and Mumbai and asked people it they suffered from green guilt…
Readers Digest green guilt poll
It seems green guilt is a global phenomenon. A new “Around the World” poll by Readers Digest asked people from 15 countries, “what gives you the most earth day guilt?” (Earth day being the day when we’re meant to switch off the lights for an hour.) Marnie asked the National Affairs editor at Readers Digest Bob Love to tell us more.
Does buying green make us mean?
Some green consumers seem to feel quiet pleased with themselves – smug even – for the way they behave. But does buying green products make us better people? Not according to a new study, from the University of Toronto. Nina Mazar, one of the people behind the report, explains.
Recycling guilt
Someone who definitely didn’t want to carry his green guilt around is Steve Urquhart.
He’s a radio journalist who recently spent some time with the Earth Beat team. He was excited about living in an Amsterdam apartment for a fortnight and throwing himself into Dutch life. But he wasn’t keen on throwing out all his rubbish at the end of his stay… so he searched for ways to get rid of it, the sustainable way.
NEXT WEEK ON EARTH BEAT
How to be green beyond the grave…
I don’t think most people have really wanted to peak behind the curtain, quite frankly I think some of the ickier aspects of death care have protected it.
Join us as we tear that curtain back to discuss some surprising new green burial options… that’s in the next edition of Earth Beat from Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
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It is funny, Ashleigh, some time back one of your colleagues had written a very humiliating report on peeing in open in India on the world toilet day. And here, you are advocating what Indians have been doing since the dawn of their civilisation.Perhaps they know that animal and human excreta is a good fertiliser, long before your scientists know now..And soon there will be a report that throwing garbage in the open is good for soil as the nutrients go back to elemental form. BTW, I wrote about the positive effects of these annoying habits of Indians in the recent competition by RNW for budding journalists, though it is a different matter that my entry did not impress your editors..And about peeing in shower, I think Brazilians pee only once in 24 hours! If you drink 8 to 10 glasses of water plus other beverages in a day, you have to pee the same number of times if you have good functioning kidneys! So, peeing in shower is ridiculous suggestion as you cannot take shower every time you go to pee, you have to flush the toilet a bit or rush outdoors to pee. Though I find the concept of Pee Poo more feasible and productive....
This body is not a home, but an inn, and that only briefly.(Seneca, Epistulae ad Lucilium.
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