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Environmental

Gardens

1264

This column by Simon Gear first appeared in Khuluma magazine during 2011.I’m not a big gardener. The only thing I have ever planted of my own accord is my rain gauge.

And that doesn’t work out all that well, because the chap who my wife employs to carry out her gardening dreams is ever so slightly confused as to its operation and dutifully fills it up every Friday.

This puts me at a disadvantage when negotiating the greenness of our own bit of earth. I am determined to move away from the green lawn-obsessed gardens of our parents and have something that better reflects the fact that we live in Africa. My wife, while not exactly hankering after England’s pastures green, feels her plants’ thirst as keenly as her own. Although, she has never been a big one for the booze, so it’s fair to say she feels their thirst as keenly as I feel mine. And her sympathy for her plants’ discomfort is pretty much the opposite of her sympathy for me when the beer runs low. If the sun so much as looks at one of her plants, she is out with the hose. Many’s the time we have stood out on the front verge arguing. “But honey I entreaty. “It’s going to rain tomorrow. Trust me, I’m a weather guy. At which point the neighbour’s automatic sprinkler kicks in. I get no respect.

Well, I’ve finally won . Last week we put in a rainfall capture. Remember them? Houses used to come standard with them in the 70s, but somehow we all got modern and sophisticated. The fairly small roof of my office collects enough to keep her veggie garden permanently squelchy.

Which has left me contemplating that it takes three litres of water to brew a litre of beer. At least I’m not pouring the stuff on the grass.

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Recycling

1090

This article was written by Simon Gear. Who’s got time to recycle? I mean, look at my life. I’m schlepping off before dawn to provide a report that no one believes on a TV channel that nobody watches. Then it’s a rush back home to clean up dog poo, make the wife tea, explain to my daughter that she can’t have chocolate for breakfast and explain to my son how income tax works.

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This column by Simon Gear first appeared on the Don't Be a Passenger blog (www.dontbeapassenger.com) in July of 2010. Last week, a Swiss friend of mine was outraged because she had just been nailed with a €1350 fine for straying a smidgeon over the suburban speed limit. Well, maybe I must clarify. If she was truly Swiss, I doubt she would have been that angry (or indeed have been fined in the first place).

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1116

his article was written by Simon Gear. There is a craze in Japan and the States called hypermiling. Petrol heads with too much time on their hands, and I suspect, not enough female energy in their lives, compete with each other and themselves to have the lowest possible fuel consumption in their cars.

Chicken or Beef

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This article was written by Simon Gear. Forget carbon footprints. Water is the big bear in the woods for South Africa. Already, it seems like Cape Town barely needs a week of sun in winter to set them back for the rest of the year. Everywhere else relies on ingenious but massive projects to shift water over mountains and between reservoirs to ensure that our towns don’t run dry.

Karoo

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Forget Carbon Foot Printing

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This column by Simon Gear first appeared in an Optimal Energy newsletter in 2010 Forget carbon foot printing. Forget global warming (well, not entirely, because it is one enormous problem).

Bottled Water

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Wikileaks

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Is there any man alive more simultaneously loved and reviled than Julian Assange? I know of no one without a strong opinion on the Wikileaks founder. To many of us, he is the hero who has given us a vicarious peak behind the façade of international diplomacy. To much of the US, he’s the devil incarnate, putting more strain on international relationships since... well, since George W Bush.