Barry Taylor gave me pause for thought last night, when he shared some thoughts as part of the Dirty Mother month at Nexus. His theme was trash - the rubbish we throw away/ the detritus of life (illustrated by the photos of Chris Jordan), and also the trash(y) culture of Western society.

He prompted me to be reminded of some really important issues, ones that go beyond just the scale of our waste (example). He reminded me (again) of the challenge to change both behaviour and feeling, to not abandon dirty cities in favour of the "Godly country", to keep looking for glimmers of the divine in the trash...

He also prompted me to think of the Be The Change day that we hosted last year. During that presentation, I was moved by a very profound clip of Julia Butterfly Hill saying:

"When we throw something away, where is away? There is no away. The paper we throw away is a forest. The plastic we throw away is petroleum that was taken from an exploited community somewhere. The coffee we buy is taken from another exploited community somewhere. We buy it, use it for a second and throw it away, further exploiting the world by our own pollution. The modern world kills a planet for a moment’s pleasure."

So a fantastic evening of reminders. And afterwards, I pondered whether anybody there felt slightly piqued at being reminded of these themes by a north American, and one from LA no less, one of the trashiest (in every sense of the word) cities in the world?... Please Barry, keep challenging us and prompting us to remember.

Labels: environment