New local green blogger

Brockley resident and fellow greenie Hannah has set up a blog, Seeds and Stitches. So far she's steering clear of party politics and focussing more on her and hubby's effort to do the green thing at home, growing their own, being highly creative, and saving money in the process. Take a look. Personally I think she should be bringing some of those chocolate cup cakes along with her to our next local party meeting . . . :)

3 Years Old Today!

Please excuse the rather self-indulgent nature of this post, but Green Ladywell is 3 years old today, so I thought it worth having a little look back over the past few years in blogland.

When I set up the blog, in the middle of the 2006 election campaign, I wasn't really convinced about blogging, whether anyone would read it, whether I would have enough things to blog about, whether we were going to get elected (our canvassing returns fortunately turned out to have been very conservative) and whether I would continue the blog once elected. It seemed rather gimmicky, but I figured it was free and another way of trying to get the key messages of our campaign across, so decided to give it a go.

Back in early 2006, the number of local bloggers was fairly small, with Transpontine, Andrew Brown, Bob from Brockley, Andrew Milton and the Man from Catford being the stalwarts of the (male-dominated) blogosphere. Things definitely took off when Brockley Central joined the foray in February 2007 (for the first few posts, the number of comments were still in single figures!), and a few other women bloggers such as Deptford Dame, Kate and Clare came on board, while Brockley Kate joined the Brockley Central team (though women are still notably in the minority amongst bloggers). The occasional Lewisham bloggers meet ups were a great opportunity to put faces and names to previously anonymous bloggers.

Meanwhile in Green blogland, back in March 2006 you could count the number of blogging greens on your fingers, in fact I'm not sure who besides Natalie over at Philobiblon was blogging, though lots of others, such as The Daily (Maybe), Ruscombe Green and Charlie Bolton came on board shortly after. Now there's dozens of us, we have GreenHome, GreenFeed and even the green blogosphere's answer to the Oscars. I have to ruthlessly scan my blogroll each day to keep abreast of what's being said.

Well the blog probably didn't have much of an impact on the 2006 election campaign, with only 100 or so people visiting the blog in the run-up to election day, and for the first few months I wasn't sure whether anyone locally was reading my blog or not. A key moment for me was when I turned up to the well-attended first meeting of FOBLC and someone there told me they had read about the meeting on my blog; the first time a resident in my ward had told me that they read my blog, yay!

There's been the odd blip, with a few weeks when I didn't get around to posting, but they've now been close to 500 posts, on all sorts of local issues, from speed humps to betting shops and insulation (LOTS on insulation lately!) plus the occasional rant from me on national and international issues. Since January last year Ute has joined me with the occasional blog post. Traffic to the blog isn't that large, but we regularly attract well over a thousand hits a month and I estimate that have between 200-300 regular readers. I gave the blog a bit of a facelift towards the end of last year, and have tried to make it a bit more interactive, by showing recent comments and starting to experiment with Twitter etc, but would happily hear suggestions on how we can improve it.

So, before I waddle off into the kitchen to eat a huge piece of celebratory cake, my verdict on 3 years of blogging? It's occasionally felt like a bit of a chore, but generally I've enjoyed it, it's been a good way of reflecting on what we've been doing and I've found it a useful extra way to communicate with local residents (and greens further afield). Ultimately however it's an extra tool or frill and not a substitute for getting newsletters through doors and speaking to residents face to face.

Dean's blog is back!

Brockley ward councillor Dean Walton has revived his blog. He recently bought a Blackberry and along with irritating the heck out of his fellow Green councillors by 'pinging' us incessantly (fortunately that didn't last long), he's found a more useful function in that he can use it to update his blog. Please read and comment to convince him it is worth continuing with; before you know it he will be twittering. He also discovered that I had removed him from my links due to lack of blogging in recent months. Oops, link duly restored.

Green Interweb Thingys

A new website was launched at Green Party Conference this weekend: Green Home, is designed to act as a hub for Green Party bloggers, in much the same way as Lib Dem Voice, Conservative Home or Labour Home do for their respective parties. There is also now an RSS feed of Green Party bloggers, Green Feed, and if that wasn't enough excitement, the national party website has also just been relaunched. Our local party website is also hopefully getting a much-needed facelift soon too.

Top Twenty Green Blog?

According to this, Green Ladywell has been ranked the 6th best Green blog in the country. Sandwiched between George Monbiot (5th) and fellow Green Party member, Philbiblon (7th). Very honoured and all that, but I suspect that this list, which we didn't make it into, is probably the more rigorous of the two, with a lower tolerance threshold for long absences from the blogosphere, too many references to potholes, CPZs and a preponderence of Ladywell- specific issues rather than 'green' issues per se. However, it's very nice to be in the Total Politics list, and that's the one I'll be referring to henceforth! (Jim, you're off my Christmas card list!).

Carnival of the Green # 130!

I am delighted to be hosting Carnival of the Green today, a medley of all things green on the blogosphere over the past week. I signed up for this about a year ago, as it gets booked up months in advance, so it's quite exciting that my turn has finally come round! Thank you to Little Green Secrets who hosted last week's Carnival of the Green. Next week's carnival is at Blogfish.

This week is 'Recycle Week' here in the UK, and appropriately, there are a number of posts about recycling, reusing materials, and composting. Its also World Environment Day on Wednesday, and the Environment Agency have launched a new campaign for people to do their bit (all well and good, but we also need the government to 'do its bit' to make it easier for us to 'do our bit'). Anyway, here goes:

Waste, Recycling and Composting

The Green Path Company has an article on recycling electronic waste. Ecojoe has a quick look at how much food the U.S. wastes, and what some companies are doing about it. On Fake Plastic Fish, following the discovery of a plastic eating microbe by a 16-year old, Beth ponders whether this lets us off the hook as a way of dealing with plastic bags or is simply an excuse to keep wasting resources. Meanwhile on Conserve Plastic Bags, Michelle is finding that her biodegradable dog muck bags are not biodegrading as she would like. Jzulueta on True Living Space writes about SAPSPA , an organisation in the Philppines that makes beautiful baskets etc from old newspapers and magazines. Over on Another Green World, Derek Wall shows how he has learnt to cut waste and improve his gardening by importing compost technics from Cuba which helped the country survive economic hardship and oil shortages in the 1990s.

Gardening and agriculture
Interested in growing your own food? Read about Sadie's unconventional efforts at soil preparation. Find out what she did....on Veggie Revolution this week. Continuing with the gardening theme, Tao of Change looks at the use of lawnmowers and ponders if there could be a better way. Tao discusses and shows photos of alternatives. On a similar theme, Greener Pastures asks 'Does your lawn really need to look like astroturf?' Happy to confirm that mine most certainly does not - elections and council commitments mean that my garden is definitely more wildlife garden than originally intended.

EatDrinkBetter looks at a unique urban agriculture program which helps refugee camp survivors to start their own urban agriculture businesses while bringing a community garden and better nutrition to a project housing area. Meanwhile the Organic Makeup and Skin Care blog has a feature on biodynamic farming. What it is, who started it, certification it uses and even green brands (of skin care and makeup) who use biodynamic ingredients in their products.

And how about a way of dealing with all those slugs and snails that are thriving with the recent damp weather in London? The excellent Devonshire Road Nature Reserve blog has a suggestion.

Other bits and bobs
Green Building Elements has an article about a simple plumbing device that can help preheat hot water by recovering heat from water going down the drain. 80 to 90 percent of the energy used to heat water for the shower is lost down the drain, but apparently a DWHR unit can save as much as 25-30% of the energy used for water heating, and offers payback periods ranging from 3 to 7 years, depending on use patterns.

Alternative Energy blog asks (and tries to answer) "Why are oil prices so high", while Money Blue Book argues that One Great Potential Benefit Of Higher Petrol Prices is Less Traffic. Hmm, not sure if the UK hauliers will buy that one . . .

Money Changes Things has an article on SEED, Oberlin's Student Experiment in Ecological Design, which was featured in the New York Times. This post includes comments on recalibrating the needle on consumption and entitlement.

Over on Beansprouts Blog, Melanie Rimmer argues that it's a mistake to think people acting individually can't bring about important change. Busting this myth, and some other misconceptions about people power. No Impact Man has a Climate Change Denial Industry Primer, while on La Marguerite, Marguerite Manteau-Rao uses the power of insight to expand the meaning of climate denial.

For the nostalgic, Natural Patriot has a post about Herbert S Zim, founder of the Golden Guides, pocket-size introductions for children to such subjects as fossils, zoology, microscopy, rocks and minerals, codes and secret writings, trees, wildflowers, dinosaurs, navigation and more. Don't think we had those this side of the pond, but hopefully it will ring a bell for Americans.

Political Animals
OK, being a Green Party councillor, I couldn't do this Carnival without at least a little plug for my colleagues, so here's a mini-roundup of what a few other elected Greens across the UK have been doing this week. York Green Party Councillor Andy D'Agorne writes about the possibility of a Transition Town group getting off the ground in York, as well as the joys and otherwise of Cycling in York. For those of you not in the know on Transition Towns see their wiki. I'm hoping something similar is going to be happening in Lewisham soon too - I know a few people in Sydenham and Brockley are discussing this.

Bristol councillor Charlie Bolton has had some success in getting a train service improved, but is still waiting for the confirmation that the popular Bristol-Bath cycle path is not going to be turned into a rapid transit route. Stroud councillor Philip is concerned about the validity of the feasibility study into the Severn Barrage and busy lobbying British Waterways and the Environment Agency over the state of Stroudwater.

Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for the South-East has recently started a blog about her day to day work, in addition to her Comment is Free blog. It doesn't seem to have a proper RSS feed from it yet, but hopefully will do soon.

Well that's it from Carnival of the Green for this week - it certainly makes a change from my usual posts about controlled parking zones, betting shop licences, uneven footpaths and nappucinos! Don't forget to visit Blogfish next week.

15th Best Green Blogger

Fellow Green Jim Jay, who blogs on The Daily (Maybe), has compiled a list of the top 20 Green Bloggers. Last year he compiled a list of '100 Best Green Bloggers', in response to the total absence of Green blogs in Tory blogger Iain Dale's list. This year, Jim was invited by Iain Dale to write a chapter on Green bloggers for his Guide to Political Blogging. Since last year, when I reached the elevated position of 53rd best Green blogger ;), a number of new Green blogs have appeared, so I was delighted to be 15th Green blogger this time, probably undeservedly compared to other more dedicated bloggers not in the top 20. There is now a vote on Jim's site for Best Green Blogger "People's Choice Award 2007", so if you find my witterings even vaguely useful/entertaining/informative please massage my ego a little by going and voting for this blog!