Environment | guardian
Polluted Indonesian river to get $500m clean-up
One of the world's most polluted rivers, the Citarum in Indonesia, is to get a major clean-up that is hoped to improve the lives of millions of people, the Asian Development Bank announced today.
The Manila-based lender has agreed to provide a $500m (£340m) loan package to the Indonesian government support the restoration of the river basin, which supports a population of 28 million people, delivers 20% of Indonesia's gross domestic product, and provides 80% of water supply to the capital, Jakarta.
Rapid urbanisation over the last 20 years has seen a rise in untreated household sewage, solid waste and industrial effluents, affecting public health and threatening the livelihood of poor fishing families, the bank said.
The loan package will be delivered over the next 15 years, and will support sanitation projects and construction of waste treatment plants in the river basin to provide safe water supply to poor families who use the polluted river for fishing, bathing and laundry.
"Rapid urbanisation, climate change, environmental degradation, public health and food security are all important issues challenging water resources management in Asia and the Pacific region," said Christopher Morris, an ADB senior water resources engineer.
The loan also will allow the cultivation of an additional 61,700 acres (25,000 hectares) of rice paddy, benefiting 25,000 farming families, he said.
The river management programme also aims to supply water to 200,000 more households in Jakarta. It will ultimately increase Jakarta's water supply by 2.5% yearly, and benefit millions by resolving critical water shortages in Bandung, Indonesia's fourth largest city, the bank said.
Last month new research found that severe pollution has made one-third of China's Yellow river unusable.
Known as the country's "mother river", it supplies water to millions of people in the north of China. But in recent years the quality has deteriorated due to factory discharges and sewage from fast-expanding cities.
Much of it is now unfit even for agricultural or industrial use, the study showed.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSchool closures and road chaos after heavy snow
Heavy snowfall caused traffic chaos and prompted more than 300 school closures in the north yesterday as central and southern areas of England were deluged with rain.
Up to 10cm (4in) of snow fell in north-east England and south-east Scotland as a wet weather front from the Atlantic met cold air which has been sitting over the country.
Strong winds caused drifting snow on higher ground, forcing roads to shut, or lane closures on dual carriageways. There were numerous road accidents in North Yorkshire and County Durham.
Around 15cm of snow fell in the Scottish Borders, and hazardous conditions were reported on roads in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and across Yorkshire.
Conditions on the M62 across the Pennines at Huddersfield were appalling, and parts of the A1 in Northumberland were down to one lane. Police said the A66 transpennine road was closed westbound from North Yorkshire to Cumbria.
In Greater Manchester 86 schools in Rochdale were closed, 15 in Bury did not open, and nine in Oldham were closed. A Rochdale council spokeswoman said: "Decisions to close schools are not taken lightly, but health and safety has to be the priority." A further seven schools were shut in Bolton. In neighbouring Lancashire there were 70 schools shut for the day, and 34 were closed in Cumbria.
The Met Office warned that there were frosty and icy surfaces in many northern and central areas. There was misery for air travellers, Leeds Bradford airport was badly affected, with 13 flights cancelled.
Lancashire police urged drivers to travel prepared with enough fuel for their journeys, de-icer and warm clothing as "even routine journeys can spell disaster if you are caught out by bad weather", said Inspector Phil Cottam, of the force's motorway unit.
The army was mobilised to rescue 70 people trapped in their vehicles by heavy snow early yesterday morning, according to Lancashire police. They were called in when 50 vehicles got stuck on one of east Lancashire's busiest roads - the Grane Road.
The road was closed between Helmshore and the M65 at Blackburn at around 7.30am as snow ploughs could not get through. Lancashire police and council workers assisted two army off-road vehicles to assist the stranded motorists. The road was re-opened after four hours.
Police warned motorists in certain areas to only make necessary journeys. The road between Greenfield in Oldham and Holmfirth had been shut after gritters failed to keep it clear.
In parts of east Lancashire and Bury many cars had been abandoned by motorists earlier in the week. William Hill said it had taken a record number of white Christmas bets for this time of year.
Hills currently offer 2/1 for snow in Edinburgh, Aberdeen & Glasgow and 4/1 for the major English cities.
"White Christmas betting is normally a fun festive flutter, sadly it will be anything but fun for us should the forecast snow fall," said its spokesman, Rupert Adams.
Officers in Greater Manchester and Merseyside are warning drivers not to leave their cars running while they defrost them. There have been 20 vehicle thefts reported in Greater Manchester since the cold snap began on Monday.
Chief Inspector Chris Gloster, of Greater Manchester police, said: "People can be tempted to leave their car engine running on a frosty morning while they keep nice and warm inside their house. However, it only takes a few seconds for a thief to steal a car when the keys have been left in the ignition.
"It is not only high-powered vehicles that are targeted and so our advice to all drivers is to stay in their vehicle when defrosting and if at any time they need to leave the car to make sure they lock it, remove any valuables and take the keys with them." He said motorists may not be insured if the vehicle was left unattended with the keys in the ignition.
Temperatures are expected to rise over the weekend.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsHoon delays Heathrow third runway decision
The government postponed the hugely controversial decision on whether to build a third runway at Heathrow yesterday, sparking speculation that cabinet divisions on the environmental impact of the third runway had persuaded Gordon Brown of the need for delay.
Backbench Labour MPs, the opposition and environmentalists were all caught off-guard by transport secretary Geoff Hoon's announcement yesterday that a decision would be delayed until January 2009, 12 months after the initial consultation wound up. It is thought that the energy and climate change minister, Ed Miliband - a key ally of the prime minister for the past decade - persuaded him of the need for more consideration.
A decision had been expected in the next few days, leaving little parliamentary time for debate before Christmas. The government supported Heathrow expansion in its aviation white paper in 2003 and backed a third runway to that end, while Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and some members of the cabinet are thought to oppose it.
Hoon said yesterday he wanted time to give consideration to the 70,000 responses received when the government held a consultation on the issue.
Opponents of the third runway said division at cabinet level on the environmental wisdom of the decision was making the government rethink. The government's position had also been exposed by the Conservative party's decision to oppose the plans, saying they would fund high-speed rail links instead.
In recent weeks Gordon Brown has held private meetings in No 10 with Labour backbenchers, including a ministerial aide and a vice-chair of the party, in an attempt to assuage their fears. One Labour backbencher involved in the campaign said: "[Lord] Mandelson [the business secretary] is key to this decision - his two priorities are getting re-elected and keeping big businesses onside and in this instance the two are in conflict. And that's why maybe he needs more time." The Conservative MP for Putney, Justine Greening, called the delay a classic example of what her party have cast as Brown's "dithering". London's mayor, Boris Johnson, has said he favours a new airport in the Thames estuary.
Friends of the Earth thought the inauguration in the last week of a new climate change committee to hold the government's sustainability record to account had changed matters. FoE campaigner Richard Dyer said: "Hopefully this shows that ministers are beginning to wake up to massive environmental consequences of allowing airports to expand. Under the Climate Change Act, which was passed last month, the government is legally required to slash UK greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 ... but building new runways will cause a huge increase in aviation emissions that will make it all but impossible to meet our targets for tackling climate change."
However, the chair of the committee, Lord Turner, said recently that he thought airport expansion was consistent with the sustainability agenda.
Though Hoon has been only been transport secretary for two months, he has been happy to make controversial decisions. Only a few weeks into his job he gave permission for Stansted airport to increase flight capacity by 10%, overruling a local authority which banned the expansion on environmental grounds.
He said: "I know there are strong views across a range of interests. I will ensure that I give proper consideration to the evidence before me and will therefore take more time before making an announcement to the house, in January 2009."
A spokesman for Brown said the decision had "enormous" national and regional implications. "The delay is a reflection of the fact that this is an important decision," he added.
Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: "Let's hope this is a belated sign that the government is finally paying attention to the massed ranks of the public and the Commons benches ... However, if this delay is just to wait for the aviation industry to rewrite its proposals in a way that suits it, then this is no cause to celebrate."
Business lobbyists expressed concern at the delay.
Ed Anderson, chairman of the Airport Operators Association, said: "That month will not change the fundamental fact that Heathrow's expansion is urgent and necessary for the future of the country, for London's standing as a world-class city, and for our regional economies."
Landing groundsFor
• Could contribute an extra £9bn a year
• Congestion has cut Heathrow's global routes from 220 to 180
• Thousands of new jobs created
Against
• Noise and pollution
• Gridlock on surrounding roads
• Loss of about 700 homes
- Transport policy
- Green politics
- Geoff Hoon
- Ed Miliband
- Planning policy
- Airline industry
- Travel and transport
- Transport
- Climate change
- Carbon emissions
Nuclear industry claims it is now 'sexy' but admits to rising costs
Widespread doubts about the ability of nuclear power companies to bring a new generation of reactors on stream at the right time and on budget were raised yesterday within an industry that the UK government is relying on to meet its climate change and energy security goals.
EDF, the French power company that has positioned itself as a leading player in the market, admitted that its new European Pressurised Reactor programme at Flamanville in France was already 20% over budget, while delays continue to plague a Finnish facility, the only other new plant under construction in Europe.
Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON UK, which also wants to build two nuclear facilities in Britain, said the 2017 target for a first new UK reactor was "extremely ambitious" and urged ministers to proceed with a new generation of coal plants, such as the controversial Kingsnorth scheme, to fill the growing energy gap.
He was talking at a London conference organised by the Nuclear Industries Association, which was told by another top industry figure that although the sector might have a range of problems to overcome, it had recently achieved an extraordinary transformation and was now perceived externally as "sexy".
Lady Barbara Judge, chairwoman of the Atomic Energy Authority, highlighted skills shortages and waste disposal as difficulties but felt they could be overcome. "Atomic was a dirty word but now it's certainly a sexy one," she said.
But she did warn that the safety of existing plants remained paramount and, while the difficulties for the industry caused by the Chernobyl disaster and Three Mile Island accident had been overcome, they could return. "Everyone knows just one accident [need occur] and the industry will be shut down for 20 years," she said.
Golby raised concerns about the shortage of experts at the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, which governs health and safety, and questioned whether 2017 was a realistic date for a new station. A colleague had suggested that atomic power would be available to cook the Christmas dinner that year but he said: "I have a fear it will be humble pie we will be eating rather than turkey."
Meanwhile, at an investors' day in Paris, EDF said the reactor being built in Flamanville would cost €4bn (£3.5bn) at 2008 prices instead of €3.3bn, blaming "higher raw material costs and the impact of technical and regulatory evolutions".
The new total cost of the electricity generated is €54 a megawatt hour, instead of the €46 announced in 2006.
Luc Oursel, president of Areva NP, said despite Flamanville's problems and rising costs and delays at the Olkiluoto site in Finland, nuclear still made commercial sense. He said the lessons learned would help build plants in Britain on schedule.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsCountry diary: Cornwall
With long genetic roots in the county, my wife was disappointed to learn that the dismal summer weather has threatened the display of the famous Christmas garland at Cotehele, the National Trust's flagship property in the county. Traditionally, every November the house opens to allow visitors to see the construction of the garland - the longest, at 60ft overall, to adorn any of the trust's historic properties. The statice flower, harvested in the summer, then dried, normally plays a major part of the floral display but this year wet summer weather has led to a shortage of about 5,000 flowers. David Bouch, the NT head gardener at Cotehele, said: "We normally have around 5,000 statice flowers, with white, yellow, blue and red petals but because of the dreadfully wet summer, we only have a few dozen bunches."
However, all is not lost and the hall will not be without its garland - but grasses, which did very well in the wet, will have been used to augment the display, which will necessarily look slightly different to the usual. Statice usually flourishes in seaside gardens and is known for bearing flowers that can be dried for everlasting displays. It is a sea lavender from southern Russia but a normal ration of summer sunshine sees it in generous flower at Cotehele. It made me realise that we did well with an early summer week at Tredavoe above Newlyn when we had warm sunshine. I rode my bike along the coastal path to Marazion, with a constantly changing view of St Michael's Mount in the mornings, and then had a swim in the splendid seawater lido at the western end of Penzance promenade. Dinner was usually some very fresh fish from morning landings at Newlyn, or a crab salad, which made Cornish clotted cream on the dessert course seem a health food - which it most certainly is not.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsJohn Harris: The village of Sipson in the third runway debate can define an era
On the face of it, it's a struggle between the usual powerful suspects and an alliance that takes in everyone from Tories to anarchists. To many people, though, it is something even more important: a turning-point that will either prove that government doesn't always have to bow to a corporate version of the inevitable, or sorely test thousands of people's limited faith in politics. Bizarrely, the frontline is the nondescript Middlesex village of Sipson, a clump of postwar suburban housing that was famously visited last year by the Camp For Climate Action. A ruling in favour of a third runway at Heathrow airport will mean that Sipson will be concreted over. If - by some 11th-hour miracle - it survives, it will be transformed from a very noisy corner of west London into a byword for against-the-odds optimism.
The final decision was yesterday postponed until the new year. Though the Tories' recent manoeuvrings have suggested a bonfire of David Cameron's early progressive poses, his party is opposed. Since 2003, by contrast, the government line has been fervent support for the plan, with limp caveats on noise and pollution - though, according to a steady trickle of stories, a loose group of cabinet ministers have been expressing a mixture of unease and outright opposition, from the energised new climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, through his brother David, on to Harriet Harman, Hilary Benn and John Denham. Ranged against them, unfortunately, is a truly titanic alliance: among other ministers, the PM and the transport secretary Geoff Hoon, along with BAA, the airlines, the CBI, at least two of the big unions, and the relevant parts of the civil service.
Lower down the Labour food chain, plenty of MPs are terrified of the damage a pro-expansion decision will do to the party's atrophying vote in the home counties. Others cleave to that residual old Labour position whereby the promise of jobs - British jobs, to use the vernacular - trumps just about everything.
Some people claim that, despite predictions of serial loopholes, the inclusion of aviation in EU emissions trading from 2012 might somehow lessen a third runway's environmental impact. Maybe, they argue, the air industry can be treated with kid gloves as long as there is huge movement on low-carbon electricity generation and car technology. But much clearer arguments surely point in the opposite direction. What with the Climate Change Committee chaired by Adair Turner urging as much as a 42% cut in Britain's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and the younger Miliband pledged to an 80% drop by 2050, how is the case for expansion credible?
A third runway will increase the number of Heathrow flights by almost a half. Every year, its CO2 emissions will equal those of Kenya. It would be completed just as the effects of climate change start to blitz the developing world, which will couch the story in a horrible poetry: Europeans blithely securing even easier global travel, while millions cope with food shortages, water scarcity, and a rather more nightmarish kind of population movement.
Though only a fool would be optimistic, some rumblings from Westminster and Whitehall suggest that the delayed decision might denote at least a tiny shred of hope, and a belated realisation of how massively symbolic this story is. As with a proposed revival of coal-fired electricity, the third runway represents something truly era-defining: it may not have the iconic ring of your Caracases or Porto Alegres, but if we're going to have an even halfway progressive future, Sipson would be a great place to start.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsRubbish power, not recycling, is the future, claims the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Household rubbish should be used to produce green power rather than being sent for recycling, according to energy experts.
At a briefing today to launch a new report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on dealing with waste, the authors said that converting waste could provide up to a fifth of the UK's electricity needs in future and help the country meet its renewable energy targets.
But environmentalists have voiced concerns over the report, insisting that recycling rubbish is still the better option in terms of tackling climate change.
The UK produces more than 300m tonnes of waste every year, enough to fill the Albert Hall every two hours. Most of this is buried in landfill, though new EU legislation will require a 50% cut in the practice by 2013.
"We can't afford to do that any more, we're running out of space for landfills," said Ian Arbon, a visiting professor in energy systems at Newcastle University and author of the new report.
"We see energy from waste as being one of the brightest hopes for reaching our 2020 target to source 15% of our energy requirements from renewables.
"We will not meet those targets without energy from waste."
Energy can be harnessed from waste in several ways, depending on the type. The two proven methods are combustion, where waste is burned to produce electricity and heat, and anaerobic digestion, a biological process where waste is treated to produce methane, which can then be used for fuel. The former is most suitable for dry waste while the latter is best for wet or organic waste.
There are fewer than 50 small-scale energy-from-waste plants operating in the UK at the moment, a combination of combustion plants and anaerobic digesters. This compares to several thousand in countries such as Denmark and Germany.
In the past, burning waste in incinerators has been opposed by local residents worried about air pollution. But Arbon said that, using modern combustion methods which scrub out harmful particles from the gases vented by the power plant, every community in the UK could have a waste-processing facility on its doorstep.
"Then you're handling the community's waste locally and you're not having to transport waste large distances, which gets people upset."
Gaynor Hartnell, deputy director of the Renewable Energy Association, added that converting all the country's household and commercial waste, around 75m tonnes per year, could provide significant benefits. "If it all went into electricity, you could get about 17% of the UK's electricity demand from waste [by 2020]."
But Matthew Warhurst, senior resource and waste campaigner at Friends of the Earth, warned that building a new fleet of energy-from-waste plants would miss climate goals. "Household waste is a mixture of fossil-derived plastics and textiles and biologically-derived material, [burning it] you end up producing a lot of carbon dioxide."
Another way of dealing with waste is to recycle it but Arbon urged caution on assuming this was the best option "In this country we have very few recycling plants.
"We do reasonably well with metals and we can handle some paper but, because we've lost most of our manufacturing might in the UK, we ship our waste to china - that process absorbs a lot of energy."
Recycling is an energy-intensive process, said Arbon, the opposite of producing energy from waste. "The energy that we use to recycle mainly comes from our existing energy-production systems, which are 90% fossil fuels.
"Let's get honest about recycling, about how well we do at that. For some things, it's the right thing to do, for others it isn't."
However, FoE's Warhurst said that stepping up recycling facilities was an urgent priority, as was avoiding putting things into landfill that could go on to produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
"Rather than building huge plants to burn waste inefficiently, it is better for the climate to be building plants that compost the remains, remove further recyclables and then even if you end up putting what's left in landfill that is a better climate option."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsUK's seasonal starling flocks may disappear
The sight of tens of thousands of starlings pirouetting and wheeling together in an ever-changing cloud of rushing wings is one of the UK's great wildlife spectacles.
But as this year's annual season of the murmuration reaches its peak, bird experts are warning that the extraordinary scenes mask a serious decline in the species which is now listed as one of the most at-risk birds in Britain.
This year, as in recent years, the audience of regular birdwatchers on Brighton Pier has estimated there are about 40,000 birds doing their aerial ballet just before dusk.
Thirty years ago though it is thought the numbers were near a quarter of a million. In some flocks in other countries, the total is thought to be up to 2m.
"People think 'wow, that's amazing, look at all those birds'," said Gemma Rogers of the RSPB. "Without putting a dampener on it, we wanted people to know: it is amazing but it's not as great as it should be and something needs to be done about it."
The starling spectacle starts ever year in November, when local starling populations are swelled by a vast influx of birds from the extreme cold in northern Europe and Russia, and lasts until around March, always for about an hour before dusk.
One of Britain's most popular naturalists, Bill Oddie, admits exactly how and why they make the shapes they do is something of a "mystery", but it is thought the birds are finding safety from predators and warmth by forming vast flocks, and perhaps communicating about the best feeding sites.
Why they are disappearing is also unknown, though blame is mostly being cast over loss of insects for the starlings to eat because of the increase in chemical use on farms since the 1970s and new grassland management techniques, which might be creating thickets too dense for the birds to penetrate. Further research is the first part of an RSPB project to try and stop the species' decline in the UK.
Starlings are one of 40 bird species out of 247 regularly seen in the UK which are on the "red list" of birds of conservation concern in the UK drawn up by 14 major bird organisations.
Where to watch starlings flock in the UK
Leighton Moss, Lancashire
Fen Drayton Lakes, Cambridgeshire
Minsmere, Suffolk
Newport Wetlands, Newport
Somerset Levels
Brighton Pier
Norwich
Northampton
Source: RSPB
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsEthical living: How eco is a Christmas tree? asks Leo Hickman
It's at this point each December where I begin to feel as if I'm being haunted by the ghost of Christmas dilemmas past. Every year most of us go through the ritual of worrying about which Christmas tree to buy, or indeed whether to buy one at all.
Aren't they just a colossal waste of money? Can such a decadent waste of resources be justified in our (supposedly) eco-aware times? (Such cries have been heard for centuries – Oliver Cromwell banged on about the "heathen tradition" of decorated trees, but he had his own all-together-different reasons.)
And then we buckle and relent as the children at our feet whimper and plead with us to get one. So what are the options for those of us who still want to follow this once-pagan yuletide tradition?
Buy a real treeThis is still considered the only true option by most tradition-loving followers of Proper Christmas. There's something magical, they say, about the aroma of those pine needles and the presence of a just-felled, real tree in their home. Christmas just wouldn't be the same without one.
The reality is a little less romantic: the vast majority of the trees we buy from garden centres and garage forecourts are intensively farmed on an industrial scale, sometimes beyond these shores.
As with most monocrops, Christmas trees are typically sprayed with potent fertilisers and herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup (glyphosate). Just how much Christmas cheer does that spread to local biodiversity and the seasonal workers hired to harvest the trees? Erase from your head any idyllic notion that these trees are carefully scythed from a snow-laden forest floor ready for your home.
In many ways, though, this is a positive. If Christmas trees were gathered this way they would be responsible for deforestation on an epic scale considering that we get through millions of things each year. They also offer some farmers a profitable harvest for otherwise unproductive fields positioned on steep hills.
There are some basic things to look out for, though, when sourcing a real tree. The Soil Association has details of retailers selling organic Christmas trees. And the Forest Stewardship Council has a list showing you how to get hold of an FSC-approved tree. Between them, these standards offer a guarantee that your tree has been farmed sustainably.
And try to find a tree that's been grown as close to your home as possible – for anyone living outside a large conurbation this usually isn't too tricky as it's usually easy to find a local farmer who sells Christmas trees. Whether they are grown sustainably or not is another matter that only your questioning will uncover.
It is also worth considering getting a potted tree, rather than one that has been felled, so that you can use it again, following a wee trim, in subsequent years. The problem, of course, is storage. Not everyone can host a living Christmas tree at home throughout the year even if they are blessed with some outside space.
If you do have to buy a cut tree it is worth finding out first from your local authority whether it offers a Christmas tree collection service whereby it chips up all the trees into mulch. Many local authorities still do not offer such a service which could leave you with the headache of working out what to do with the tree come the twelfth day. Streets strewn with naked trees in early January is usually a good sign you do not live within a progressive local authority.
Buy a plastic treeThis option is often presented as the eco alternative to buying a real tree, but such claims fail to stack up in my view. First, there's the canard that a plastic tree is "for life", whereas most plastic trees are used little more than a handful of years before being discarded.
There's also the claim that a plastic tree prevents a real tree from being cut down, whereas, as has already been mentioned above, Christmas trees are no different from any other farmed crop and are only planted with harvesting in mind.
And do we really want to encourage the production of yet another piece of plastic tat being produced thousands of miles away and shipped around the planet for our seasonal gratification?
Decorate an existing tree/plantYou may well get a nasty neighbour shouting "Scrooge!" at you through your front window, but some families just decorate a large house plant instead of buying in a cut conifer, as tradition dictates. Decorating a tree in the garden is also an option, although this could leave the presents underneath a tad soggy.
Do nothingHow about just foregoing the whole tradition altogether? (Granted, this is probably a little easier to pull off in child-free homes.) Some charities try to exploit – in the nicest sense – the fact that some of us just don't like to suffer the guilt of excess that comes with Christmas. The Woodland Trust, for example, offers its Plant a Tree for Christmas gift. For £25, the price of a modest Christmas tree, you will be able to dedicate three trees in a wood of your choice.
And if you want a valid excuse to supply to exasperated family members that explains to them why you have not bought a Christmas tree this year, show them this frankly quite scary clip of a Christmas tree fire:
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsLeo Hickman: You'll never fill your empty heart with Christmas presents
Christmas comes but once a year. Thank God, some would say – both literally and figuratively. With the air thick with concern about redundancies, plunging share prices, and repossessions, the additional financial pressures that our modern-day Christmases bring are something many people could really do without right now.
And how strange that this religious festival now arguably means more to the secular majority, who nearly all bow to its call to over consume, than those who believe it is a period for celebrating the birth of a baby called Jesus in Judea some two millennia ago. (After all, Easter holds more significance for Christians.) It's by far the biggest collective event of the year for the vast majority of Britons, and many others, and yet few of us know the reasons why we go through the rituals we do other than to say it's "traditional". (Many of the traditions – decorated trees, mistletoe, wreaths - have nothing to do with the Mass of Christ at all, of course, but were born out of the winter solstice celebrations from our pagan heritage.)
It's at times like these that I actually feel a degree of sympathy with the Church of England's annual "Who stole our Christmas?" moan. It wasn't meant to be like this, they cry, and it's now become as bloated and hollow as the factory-reared turkeys we collectively chew our way through on Christmas Day and beyond.
People have been making such bah-humbug observations since Dickens himself, but the depressing and angst-ridden atmosphere that surrounds Christmas this year could, I believe, ultimately help this shared experience (a rare thing these days, beyond X-Factor and laughing baby Youtube clips) regain some of its magic and meaning – both for Christians who wish to reclaim it for themselves and for secularist hijackers such as myself who would like something a little more positive and rewarding from this enforced period off work, something that lasts a little longer than the peer pressure-induced hangover of overconsumption.
This year, for example, most of us, through necessity, will give and receive much more modest gifts than normal (despite the calls for us to do the patriotic thing and spend our way out of this recession by racking up even more personal debt).
"We're only buying for the children," seems to be a familiar cry among families this year. This, surely, is a welcome thing. Who really feels comfortable and fulfilled sitting through a three-hour unwrappathon on Christmas morning watching family members in a blizzard of wrapping paper toss unneeded gifts to one side in the race to open the next gift from the pile of presents at their feet? Likewise, does spending a fortune on food, much of which is thrown out after going off at the back of an over-crammed fridge, really help you increase your happiness quotient? (And I'll spare you what I think about Christmas's environmental legacy – I'm sure you can connect the dots.)
Most of us ask ourselves these sorts of questions every Christmas, yet we somehow slip back into the same groove the following year with little resistance. This year, though, we are being given the chance to shed the shackles of spending and experience the sort of Christmas many of us truly hanker after – one that offers a warm, familial sanctuary from the consumerist chills outside rather than one that ends up ultimately exposing us to them. This should fill us with Christmas cheer.
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