Bill Scott's blog

As I noted earlier this year, Coca-Cola is funding trials after admitting that it needs to take responsibility for the zillions of tonnes of litter its bottles create.  The trials will focus on bottles up to half a litre, and people will be offered either cash or shopping vouchers to return empty bottles of any brand to collection points.  The company said the scheme could go national if the trials showed that it improved recycling rates and reduced litter.

Alongside this, it has now announced a partnership with Keep Britain Untidy.  This is an extract from the latter's 17th October press release:

We are delighted to work with Coca-Cola to boost litter prevention and support our country’s #LitterHeroes.  Coca-Cola will be a key partner in next year’s 2018 Great British Spring Clean, helping to support a network of #litterheroes to get outdoors and active cleaning up the country.  Working together, we want to inspire volunteers to clean up not only our villages, towns and cities but also our rivers and beaches, creating a chain of litter picking activity from #Street2Sea.  With 80% of marine litter originating from land, everybody can play their part in preventing littering not only in their local area but also in our rivers, beaches and seas.  Alongside this,  Coca-Cola is also supporting our award-winning Centre for Social Innovation to research beach litter and littering behaviour around the country.  The research will help develop new solutions to the problem, which can be scaled up around the country, changing the behaviour of the small minority who enjoy visiting the beach but think nothing of leaving their rubbish behind

Alongside all this there was mutual corporate brown-nosing with Keep Britain Untidy Chief Executive Allison Ogden-Newton saying:

“We are thrilled that Coca-Cola Great Britain is giving the Great British Spring Clean a helping hand so that we can realise our ambition to mobilise up to half a million people next year.  Littering blights every corner of our country and the help of partners is vital if we are to support all the #LitterHeroes who are willing to get out and clean up after those who still think it is OK to drop their rubbish on the ground.”

And Jon Woods, General Manager at Coca-Cola Great Britain responding:

“Our partnership with Keep Britain Untidy is one of the many actions we are taking to reduce littering and highlight the importance of recycling in the UK. We look forward to raising awareness of an important environmental issue and helping to clean up British beaches.”

Personally, I think that this will prove just as successful as Keep Britain Untidy's partnership with Wrigleys from 20 years ago (or so) to keep chewing gum off our streets, or its promotion of smutty cartoons in engaging littering small boys of all ages.

But what a great deal for Coco-Cola in getting its products in front of countless children with official endorsement – cheap at twice the price.

Sadly, I missed the ubiquitous Ms Klein when she jetted into Brighton the other week, but, happily, YouTube was there to capture her address to the faithful, most of whom appeared to lap it up: solidarity for and with all it seems – apart from / with / for those with capital.  But do you think the grey, unsmiling men (and they are all men) who are the puppet-masters to this revolution, and who prefer the shadows to the light, are really interested in this stuff?   For them, I wonder, isn’t she just another useful idiot?

I forced myself to watch it all in its gruesomeness as she told the faithful over and over again how wonderful they were.  Oh, how they whooped and hollowed as she stroked their egos and tickled their considerable bellies.  It was skilled, even though some of the rhetoric was beyond me; for example, "the era of triangulation and tinkering is over".  Not everyone in the room was impressed and many sat on their hands as she laughed endlessly at her own poor jokes, too many of which inevitably were anti-US.

It wasn't all tosh, of course, but neither was it coherent.  Just how the economies of the global south are to improve the lot of their citizens if it's the duty of the global north to welcome migrants and refugees she was unwilling to explain.

Have you ever wondered how interesting other conference might be?  That is, conferences whose subject has nothing to do with your own academic interests or expertise.  Take, for example, the International Conference of Dress Historians which meets in London at the end of the month.  Don't these papers sound not only interesting, but also more interesting that some of the stuff you have to sit through at your usual events:

‘She Was Naught...of a Woman except in Sex’: The Cross–Dressing of Queen Christina of Sweden, 1626–1689

Not a Pistol in His Pocket: Eldridge Cleaver’s Post-Revolutionary Trousers, 1976-1980

Challenging Gendering: Three Centuries of British Children’s Clothing

Sartorial Assimilation: A Case Study of the Vestiary Cross–Cultural Adaption of First–Generation Ethnic Chinese Women who Migrated to Britain from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia during 1966–1983

Fashioning Colonial Masculinity: The Male Suit as a Cross–Cultural Dress in British–Ruled Palestine

Beyond Gender: Latex Fashion Design and Subcultural Style in the 1980s

Non Binary Dress: A Look at Fashion and Identity along the Gender Spectrum

Of course, I'm only going by the titles, but most of these seem constructed to appeal.  What a pity I can't go ...

It seemed a fair bet that the phrase: Stephen Sterling and the Gruffalo – has not been written very frequently if at all.  I thought to check, and the best that my (un-Google) search engine could come up with was: Education for Sustainability by Stephen Sterling, John Huckle ...  which brought a wry smile to my face.

My putting them together is because they were, in very different ways, two highlights (one was actually a lowlight) of recent trips down 'the peninsular'  – which is how those of us quartered safely in Wiltshire think of the four counties to the south / south-west of us.  I made three visits in the space of 10 days which shows an unusual dedication to travel.

The first was to go to Stephen's 'retirement do' in Plymouth which was in the grip of some mercifully-attenuated hurricane that had belted across the Atlantic.  It was wild 'n' wet outside, but the canapés were fine, the wine was dry, and the Deputy-VC's speech of appreciation was brief, pertinent and well judged.  The university has emeritised Stephen and it hopes that he will continue to work with staff and management as they continue in their development as a sustainable university.  Stephen's response was more pointed, setting out the agenda of unfinished business that the university has if it is to make a success of such development.  There are, of course, limits to what one Emeritus Professor can do without significant resource and tangible top-management support, including money.  It was a nice occasion and it was good to be there, even if it did mean an interminable, uncomfortable time on Last Great Western whose stations get more poorly appointed the farther you are from London.

I came across the Gruffalo in a Cornish wood c/o the Forestry Commission's dalliance with Julia Donaldson.  There were various interpretation boards along the paths drawing attention to forest animals, including the G.  However, you had to use a Smart phone App to access some of the information – so much for communing with nature I thought, if impulses from a brumal wood are dependent on apps.   To make matters worse, we were all being encouraged to look for red squirrels, the nearest of which must have been well over 100 miles away.  It was a spectacular walk in parts and there was a forest school in the middle of it.

The third trip was to Dorset – profound England.  It's always a pleasure to be there even if I do travel with some trepidation because of the squirearchy's predilection for locking up first-time offenders.  Anyway, the highlight was following an (obviously polluting) VW car whose owner had converted the rear VW badge into a Devil logo complete with horns, tail and trident.  I took this to be an admission that the poor bloke was stuck with a smelly heap of junk, and had concocted a DIY comment on the injustice of it all.  However, I later discovered that the kit is available (for any brand) on the web for a modest price.  It would look really good on my VW Electric Up!, but as that is one of the few VW cars that doesn't spew out noxious gases, it seems inappropriate.  I was in Dorset to visit the magnificent Etches Collection.

But back to Stephen.  My wishes for a happy retirement is qualified only by the desire that he uses it to write ...

EAUC reported last week that the UK-based Hard Rain Project has been selected as one of the three winners of the international UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) 2017.  Thus, hot on the heels of the award of the same prize to NUS last year, the UK, it seems, does it again.

EAUC (quoting UNESCO) said:

The Hard Rain Project was selected for its international programme “Hard Rain” and its follow-up “Whole Earth?”, which bring art, science and education together to raise awareness on pressing global issues such as poverty and climate change, and to stimulate thinking and action towards more positive futures.  It works with world-renowned artists, scientists and communicators to carry its message to schools and universities, and to a wider public, through exhibitions, books, films, talks and events.

It is estimated that 15 million people have seen Hard Rain and Whole Earth? exhibitions in Europe, the US, Africa and Asia and attended talks and associated events. This makes them among the most successful environmental exhibitions every created, attracting huge public and critical acclaim along with the endorsement of political and environmental leaders across the world.

Whether UNESCO's description of Hard Rain as "a UK-based education for sustainable development programme" is really appropriate is perhaps beside the point.  More pertinent is to wonder how effective it has been.  It may be "among the most successful environmental exhibitions every created", but what has it achieved?  If I can put it like this: how many have been sufficiently radicalised by exposure to it to effect a revolution in their thinking and actions?  Does anyone know?

I have been humming and hawing (and then, much worse, humming again) for a while now about whether I should buy a more modern smart phone.  My phone seems to have developed a form of early on-set dementia and is rather unresponsive both to being spoken to nicely, or prodded and poked.  It is clearly no longer "smart" although it does still send and receive calls.  Whilst I can remember that this is what phones were once for, that seems a very long time ago.

But the makers of smart phones are filthy rich, market-exploiting capitalists – so much so that it's something of a surprise to find young people using phones, given their antipathy towards both social injustice and unequal wealth distribution.  They are also, we're told, rapers and pillagers of the Earth, exploiting indigenous people to get at the rare earths that phones are full of these days, leaving environmental devastation and social turmoil in their wake, and then exploring the sweated labour of the masses who make the things.  I know all this must be the case because NGOs say so on social media.

But what am I to do given that my phone's not much good anymore for all those modern, essential uses?

Well, I was still H&Hing when the latest Transformative Learning blog arrived.  It featured an interview with Arjen Wals who explored in some detail the pros and cons of smart phone ownership and use.  You can see it here.

About 1 minute 40 into this video, came the answer to my dilemma.  Notwithstanding all the social and environmental evils that a phone embodies (it's really like have a VW car in your pocket), you can offset all this it seems by using the phone to help you live a more sustainable life.  For example, Wals said, by using apps that make car pooling or tool sharing easier, that enable the mapping of local biodiversity, or which allow you to monitor CO2 emissions and air quality.

Given my absolute intentions to use the phone to pursue social and environmental justice, and not just fritter my time away on Twitter or Facebook, this good intention completely overcomes any problems from the smart phone's huge environmental and social footprint.  Phew!  Thank you Transformative Learning for providing such a smart justification for a purchase.