I don’t know anything about its writer or antecedents, but a newish blog, Ban Faith Schools has provoked some interesting discussion.

For the record this is Green Party policy:

ED306 All schools should provide education about other cultures and religions in order to help children to understand the way that other people live and to respect those people’s rights and lifestyle choices.

ED332 No publicly-funded school or learning centre will be run by a religious group. Schools or centres may teach about religions but are prohibited from delivering religious instruction in any form or encouraging adherence to any particular religious belief.

ED333 Schools will no longer be required to hold acts of worship. Schools which do hold acts of worship will provide an alternative activity for learners who choose not to take part.

ED334 All schools will be fully inclusive and enabling, and non-discriminatory in policy and practice. This will entail providing places for learners of all abilities and needs. Where a school is over-subscribed, priority will be given to those who live most locally.

… that was the original title of a piece of mine over on Comment is Free about freecycling.

I muse on how “stuff” now is often as much of a curse as a blessing, and how we’ve got so much of it we could just pass it around for quite some time without adding anything into the system, and not much notice the difference.

Twenty years ago in Australia when I was studying agriculture many people who wouldn’t then, and probably still wouldn’t, describe themselves as environmentalists understood that farming on “the oldest continent” (a reference to the age of the soils) was fundamentally unsustainable.

Articles I wrote that stick in my mind include one interview with a university lecturer who was proposing getting rid of the hard-hooved European animals and simply “farming” free-range kangaroos – since their soft feet cause almost no erosion. And with Tim Flannery, Australia’s foremost public intellectual, who suggested the sustainable human carrying capacity was a few million (population now 20 million).

And there was a great deal of concern about the Murray-Darling basin – then primarily about salinity – for the salt of millennia that had been washed deep into the ground was being brought back to the surface by irrigation water, but some were also questioning whether the level of irrigation licences bore any reality to the water available.

Now, it is clear, they didn’t:

The Prime Minister said yesterday that unless there is substantial rain within a month, there would be no water allocations for irrigation or environmental flows from July 1. “We should all pray for rain,” he said.
The looming catastrophe will directly affect the 50,000 farmers who depend on the river system for their livelihoods as well as the millions in Adelaide and the numerous towns along the basin, which stretches from southern Queensland to South Australia.

Quite simply, there are too many people in Australia for the environment to support. I’ve seen many estimates from pre-colonial times of the Aboriginal population, but it was probably around Flannery’s estimate. How it can get back there is, however, an interesting question…

The Times Literary Supplement has a roundup of the latest climate books, from Gore to Monbiot to Stern – a good primer on the latest (conservative) figures.

Over on Comment is Free I have my (slightly belated – although I did submit it on Friday) contribution to coverage of the Green Party conference.

It focuses on the slogan “549” seats – a call for a Green to stand in every seat in England and Wales at the next general election. A big ask, but should be doable, I believe.