Why I oppose balloon releases

You may have noticed two things (or perhaps not). One thing is that some of my recent tweets have been asking charities, mainly schools and children’s groups, not to hold balloon releases. The other thing you may have noticed is an increase in the numbers of balloon release events being organised and promoted. If there has indeed been the increase that is apparent, I think the reason for it is an example of Jevon’s paradox: Because balloon manufacturers are now promoting mainly biodegradable balloons, people think that it is acceptable to use them, and so lots more people are using them. Moreover, the internet makes balloons and party services much more easily available.

So, aren’t biodegradable balloons OK? Well, if you search online you’ll find a lot of links high up in the search results telling you that they are safe. These pages have been written and Search Engine Optimised by balloon manufacturers and retailers (e.g. The Balloon Council). They generally report from their own tests that biodegradable balloons take 6 months to break down (and with more digging, that they can take a year or more to degrade). Alongside this fact, they tell us that balloons are not harmful to the environment. This is plainly illogical. You would think they’re shooting themselves in the foot, except that their marketing seems to work.

A known psychological phenomenon is to notice only positive messages (‘safe’, ‘green’, ‘fun’) and not heed the negative messages (‘threat’, ‘deaths’, ‘pollution’) even if the latter are supported with more evidence and authoritative voices. Combine this phenomenon with the positive group emotions (or perhaps sensitivities around bereavement or illness) linked to balloon events and you have a heady mix. Once people have the idea of doing a balloon release and they’ve told others they will do it, they feel it is worse to let down people by doing something otherwise than it is to potentially kill wildlife. The majority of requests to find an alternative activity are met with passive aggression (‘it’s not my fault – we’re doing it for the children’) or outright hostility (actually, I won’t quote some of the abusive things that have been said to campaigners like Andy Mabbett).

Many of the discussions boil down to: who matters most, people or animals? One of many logical fallacies by the pro-ballooners is overlooking that balloon releases kill wildlife whereas they don’t physically save people from dying. Extending from this fallacy, they (we) don’t consider that if more wild habitats are more polluted and more species are depleted or become extinct, the more under threat becomes the human species. Ecologists who campaign to protect other species are not getting their priorities wrong – they’re seeing interconnections between species and looking at a longer timescale for the potential liveability of this planet.

The evidence that even biodegradable balloons cause pollution and wildlife deaths is extremely strong.

The plastic ribbons and valves of balloons are as problematic as the allegedly biodegradable materials. Joined together, or even in tiny fragments, balloon debris gets entangled in beaks, around necks and lodged  in stomachs, causing slow suffocation or hunger. Marine biologists find worrying numbers of dead or dying birds, turtles and fish with plastic and balloon fragments in their stomachs. Over 95% of dead fulbars found in the North Sea have plastic, including balloon debris, in their stomachs.

There are arguments that other materials are responsible for these deaths, and that balloons make only a neglible contribution. The balloon promoters argue that ecology campaigners conflate or muddle plastic pollution and latex, but the reality is that all kinds of plastic and other debris mix up with the string/ribbon, tags and elastic fragments from balloons and create a lethal soup. Yes, the amount of plastic deposited in the ocean is shocking and so, quite rightly, marine ecology campaigners are trying to reduce it. 24 million pounds of plastic are manufactured every hour and c.10% of that finds itself in the oceans eventually. This is leading to ocean acidification, or in other words, 40% of our oceans are becoming dead zones. This doesn’t make polluting seas with balloon fragments acceptable.

Another factor is that increasingly balloons are filled with helium rather than air, and helium is readily available in supermarkets because it was stockpiled and sold too cheap. Not only does helium cause balloons to reach sea more quickly, it is in finite supply and will soon be unavailable for use in essential medical research and operations. It’s ironic then that so many balloon releases are organised for medical charities.

Balloons released become litter. There are litter laws for a reason – litter looks terrible, builds up to cause damage to ecosystems and endangers wildlife and public health. The basic litter law that applies to everyone can lead to a £2,500 fine (for a deliberate drop of even one item.) Beyond that, schools and other public bodies have a duty to avoid littering. It amazes me to see that scores of English schools or children’s groups every year decide to deliberately drop not just one item of litter but hundreds. These schools are often proud of their sustainability policies and make huge efforts to keep their grounds and buildings litter-free.

Some pictures to finish with: 200 reasons not to release balloons http://balloonsblow.org/photo-gallery

Radical edgeryders

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve just come back from Strasbourg where I was at the Living on the Edge conference at the Council of Europe. This was part of the Edgeryders programme which explores issues of younger generations, education and employment in the Europe that we know is in crisis. It was fascinating and great to meet people I’ve connected with on the edgeryders online platform. This platform is moderated in an incredibly amiable way so that everything you share is appreciated and amplified, and links are made to the thoughts and experiences of other members. It’s like a slow sustained speed dating session online. Also it’s a collaborative learning platform, with particular enquiries on reinventing education, making a living and so on. But meeting people in real life, and in the offices of the heart of Europe was something else.

The conference was fairly formal because of the involvement of some politicians and the use of the Council building. The formats meant that only the confident or the prepared spoke much and the debate skipped around a little. However, there’s an unconference called edgecamp following now which is taking the debates and making tools for transition, which might have some impact on policy, perhaps.

I say perhaps. Did this project feel like a CSR exercise for the Council of Europe? Did it feel more of a research exercise than an opportunity for young people to affect policy? Some might say yes. My feelings lie more on the side of ‘grateful but in general fearful’. It was clear that this felt comparatively radical, and is surely a unique effort to bring young people together from across Europe, to meet policymakers and to open the debate to anyone online. Where we couldn’t find common ground there are still ways we can use the platform to contest and explore issues with each other. We may even feel empowered to address some of the politicians we met more directly, and we should.

This unique pooling meant that there was a good deal of divergence, with several variants of position held by different edgeryders and a much stronger distinction between all the edgeryders and the politicians/officials. I personally felt uncomfortable when the politicians referred to us as a tribe, as ‘you Edgeryders’ as I would have preferred to be referred to as a colleague on a more equal and individuated basis. (The badges calling us all experts were a nice touch though.) I was a little perturbed by the Chair of the Committee for Youth & Sport (an MP from near Glasgow) saying that we were too utopian and an elite self-selecting group. He was probably picking up on our demographics, that there was a skew to people older than the ‘youth with no prospects’ target. He said we mustn’t forget that the majority of disadvantaged young people are out on football terraces xenophobically kicking the hell out of each other. I think he felt that, ironically, we were out of touch, that he was closer to the real issues of his constituents and that we were talking at a far too abstract and educated level. This was an expression of two political viewpoints simmering away, each perceiving the other to be less concerned with social justice:

Social democracy: If you don’t give people jobs, houses and cheap energy too many people will suffer and there will be social unrest.

Indignants: Yes we need the means to survive but not if it involves privatisation and loss of freedoms. If you give people jobs and houses but in the process destroy green space, deplete nature and worsen climate change, that means billions of people dying and maybe all of us. We can’t rely on you to change so we’re doing it ourselves and hope you will follow.

The vocal majority of edgeryders were in the latter group and the majority of politicians and some Council officials were in the first group. I think there will need to be a great deal more conversation to bottom out what we each mean and find common ground. In my breakout session on Caring for the Commons, the Council wanted to know how to shift to a more Commons culture without harming equalities, especially the long-fought-for rights to own property and the need to grant such rights to migrants. Our solutions were to increase cultural education for stewardship and to protect equalities by protecting the Commons, by shifting property laws and the financial system from favouring those already with excessive capital and more strongly forging inalienable human rights which don’t revolve round ownership.

I’d like to see the Edgeryders platform evolve to reflect more strongly the solutions that emerged. I’d also like to see politicians engaging on the platform. Even if the Council of Europe can’t enact change, it may be possible for regional and city governments to nurture some of these ideas.

Here are key things I’d like to see explored further:

Critical period of rapid change: we’re stressing about young people’s access to jobs and homes now but in a very short time (some said by 2014 even in Europe) we will be stressing about everyone’s accesss to food and water in some places.

Currency: recognition that a job, paid in money by an employer, is not the only or inevitable route to future thriving. The Edgeryders want to reinvent work to mean purposeful activity that brings wellbeing not wealth. Alternative currencies were seen as a key solution to this. If you can change the currency you change the relationships between people to be less transactional and more symbiotic.

Reclaimed not new infrastructure: we don’t need new roads, airports and offices to stimulate growth. We need to reuse what is being abandoned and reinvent what doesn’t work. Digital now means delocalisation and de-edification of work, learning and retail. Empty shops offices and libraries must be reclaimed for generating new kinds of capital and reclaimed as home or as Commons.

Open public culture is key: the vice mayor of Thessaloniki, Spiros Penga, told how culture was a route to his city thriving in future. Revolving around that are food, young people and the creative economy. We heard so many examples of creative people all over Europe leading the reinvention of learning, public services and shared spaces.

Learning is to give the means to thrive: there is an unprecedented need for people to rapidly accelerate their skills and capacities (for bioempathy, problem-solving, engineering, food production and cooperation). As it’s unlikely that schools and colleges will reinvent themselves en masse for this new economy, new networks and companies supporting connectivist and self-managed learning are emerging.

Generating biosphere capital: This is a critical moment when we need to entirely reinvent the notion of sustainability. Environmental sustainability is currently a tiny cling-on, like ‘Health & Safety’, on the great whale of what is called economic sustainability but is really ‘economic growth fast, now, sod the future’. The reinvention will be driven by a focus on generating biosphere capital as the root source of value, intermingled with cultural and social value.

The call is for the Council of Europe to listen, extend and amplify those ideas, while also supporting the fundamental policy changes that will lead towards ecosocial justice.

Three summer events

Reblogged from The Unextinction Machine:

The Unextinction Machine hasn't stopped working away since it first appeared in the Hill Station in summer 2011. There are rumours it may make another appearance this summer. Keep a watch out.

In the meantime, the Machine is producing three more events to brighten up this rather drizzly summer.

1) June 20th, Telegraph pub and Telegraph Hill park/streets 
Come along to the Garlick Man summer solstice parade and open mic night.

Read more… 271 more words

Reblogged from our family project website, the Unextinction Machine: