How to be green

Radical bird feeders.

SINCE YOU’RE reading this supplement, I strongly suspect you of being a political radical. Because it is highly possible that you put peanuts out for the blue tits. There can be no more glaring sign of daring political unorthodoxy.
Any one who feeds the birds is expressing a desire to subvert the political thinking of the country and the world.
Feeding the blue tits is a clear signal that you have a concern for wildlife. That you think wildlife is a good thing; that you think wildlife should be conserved at the expense of other matters more obviously beneficial to yourself and to humankind.
And that is radical. It is not unusual, certainly not. There are vast numbers of people who feed blue tits and/or believe that wildlife matters, that non-human life is important and that conservation is a good thing.
For the feeding of the birds implies, inexorably, a wish for a change in political thinking. Every peanut says that we think conservation is important and therefore, conservation should rise up the political agenda.
Each peanut implies that we are interested in the world that we will leave to our grandchildren. Each peanut implies that, like all living things, we have a vested interest in the survival of our genes, and that means an interest in a place suitable for their survival. Four years, five years, we instinctively reach beyond that. We are wiser than politicians, for we lack their specialist viewpoint.
The urge for conservation comes from three very powerful impulses. There is the feeling that conservation is our duty and one of stewardship. Then there is a feeling that conservation is a matter of self-interest. If we don’t look after our world, we will have nowhere decent to live, and nor will our descendants. And finally we feel that conservation should be carried out because we deeply wish to share our planet with non-human life.
What the bird-feeding radicals want is new priorities and a new political vision that looks at generations rather than electoral terms. And we want it quickly. We are running out of time.
We may end up being the cursed generation — the last generation that had a chance to do something, and failed. But that will not happen if the radicals get their way. So hang our your peanuts and remember that it is a revolutionary act.

Love this article.

Just came back in from filling my feeders before the temperature drops - a revolutionary act? - I love the thought.