When I came into the environmental movement in the 1960s, the emblem of what we are losing that meant most to me was the humpback whale. Later, in the 1980s, I played The Songs of the Humpback Whale – which I had bought way back in 1970 – to Gaia and Hania in the dark when they were very young, songs recorded by Dr Roger Payne. For more on all of this, see Wikipedia entry. Today, happily, The Times reports that humpback numbers are back up to around 40,000, suggesting that the magnificent creatures have managed to haul themselves back from the edge of the precipice. But climate change, by impact ingthe evailability of food, particularly krill, could still reverse the process.
Mobile library
Spent the morning ferrying boxes of books from home – and from my desk SustainAbility – across the the new Bloomsbury Place offices of Volans. Nice and bright when we started out, but by the time Elaine and I got to Bloomsbury Place the wind was fairly thumping through the trees there and in Bloomsbury Square nearby.
Then we found I was missing one key of the front door set, so – while we sat on the steps in the wind with our boxes and no doubt looked like refugees to the steady stream of foreigners making their way to the British Museum, poor Sam had to streak across to let us and our pile of boxes in. Nice feeling, though, to be building up the library in a building which the man who lives in the basement told us today dates back to the 1600s.
As we drove back through Trafalgar Square, a giant screen was showing swimming races from the Beijing Olympics, something I find excites me not a jot. But it was nice to drive back along the Embankment and see the bridges, which I always find a delight.
Britain from Above
Just watched Andrew Marr present two quite stunning programmes, on BBC1 and BBC2, the first on Britain from Above, the second on London ditto. Seeing the pulsing webs of energy, telecommunications and road, air and sea traffic reminded me of the ecosystemic perspectives on landscapes and cities that first drew me to planning in the early 1970s – and then the Abercrombie Plan sequences in the London programme reminded me of some of the reasons why I fled the discipline once I had my M. Phil.
The sequences of London’s Docklands at the same time prompted memories of my solo jaunts around the derelict docks, with my Leica M3, including one early morning horror where I found myself alone in an area of warehousing, triangulated upon by three guard-dogs – two Alsatians and a Doberman. I had to stand in the same spot for an unconscionable time before their owner arrived to liberate me – and chastise me for trespassing.
The sequence of the Luftwaffe bombing the docks was extraordinary, with the aerial photographs catching one stick of bombs splashing into the Thames, but also reminding me of the stick that went along our road in Barnes – and of the day when Elaine was turned out of the house, maybe six or seven years ago, when neighbours digging a hole for a tree about five feet from our kitchen found an unexploded bomb from that same stick.
Some of the best television I have seen in a very long time.
Remobilising the Space Maggots
Across to Leicester Square this evening to meet up with Elaine, Gaia and Hania and see Wall-E, the new Pixar/Disney robot-loves-robot film. Absolutely stunning and, while Elaine spent much of the film with her hands over her ears because of the volume of the Sensuround sound system, I was transported. Best of all, the grudging remobilisation of the human space maggots gave me a degree of hope that America might still reclaim its soul.
Sisters
We had our first joint meeting of SustainAbility and Volans yesterday, in which Charmian (Love), our new Volans COO, expained the progress we have been making on our visual identity (very exciting), organisational structure (clarity can be a wonderful thing) and Advisory Board (some stunning developments there, too). We are working on a range of changes in anticiaption of the Volans ‘soft’ launch early in September, follower by a ‘hard’ launch in November.
One of Charmian’s slides noted that SustainAbility and Volans are ‘sister’ organisations. True, but I almost commented that they are step-sisters: same father, different mothers — Julia Hailes with SustainAbility, Pamela Hartrigan with Volans. But thought better of it. Still, I find myself increasingly thinking with real interest about how the two organisations can best work together in the coming years.