Here's a very interesting blog post which I found, which is concerned with recent environmental history.  The essence of it is that life was simpler, so you really didn't need the green thing. Here is an image of a woman putting items for salvage, which is common in most suburban streets across Melbourne, Australia. 

Been having some problems with links being interrupted or broken, and as it's from 2012 - I hope it still works in a year's time. 

http://www.eclectic-eccentric.com/2012/06/funny-but-true.html

But Converse Conserve website being concerned with the ways we educate and communicate our environmental 'passion' without driving the rest of the world'spare' - a new idea cameth to me, for my environmental education page. 

Teachers involved in sustainability education 
could introduce the following game in to their lessons. Pupils take some sheets of cardboard, cut it up into cards and draw on one side a bunch of pictures representing the way lifestyles have changed over time. The idea of the notation and illustrations would be to communicate all the ways that environmentally speaking lifestyles are different, today. Eg one card could be illustrated with a picture of a television, a book, and a doll with a heading - 1960s to identify that these were considered normal entertainments for children back in the 1960s. A card with the heading 1940s might have the picture of a some 'knuckles', a kids truck, and a kite. Another card representing 2010s would contain photos of gadgets, chargers, computer. Then the cards would be spread out on a table, turned over and played as a memory game; the aim being to match two of the same card up.   The underlying intention of the game is to stir up discussion amongst the children that there are a range of activities they can play - not all of which involve plugging in cords, and using up electricity.  Indeed, they might discuss that card games themselves are a form of entertainment which have lasted since ancient chinese times, some say. 

History lessons can be a funny thing. I was watching wonderful Horrible Histories last night, as I ate dinner (it is a sad state of affairs that I sit down alone, to watch HH and I call myself a grown woman!), and in one episode a period of history was mentioned when apparently the aristocrats garments were only allowed to be worn a grand total of three times, before they were burnt! Not a sustainable historical quality, in the least.  Well, I tried to find out if this was true, but alas, I was unable to find a reference to this historical 'fact' or 'fiction'. 

For a lot more games, and activities which stir up different emotional responses in young people, visit our educational page.

This could only happen in New York (or probably Tokyo) - a truck containing stuffed farm animals with their heads bobbing up and down as the truck careers about the streets of New York. 

It's a form of eco-creativity, and performance (or street) art at its most shocking, whilst both funny and tragic at the same time.  Eco creative messages can stir up a wide spectrum of emotions and rational reponses - the immediate response is that the stuffed animals peering out at the world of Manhattan are sweet, innocent, cute, adorable and who could take their eyes of them, if they were, even, half human.  Some of us less politically correct types might find the idea of a truck harbouring an army of stuffed farm animals to be hilarious, which I admittedly did at first glance. 

But then one sees beyond the artifice and the horror is the reality of their plaintive (yet electronic?) cries, one person running away as they can't bare to watch, and another shot of a toddler bursting in to tears. 

It makes you rethink that meat pie (albeit organic, well treated before it died) you had on the menu for the evening, and that perhaps it wouldn't be hard to russle up a vegie pastie instead.  

This kind of performance art is effective, as it keeps the message simple, is heart-wrenching and memorable and I commend the designer and people who delivered the project for their audacity and originality.