Sementivae's First Post

This is, in some ways, a difficult time to begin a weblog devoted to environmental conservation & restoration. At a time when politicians and high-street chain-stores are jumping with equal verve onto the 'green' bandwagon, it is only reasonable to question anybody who now professes a concern for the welfare of the planet.

In the UK the Labour government have introduced taxes on flying supposedly to reduce carbon emissions. The Conservative opposition had morphed their familiar blue torch logo into a green tree and then into its current incarnation as a blue tree (seemingly uncertain of what balance of 'greenness' and 'blueness' is required to win over tired - no, narcoleptic - voters) .

High-street stores are now promoting environmentally-friendly shopping bags and are bidding to out-green their rivals. And what the shops dish-out, the consumers consume.

There is no shame in questioning the motives of going-green at-large. Politicians ultimately seem to be either stealth-taxing or voter-currying with environmental benefits as merely a by-product. High-street stores have found a new faddish identity to sell to the public. Again, whatever the environmental benefits, they are the equivalent to ricotta: A by-product of cheese.

Not that I mean to be overly-critical of the motives of the green neophytes, but it is difficult to believe they have their utmost concerns reserved for planet when their salaries depend on them being otherwise concerned (to paraphrase, somewhat clumsily, the oft-quoted Upton Sinclair).

My own credentials as an environmental-commentator have been cultivated through years of what I can only describe as being "empirically bothered" by the wanton destruction of our planet.

Everywhere I went it was impossible to escape the site of green and pleasant pastures being uprooted for yet another motorway, mountains half-eaten for the sake of a smoother commute, landfills like ziggurats dedicated to the God of Excess Plastic Wrapping, unsightly and unaesthetic concrete cubes and cuboids clogging up the horizon.

This being empirically bothered by environmental destruction has been present since my mid-teens (about twelve or thirteen years ago), but I had never known how to act upon my concerns and convictions.

In the last few months there has been a confluence of events that have compelled me to take some form of action. Namely, the critical endangerment of the Sumerian tiger and the (probable) extinction of the Yangtze dolphin in tandem with a recent coach trip I took along the M6 from London to Birmingham where customary road-widening works were pushing the countryside (and Britain's wildlife) into further retreat.

For a few weeks I felt constrained about what I could do - It would be rather impractical to tie myself to every tree about to be felled by a gnawing chain-saw (besides I have never been one for protests) - until I thought I'd give this blog a shot. I am comfortable both with writing and with the Internet, so this could be the perfect medium for communicating my concerns for Earth's welfare.

It must be stressed that I do not intend for words-instead-of-action but rather action-because-of-words. To this effect, I will maintain this blog with a view to disseminating information and articles about the conservation and restoration of Earth's bio-diversity. From this I hope to develop a readership - not least a community - with which to take concerted action.

I named this blog Sementivae after the Roman festival devoted to Ceres (the goddess of agriculture) and Tellus (Mother Earth, as depicted in the top-right photo) as I found it most fitting. Plus Sementivae has currently less than 1000 search results on Google, so it must be one of the very few single real words to achieve this. I hope this makes the blog somewhat unique as opposed to counter-productive in terms of accidental hits I may receive through search-engines. But I am optimistic that this blog won't be less often sought than found.