大象传媒

this 'ethical man' crap has got to be one of the worst ideas newsnight has ever had. an entire year? that's not serious journalism, that's moronic daytime-magazine-programme shite.
good luck with the blog though.

Blimey, a baptism of fire on the comments front Mr Ethical.
I quite like ethical man, he's suitably kind of 'ditzy' and slightly disaffected with the effort it takes.
I often have to force myself just to take out the recycling. A week's worth of newspapers can really take its toll going down our stairs to the bins...

Welcome to blogging Justin. The technical difference is people who think you are an ae can say so immediately and have it hosted by the 大象传媒! Wait till you do something about "ethical war".

Lets hope that people decide to make ethical comments...

I suppose that this blog is completly ethical? That you have an ethical internet supplier, an ethical computer, ethical blog software and an ethical electrical system to hook it all up to?

Other than that, welcome to the blogosphere!

There are serious aspects to ethical behaviour beyond this rather petty attempts to dim light bulbs and ride bicycles. The starting point for true ethical starts with not killing sentient beings (i.e. animals)for 'meat'. Such and act might help penetrate and alter a mind set that the earth is there for man's satiation. Once this is well established man might then (even) stop killing man. TRUE ethical behaviour.

I was moderately interested when you were sniffing the composted human excrement. Other than that I'd rather see Newsnight focussing on news. If you must cover environmental issues, would it be possible to approach it from a scientific angle? I would've thought most of Newsnight's viewers would be extremely patronised to be told about water butts and not leaving the tap running when you brush your teeth.

Personally I rather like the lighthearted style of your Ethical Man programmes.... too much doom and gloom would put most people off... I think you should have a primetime slot on the news programmes too, and not just on the late night Newsnight (which sometimes I can't stay awake for after a long day looking after children from 6am!!) - Thankfully they are on the website too - keep up the good work!!

I totally disagree with Kate. The last edition gave me some good ideas for my house, keep up the good work

Hi Justin: I've enjoyed your Ethical Man videos and articles. I wish our Canadian Government would use a similarly entertaining and engaging way of getting us to pay attention to living ethically (though it took me a bit to figure out that your 'water butts' meant our 'rain barrels'). Do you think we could all band together to convince Mr. Bush that Global Warming is for real - and that it's already here?

I have found the "ethical man" episodes very interesting. Justin has a knack of making such an important subject entertaining. Of course this is serious journalism. The thing that is easy to forget is that serious journalism doesn't necesarily have to be deadly serious.

Hi, Justin
I enjoy your wanderings in la-la-land - it's great to be reminded what is so great about living in a country where we cherish our fruitcakes. Being a confirmed "Kill 'em all, let God sort them out" sort of person, I can't say that recycling, peace, et al come naturally to me. I did consider it when our local council sent me a bin and told me it would save the world, etc. Then I turned it over and discovered it was made in America, the only country not to sign up to Kyoto. I smell a green rat, more making money than saving the world
So, I've gone back to my bad ways - either we burn all the rubbish and get the energy back, or else we should send it all the Maldives, so they can build up their islands above the rising tide.
Ethics are great as a guiding star, but if you gaze at the stars through life, you tend to trip over reality on the ground.

I did like the ethical approach for the ethical man. It did give me some ideas, but... it does involve more money than most people can "lash" out on to "save the planet", wind generators are way too expensive for us. Earth closets are not really to feasable. ( Just ask our council.) We do have our own septic tank and do our own veg gardening though.
We duz what we can with what we have.

John Nash, I think you're just lazy.

What endlessly surprises me about the ethical man slot is how difficult it makes these things appear but living in London I find that the difficult thing is not getting hold of the right products, recycling, composting, it's the amount of money it costs. I would like a section of the programme that discussed the economics of being more sustainable. Who we need to put pressure on to drive prices down, how we can get small stores to stock energy saving lightbulbs and ecological cleaning products so it's easier and more convenient for consumers.

I want a bokashi bin (kitchen waste digester) because the likelihood of my next flat having a garden is very small. They're too expensive for me to buy though- why aren't these products sold at a lower price and produced widely? If Newsnight could focus on that it would be a step towards all of us having opportunities to be more sustainable.

Ethical man concept is brilliant, I am an ethical mum
can you do (I may have missed some episodes)

washable nappies (you can hire from the nappy trial service see www.wen.org.uk etc)or buy from Twinkle, Lollipop etc
co-op has a new eco-car insurance
eco fuels would be good too eg chip fat can run a car...you can research it...
look at The Organic Baby Book by Tania Maxted for organic food etc and the vaccination debate
ethical clothes/fairtrade see People Tree etc now in Top Shop and do some kids sizes and bay clothes
New Consumer mag even has ethical school uniform..I could go on and on see www.newconsumer.co.uk
green parenting mags such as The Green Parent, Juno if you haven't already
breast milk can be donated to Queen Charlotte's (Hammersmith) mty unit and others see www.UKAMB.org) - now that's green and ethical - it even cures people much older than babies from life-threatening diseases

john nash, it's good to see you here in ethical blog territory, how about a nice juicy animal analogy for me to sink my teeth into ? ;)

seriously though john, i appreciate where you're coming from, but there are many respects in which trying to be ethical - you could call it 'considerate' (remember john, that even the uber-male, far from the nest, hunting a tiger with nought more than his wits must be considerate, so it's not an exclusively female trait) - is positive for you, and can save money, for example, once one starts to resent overpacked auntie supermarket ready made food, one buys more basic ingredients, saves loads of money, and eats better food, my ethical [considerate]-man lifestyle is to a large extent driven by not having much money to spare, as some of my more extreme actions (below) suggest, but the broader considerate side-effects are more universal, we only affect change by our wallets, so simply by having a considered approach, and letting it infect every element of your life, you help yourself as much as the things you wish to dispatch to the final judgement with that gun ! :D

Nina, great idea, the bokashi bin, hadn't heard of that before - but you can sideline it by keeping small containers for used tea, coffee grounds, vegetable peelings and so on and putting them in the freezer as described below - this also means that the rubbish doesn't smell, and can take as long as it needs to become 'kerb worthy'

i do what i can to save water, i wash using one of those rubber buckets, plastic i know, but seems good for a lifetime, i do have one of those electric showers, but it's horrendously expensive to use and once you're in, it's too nice to leave !...so i keep the bicycle in the shower

i have diverted the kitchen sink drain so that it fills a water cannister, using the kitchen sink to drain all used and cooking water, i am able to flush the loo soley using recyled water, seems quite wrong to use treated, eh ?...is this too much information ? ! the upshot of this, is that i'm managing to use only around 0.18 cu metres of water a week

i also do the recycling thing, and unrecyclable rubbish is running at around a half carrier bag a month, still hoping to improve on that of course

not having anywhere for a composter, i freeze my compostable scraps (loopy i know, but keeps it from stinking up the place) once in a while, i "liberate this organic matter into the wild"

the lowest wattage bulbs i use are 0.7watts ! as well as 1.5 watt led lightbulbs* ( ), now these are very impressive things, plenty bright and stupidly low in energy use, in some places i use 0.7watt led bulbs* ( ), now these aren't exactly blindingly bright, but the dim neutral white light is reminisent of moonlight...defiinately bright enough for hallways and such, although initially expensive, they will pay for themselves with such low power

even the 4watt flourescent bulbs i have (externally identical to the 0.7watt led ones) are very frugal, but very bright indeed for four watts

this ethical man stuff is like most things that are at heart a good idea, scoffed at by those who are entrenched in their own ruts

we're not all mad ya know ! some of us want to be able to audit our own actions as we all should, plus, some of us can't afford not to be this way, but even if i won the lottery, there are many things that i wouldn't change (got to carbon offset that bugatti somehow)

good on you Justin !

*other lightbulbs are available !

another thing you can do to save energy is to fill up your kettle when you boil it, and fill a thermos with the boiled water, i don't have any proof that this saves electricity, but only using the kettle once or twice a day must be more efficent than several

plus, there's no waiting for a brew !

where have all the posts gone ?

hi, this thread appears to have lost some of its recent posts

After last night's show, I think that you should not ride a bike as it really does not suit you at all! I am not being nasty but your daughters can ride a bike much better than you!

...There's the real ethical bombshell, now it is time to think about the wholesale poisoning of us and everything else

forget global warming, remember big Pharmas failure, remember GM is still on the march, remember that big food doesn't care a bit about you, that big money just uses you to generate its money then dumps on you

Being ethical, is an act several billion mini revolutions of the mind

Big oil/pharma/money/war/food trades its money up and away from you

It is time to trade your money, no matter how insignificant the act may seem, down to the people around you wherever possible

Time is soon upon all ethical people to celebrate the 4th October 1936

The Battle of Cable Street, when Catholics, Christians, Jews and anyone else about with an ethical mind fought the police and the brownshirts

And perhaps, a date to think of the way fascism yet again is gaining government backing

Will Ethical man be celebrating this I wonder ?

Celebrate the 4th October

And remember the lesson they are still teaching us today

"NO PASARAN"

Poison in your water ?

Why not phone your water company and ask them, tip: they will try to lie and fudge their way out of an answer

Press them and ask for clarification in writing, and they might just change their tune

Fluoride is a poison initially used by the Nazis in the deathcamps

Which side won the war ? I'm not sure any more

Get them to stop

Have them charged with public endangerment

On the subject of fluoride, i went into TESCO today, and asked why they only sold toothpaste with fluoride in it...the response from the chemist, who it is safe to assume is a member of some masonic order, said, "no we only sell toothpaste with fluoride in because it's what consumers want"...and "I couldn't GIVE A MONKEYS if it was used by the nazis"

Really ? 'consumers' want what was used by the nazis to subdue deathcamp detainees ?

Is that really Tescos position on this, clearly, another example of the powers that be not giving a monkeys what we want

And proof that if you respect ethics, big business doesn't respect YOU

Battle of Cable Street was today, when real people fought off the police protected fascists.

Lest we forget.

Lest we let them march on this time.

Which, at present, we are.

Oops!
I never even thought about asking for planning permission when I put my home made wind turbine on my house in the Rossendale Valley nearly THIRTY YEARS AGO !
Mind you, back then Councils weren't so PC and pedantic as they are now.
None of my neighbours ever complained about it, in fact it used to be a bit of a talking point, a bit like Fred Dibnah's Weather Cock! It cost me around ?40 to make, including the electronic controls, but excluding the storage battery and by the time I took it down when I moved home, it had saved me over ?200 off my electricity bills.
I got the best results from wind power because of the local geography which naturally funnelled the prevailing wind so that there was sufficient wind velocity for generating electricity on at least 300 days per year.
I did some experiments with solar generation as well, but the results were very uneconomic. Modern solar cells are much more efficient and no where near as expensive as they were back then, so I might have another go, as the idea of no moving parts appeals to me.

Ethical Man, Tues 31 Oct. I disagree with the plumber's advice not to install thermostatic radiator valves.
We constantly had some rooms which would overheat while others were comfortable. Consequently we would turn the radiators off for a period and then have to do the rounds later to turn them on again. It seemed impossible to turn them only half on.
Then 13 yrs ago we had thermostatic valves fitted. After a few days of tweaking the settings we have never needed to adjust them since and every room maintains its own temperature. The valves have paid for themselves in comfort and convenience alone.
Meanwhile at work, staff boil, open the windows wider, thus wasting heat, or freeze.

ETHICAL MAN
How right Ethical Man was not to change his radiator valves out for thermostatically controlled ones. How could this make sense both in economics,energy and CO2 emissions? terms Surely prior to making a recommendation to fit new valves or any other energy efficient device, the specialist carrying out the study should take into account for example: the energy and CO2 emission cost for mining the materials, manufacture, transport for materials and tradesman fitting the necessary upgrade? Not to do so is nonsensical in terms of saving energy or CO2 emissions on property already built? Its called mass balance I believe!
The housing minister Yvette Cooper dropped in to tell Ethical Man why we now need the energy efficiency certificates. She failed! The Government have over many years carried out media campaigns on loft insulation, double glassing, Solar energy and alike and even offered incentives by way of grants for home improvements. The best way to promote these issues is as News night [Ethical Man] and the Government have done in the passed, by media exposure to the facts and assistance by way of improvement grants for older property. Furthermore changing the planning rules for energy efficient homes for the future will be essential. Spending a few hundred quid on a certificate will do nothing for the climate but will, I suspect, increase tax revenue for Gordon Brown. Is this stealth tax I ask myself?