Tooting Speaks! The big dilemmas of local food

30 passionate Tooting folk came to The Selkirk (thanks so much Ben and the team!) on Wednesday night to join our 4 fantastic speakers, Kemi Akinola, Robert Biel, Robyn Knight and Sue Sheehan, in wrestling with the big dilemmas of sustainable food systems and what we can do locally. Our title was "Local Food is an Expensive Luxury" and the discussion was hosted by TTT's co-founder Lucy Neal. If you're interested in these gatherings, they're part of our monthly Green Drinks at The Selkirk on the third Wednesday of every month, details HERE.

Local Food is an Expensive Luxury

But what was it that contextualised food as "local"? Our first speaker, Sue Sheehan (Incredible Edible Lambeth) opened the account with the hyper local - food grown by you as being an active form of protest - claiming the land and building personal resilience for healthy, home grown, cheap veg and against the power of advertising and convenience, after all, gardening is the most "therapeutic and defiant act as you can do" according to the ultimate Guerrilla Gardener, Ron Finley, watch THIS and "plant some shit". Switch to our second speaker, Dr Robert Biel, Senior lecturer at University College London and author of Sustainable Food Systems - the role of the city and we learn as recently as 1985, with population at 56 million, the UK produced 95% of its food from within its shores... a poignant and powerful statistic, particularly given the risk of a no deal Brexit and the threat that presents of us not being able to feed ourselves, which you can read more about in a recent article by Jay Rayner HERE.

Read on for LOADS more...

Inviting you to our series of free local events this autumn exploring sustainability in Tooting!

We're thrilled with the fun and buzz at the Tooting Foodival last Saturday! Thanks to all who contributed their time, equipment, skills and produce to make it a success (see the I Grew This 2018 blog post).  Over 600 people took part on a sunny Tooting afternoon!
Much more to share about it soon on this blog.

The Tooting Foodival was the first in a series of free local events this autumn, all about exploring, influencing and creating sustainability in Tooting, together.


All invited to all of them!

Click here for a copy of the flyer.



The next event is a Tooting Debate on Weds 19th Sept:

'Local Food is an Expensive Luxury'.

Yes, we know.....that's intended to be provocative after the success of the community Foodival based on locally-grown food, local cooking and local eating together. 
Come along and share what you think! Details to come here on the blog.
The debate is on Weds 19th Sept from 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm at The Selkirk Pub, SW17 0ES

We'll promote and share details of all the other events in good time.

Is Capitalism the best system for a sustainable future? Tooting speaks!

On Wednesday 18th April, Tooting Green Drinks played host to our first debate! Why run a debate? This was an experiment to engage more people and look beyond our (albeit wonderful!) usual hard working suspects. And it was to explore some of the more divisive areas of sustainability.

It worked! 40 people (ish) came along to join in our first debate on...

"Capitalism is the best system for a truly social, economic and environmentally sustainable future"

Standing Room only! 

The evening showed there is huge energy for ideas exchange in Tooting. We'll definitely be planning more debates in the future, hoping to engage head, heart and hands by way of an invitation for us all to become active in Tooting.

What would you like debated? Answers in the comments below please!

Did we assemble a room full of raging anarchists, ready to march on Westminster? Or were the challenges of sustainability just another problem to solve by Capitalist innovation, motivated by profit? Read on for the lowdown on how the evening unfolded...

Can Capitalism be Sustainable?

On Wednesday evening this week at the Selkirk, Tooting Green Drinks presents a thought-provoking debate on whether:
“Capitalism is the best way to achieve a truly social, environmental and economically sustainable future”

In the UK we all live in a capitalist system,
"An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state". Source OED

This system may currently provide us with all sorts of lifestyle advantages, but does it do so at the expense of the environment, democracy and human rights?

Dave Darby

Oli Grffiths

Dave Darby founder of of lowimpact.org, will seek to persuade you that there are alternatives to an economy driven by profit. Chartered engineer Oli Griffiths will seek to support capitalism's sustainable credentials.  More on our speakers here.

Please come along!  Weigh up the arguments, ask a question, meet others who are interested in discussing what a sustainable solution for humankind might look like. We look forward to debating with you!

Capitalism Debate April 18th

TTT & Tooting Green Drinks proudly present:
“Capitalism is the best way to achieve a truly social, environmental and economically sustainable future”

Find yourself in an echo chamber tailored specifically for you? Does your Facebook feed reinforce your opinions, back you up every step of the way and leave you dumbfounded when life doesn’t play out the same?

Capitalism is the underpinning formula for much of what we enjoy today, particularly in the so-called “developed” world. Our basic human needs of shelter, food and water are met with a competitive market giving us the best service at the best price, driving industrial creativity to come up with solutions to all our problems at a scale that can soak up all the pressures of population increase, freak weather events and a changing political landscape. Even the challenge of climate change is met square on by industrial innovation in the shape of giant wind turbines, sucking carbon emissions out of the air and non-fossil fuel cars that fire you down the High Street in style. Meanwhile saving for the future in a global capitalist market structure maximises your investments whilst the cost of stuff just keeps on coming down ...

But … hold on ... a truly sustainable future is about more than just economics isn't it?  Who gets left behind in capitalism's raging wake? Top-down hierarchies mean we need “a nation of doers, not thinkers”. Leave it all to the market and will you actually get cheaper and better? Zero-hours contracts and the threat of a privatised health service indicate life could be much worse for many. And what about the environment? Global resources are there to serve the markets, surely? And if economics is the prime driver, does anyone care about the waste that a linear system produces?

On Wednesday 18th April, Transition Town Tooting will be holding a debate on Capitalism. Is it really the best way for us to reduce our impact on the environment and adapt to an already changed global climate? We have 2 wonderful debate Captains in Dave Darby (lowimpact.org) and Oli Griffiths and will be running it like a proper debate with opening statements, rebuttals, an opportunity for you to make your points and challenge Dave and Oli before closing statements., all in the wonderful confines of the upstairs room at The Selkirk in Tooting.

We challenge you to be challenged! Encourage you to speak with opposing points of view! Reinforce your standpoints or have the courage and humility to change!

Tooting Green Drinks! Roll up! Roll Up!

Lovely Green Drinks in Tooting last night at The Selkirk, thanks for hosting! 

We got to know the London National Park City initiative better and asked how we would raise London's green cover from 48% (current) to 51%???? Our answer is..., Parklets! Green up the base of trees, hand over 1 car parking space to green infrastructure! Guerrilla Garden where you can! Turn the small spaces green, lobby the council to use http://www.frontyardcompany.co.uk/products/plantlock.html...

So... where would YOU create a Parklet?

We launched Green Book Club! Whoop! Want to join in? We have 2 articles to read which will be part of the discussion at the next Tooting Green Drinks: 

• Is talk about it the most important thing we can do about climate change?

https://thinkprogress.org/end-climate-silence-cbe439a31a8e…

And...

• After plastic bag tax what should we tax next?

https://www.theguardian.com/…/six-billion-plastic-bags-cant…

So... How could Green Book Club work best for you?? Online discussion? Articles? Youtube vids and TEDtalks? Books?

AND... we talked about a programme of short, informal talks in the new year - watch this space for announcements on that.

So... who would you like to come to Tooting Green Drinks to give short talks? What themes could we cover?

AND!!!! We talked up Dipa's secret, tasty idea... but you really will have to wait to hear more about that one... yum!

Green Drinks is an International idea to create informal spaces for discussion and getting to know like minded people in your area. www.greendrinks.org

We host a Tooting Green Drinks on the third Wednesday of every month at The Selkirk Pub, 60 Selkirk Street, SW17 0ES between 7.30pm and 9.30pm

#TootingFuture Comments

Good to see that there has been some debate and reflection after last week's Electing The Future event. 

Low Impact's Dave Darby in this thoughtful piece reflects on the elephant in the room - the incongruity of constant economic growth on a physically finite planet, an erroneous assumption that he feels the main political parties continue to make.

Meanwhile LibDem candidate Phil Ling has blogged re his experience listing his party's five green laws to safeguard the environment.

On twitter @tomvwoodcock found the hustings inspiring, while Green Candidate Esther Obiri-Darko @GreenTooting commented on TTT showing real community activism. Labour's Fleur Anderson (@CllrFleur) and Conservative Dan Watkins (@DanWatkins) also weighed in with their observations.

What do you want for a #Tootingfuture?  Join the debate on twitter, tell us what you think via @tttooting.

#TootingFuture Great Conversations

A successful Electing the Future event was held tonight at the USSR club. Loads of interesting discussion about Tooting past, present and future with local voices including some of the parliamentary candidates standing in Tooting.  Thanks to Dan Watkins, Phil Ling & Esther Obiri-Darko for attending and Fleur Anderson for standing in for an absent Sadiq Khan.

Esther, Fleur, Dan & Phil with Lucy on the mic

What a lot of great ideas around improving community, green spaces, better streets, controlling traffic & pollution, access to housing and independent retail environments to name but a few. Could we imagine Balham Boulevard or taking control of the Tooting Common Cafe or even just "More Green Beauty" in Tooting and around?

A full write up will appear on the blog in due course. A #Tootingfuture is just that bit more easy to imagine.