Very much looking forward to my talk at the Cotesbach Educational Trust on November 5 on the thorny topic of ‘real’ sustainability.
This talk has a personal resonance as well as a professional one because I first connected with the Trust through my genealogy research.
My 11x great grandfather, John Quarles, a Draper and Merchant Adventurer, was once the ‘lord of the manor’ at Cotesbach in Leicestershire. The story is layered with the kind of ancestral karma that ensured I’d end up in environmental work, since his enclosure of the village – fencing off fields that had traditionally been common land and thereby cutting tenant farmers off from their only means of making a living and feeding their families – is widely credited with kicking off the Midland Revolt of 1607.
I initially corresponded with their friendly archivist and eventually was treated to a wonderful visit of the existing hall and surrounding farmland. Turns out the current owners are passionate about environment, organic and sustainability. So round and round it all goes…
The talk is part of the Reconnect 2020 project and it will be a great way to spend Bonfire Night!
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Quick update: What a fantastic evening – a full house and thanks to all who came. You can access the talk here and read more here. Great questions from an engaged audience! I promised one or two that I would make the .pdf of 80 Reasonable Questions to Ask About Any New Technology available (see here). This is not an original work but something I came across years ago, which I have tweaked and added to and which is useful for lifting you out of furrowed thinking. Some of these questions are also used the CultureShift deck of my Infrequently Asked Questions game.
I’ll be visiting familiar territory in November when I speak at the In-Cosmetics Formulation Summit about the challenges and complexities of ‘natural’ toiletries and cosmetics. The theme of the day is Formulating for the Conscious Consumer and I will be ‘lifting the green veil’ on why natural isn’t always sustainable. Looking forward to an interesting and lively discussion on a topic close to my heart.
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Quick update: It was an interesting day. I learned a lot about where the cosmetics industry is heading – a lot of it was unnerving and parallels the technofix solutions being offered up to food and farming. You can find the full text of my talk here.
The GM issue has been slowly creeping into new areas of our lives – and is now far beyond just a handful of plants.
As part of an ongoing programme of educating and working with chefs and others in the food industry, my group Beyond GM has been working with the Greencuisine Trust to produce a series of five downloadable leaflets looking at GMOs in the UK food system.
The first four are available now. These are:
GMOs in the UK
GMOs in Healthcare
GMOs & Farm Animals
GMOs in Herbs & Spices
Each one is written to provide an overview where we are now and where we are going. Some of the information, particularly on healthcare and genetically engineered animals may be new to our supporters and we encourage you to read and absorb these new directions for GMO technology.
The Greencuisine Trust was founded by medicinal chef and nutritionist (and a long-term colleague of mine) Daphne Lambert. Daphne has cooked, studied, taught and written about food all her adult life. She has run a nutritional consultancy practice for over 25 years working with schools, colleges and organisations looking at ways to nourish well being.
Through inspiring projects, courses, events and consultancy the Trust aims to explore our relationship with food and encourage ways of growing and eating that nourish people without harming the environment.
Natural remedies are always my first choice of treatment for uncomplicated health issues and I have been very fortunate to work, once again, with colleagues at Neal’s Yard Remedies to produce a beautiful, practical volume on natural health.
Previous books in this series, to which I have contributed and acted as coordinator, include the best-selling Essential Oils as well as Healing Foods and the Beauty Book. It’s always a thrill to see the hard work that goes into them evolve into a beautiful Dorling Kindersley volume and it was great working once again with Susan Curtis, Fran Johnson, Julie Wood and Fiona Waring to bring it all together.
Neal’s Yard Remedies: Complete Wellness delivers a head to toe guide to self-care for every part of your body looking at food, supplements, essential oils, herbs and other therapies and lifestyle modifications that help promote healing and maintain health. As with each of these volumes, there is plenty of information to help you get the best out of your chosen therapy or remedy making it a useful addition to any home health library.
The book is out September 6 but is available for pre-order now.
Sustainability is complex and challenging – but not impossible. Rather than let the complexity of eating sustainably overwhelm you it’s important to make a start where you can.
I have been involved in the writing and production of this simple booklet for the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament – whom I have had the pleasure of working with on other things.
This booklet is about the food we eat every day, and the impact it has on our health, our environment and our future.
Sustainable eating is becoming an urgent issue all over the world because the food we eat has a major impact on our climate, our fresh water supplies, on biodiversity, deforestation and fossil fuel use.
It also has a serious impact on human health. Our diets have become far too meat and protein heavy and too reliant on processed and snack foods. As a result, the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and overweight and cancer is on the rise.
We can all help change things by making different food choices. So, if you are ready, here’s some ‘food for thought’ about making your fridge a force for change.
The NYR Natural News website, which I have edited, curated and written for over the last 6 years is undergoing a change of ownership – to me – and a change of name, but its emphasis on natural health and environment and wholesome food will remain unchanged. The new site will be an independent entity […]
Actor Michael Sheen returned to Wales recently to give the Annual Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture 2017. It was a really stirring talk on identity, history and the destructive power of the industrial military complex and the loss of regional journalism. In it he also devotes a significant amount of time to the Ecologist’s reporting on […]
This website is undergoing a long-overdue make-over which includes adding much more content – past and present – and an easier way of navigating through what’s here.
There are already hundreds of articles on the site – with more to come – covering a broad spectrum of environmental, sustainability and health topics and an enhanced search function should make it easier to find everything. I hope you like it!
Thanks to Nigel Hayler at nPress Media for his continued patience, creativity and support.
Please bear with me while I continue to populate the site and check through all the links!
It’s been fun to watch the media scramble to catch-up with the facts, as highlighted in a recent laboratory study linking house dust with weight gain.
What the scientists writing in the journal Environmental Science & Technology said was that a) house dust isn’t just ‘dirt’ – it is full of all the toxins that slough off into our environment from the products we use, including phthalates, pesticides and flame retardants; and b) because these are endocrine-disrupting chemicals very small amounts can cause biological havoc in this case causing immature fat cells to mature and begin accumulating triglycerides.
In some instances the toxins in the dust samples caused the fat cells to divide creating a larger pool of hungry fat cells. For children whose are exposed to proportionately more toxins per kilo of bodyweight – and who are much more sensitive to the effects of toxic substances – this could trigger a lifelong tendency to overweight. You can read the news story here.
Its important to recognise that this is not new information. Rather it is information that conventional science – which created these very profitable chemicals – likes to ignore.
For those who are interested I wrote about this problem years ago in two of my books:
It looks at the links between industrial farming and the destruction of iconic wildlife like the Sumatran elephant, the North American bison and the Brazilian jaguar. It can be hard for anyone to get their head around just how far reaching the consequences of our current approach to food production is and the effect on wildlife is largely hidden behind many more obvious harms such as to farm animals, soil and farmland biodiversity. Well done to Philip (Compassion in World Farming’s CEO) for exposing it.
I’ve worked with Philp before on the Nocton Dairy campaign. This time I’ve been lucky enough to work as a producer on the video trailers for the book, via Ecostorm, the investigative agency with which I founded the Ecologist Film Unit.
The trailer for the Dead Zone is below. Other films are on a special playlist on my YouTube channel.
About Pat Thomas
I am an award-winning campaigner, journalist and author. A former editor of the Ecologist magazine Pat has run campaigns for Paul McCartney’s Meat-Free Monday, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and Neal’s Yard Remedies. In 2011, my work leading the campaign, Cows Belong in Fields, won CIWF the Observer Ethical Award for Campaigner of the Year. In 2014 I co-founded the campaigning group, Beyond GM.
I am a qualified psychotherapist and the author more than 40 books for adults and children and I was inducted into Who’s Who in 2014. In addition to my work with Beyond GM, I work occasionally with the film production company Ecostorm. I also currently edit and oversee NYR Natural News – a campaigning natural health website, continue to write in a freelance capacity and make regular public speaking and media appearances.
I have been a trustee of both the Soil Association and the Organic Research Centre in the UK and am currently on the advisory board of GMO Free USA and am a trustee of the investigative media agency, Eyewitness.
To read more about me see here.
Contact Pat
Skype: patti.t16
Contact Form
Projects, Consultancies and Public Speaking
I am interested in and available for short- and long-term projects/consultancies, and am particularly keen on those that focus on food, sustainability and culture change. I am also an experienced public speaker.
My unique professional experience means I bring a variety of skills to any work I do, including effective and persuasive communication and writing skills, an holistic perspective on sustainability and change, and both intuitive and analytical ability. I am well known in my field and comfortable working in most fora.
Recent projects/consultancies include work with: Stella McCartney ‘Care’ range, Paul McCartney’s Meat Free Monday, Friends of the Earth, Compassion in World Farming, Soil Association, Neal’s Yard Remedies.
Recent public speaking engagements: UK Aware, Oxford University PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) Society, Durham Union Society (Durham University), Bristol Festival of Nature, World Preservation Foundation, Women’s Institute.
I'm a highly experienced journalist and award winning campaigner specialising in environment and alternative health. I'm also the author of several books for adults and children and a qualified psychotherapist.
