During the recent UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen our world leaders failed to agree on a climate deal. But we all know it’s not only up to them and there are plenty of things that we mere mortals can do to make an impact on climate change. As consumers, we need to take responsibilility for our own actions. Here’s one way to do something – do 30!

The ‘I do 30′ campaign encourages people across the world to turn down the temperature on their laundry to reduce co2.

Visit their website to find out more about the campaign and become a member of their Facebook group to join the other 12,000 supporters of the ‘I do 30′ campaign to see what positive impact you can have on our planet.

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We’re giving away two tickets to see ‘Radical Nature‘ at the Barbican in London. It’s the first exhibition to bring together key figures across different generations who have created utopian works and inspiring solutions for our ever-changing planet.

Radical Nature draws on ideas that have emerged out of Land Art, environmental activism, experimental architecture and utopianism. The exhibition is designed as one fantastical landscape, with each piece introducing into the gallery space a dramatic portion of nature. Work by pioneering figures such as the architectural collective Ant Farm and visionary architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, artists Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes, Hans Haacke and Robert Smithson are shown alongside pieces by a younger generation of practitioners including Heather and Ivan Morison, R&Sie(n), Philippe Rahm architects and Simon Starling. Radical Nature also features specially commissioned and restaged historical installations, some of which are located in the outdoor spaces around the Barbican while a satellite project by the architectural collective EXYZT is situated off site.

The exhibition is on until the 18th of October and if you’d like to stand a chance of winning a ticket, simply add a comment telling us about something you do in your daily life that reduces your footprint on our planet.

This competition ends on Friday 9th of October. Two winners will be drawn out of a hat and notified by email.

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One Tuesday a few weeks ago I accompanied Duncan Drennan (The Art of Engineering), Duncan’s beautifully pregnant wife Donne, Pia Taylor (Mother City Living), Stefan (a lecturer in applied mathematics at Stellenbosch) and Ruan (a helicopter pilot in training) on a tour of the Fezeka community garden in Gugulethu and the Harvest of Hope packing shed in Phillipi. Both the Fezeka garden (one of many community gardens) and Harvest of Hope form part of the Abalimi Bezekhaya organisation that assists urban farmers to produce food for themselves, their families and communities and to sell their surplus crops.

We started the tour at the BP service station on Rosmead Avenue where we were met by Rob Small, a friendly and enthusiastic man who works tirelessly to bring in funds for Abalimi, as well as running regular Tuesday morning tours of the gardens in a bid to win over more supporters to the project. Rob overflows with passion for the Abalimi project and what it is doing for people in Cape Town’s townships. His enthusiasm is infectious and seeps into everything he says.

Fezeka community garden stands at the foot of a huge pylon

Rob lead the way into Gugulethu and Fezeka, where he explained how 40% of the residents of Cape Town’s informal settlements are unemployed, and where there’s poverty, there is also hunger. The core business of Abalimi is to combat poverty by growing food sustainably (and organically) both at home and in community gardens, and to further green the township areas by planting water wise indigenous trees in the schools and streets of the area. Rob explained that when the Abalimi project started 15 years ago, their aim was to help people achieve subsistence from their growing activities. These days they have surpassed that and are aiming at providing a livelihood for those who before had a hard time even feeding themselves.

We were shown around Fezeka Garden and met some of the mama’s who run the place. There are very few men involved in growing community gardens on the Cape Flats, the majority of the farmers are women.

Mama Maggie transporting manure to her crops with a wheelbarrow

We were able to take photographs of the gardens and ask Rob questions about how Abalimi facilitates the creation of these food gardens. He explained that Abalimi “subsidises” the farmers to the tune of R150 per farmer per month (that’s around US $15 a month) by providing training, manure and set-up and maintenance of an irrigation system for each garden. This figure is much, much lower than the subsidies provided by government to commercial farmers. Abalimi also helps the farmers gain access to council land and negotiates on their behalf to obtain access to water, for example.

From Fezeka we moved on to the Harvest of Hope packing shed in Phillipi. Harvest of Hope is the marketing and selling arm of Abalimi. They collect the vegetables from the farmers once a week and take them back to the packing shed to wash and prepare for delivery. The vegetables make up weekly organic vegetable boxes that are distributed via some of Cape Town’s southern suburbs schools. (It is possible to buy a Harvest of Hope veg box even if you don’t have children at one of the selected schools, see below for more details).

I was blown away by the amazing fresh smell as we walked into the packing shed. It was a beautiful experience.
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