How your hairdresser could convince you to go green: Experts call for roll out of 'eco-stylists' to encourage Brits into sustainable lifestyles
Once a trip to the hairdresser's involved nothing more challenging than a chat about your latest holiday.
Now it seems a quick cut and blow dry could come with a conversation about your carbon footprint.
Experts are calling for state-sponsored eco-stylists to nudge clients towards sustainable lifestyles.
It comes after a pilot scheme found that what we chat about in the salon changes our everyday lives.
A report revealed chatty stylists are the perfect influencers to subtly bring about behaviour change. Hairdressers have previously been trained to spot signs of domestic abuse.
In the pilot scheme – called Mirror Talkers – stickers carrying green tips were stuck to salon mirrors to spark conversations, and 73 per cent of people subsequently pledged to make planet-friendly changes to their haircare habits.
Now ministers are being urged to back schemes that could see subliminal lectures in unlikely places – including cafes, restaurants and farmers' markets. The latest study – led by Oxford University and the Government-funded Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations – wants to tackle 'pluralistic ignorance relating to climate action'.
It claims hairdressers have 'considerable untapped potential regarding the influence [they] could have on clients'.
'While researchers can equip people with the tools and knowledge to become better at public engagement, in fact, hairdressers are already experts,' it says.
The authors, convened by Oxford's Dr Sam Hampton, envisage salon chats 'beginning with haircare as a point of connection, but expanding to broader conversations about energy, transport, food, investments, carbon literacy and intergenerational responsibility'.
Calling for funding, they concluded: 'Yielding the power of everyday influencers to build public consensus is an under-utilised strategy which demands new approaches to climate policy.'
The latest study also involved the Universities of Southampton and Utrecht in the Netherlands.
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The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The seagulls have landed: why gulls are encroaching on our towns
'They're a menace,' says Jenny Riley, shooting a wary glance at the gulls whirling above her beach hut near the pier in Lowestoft, Suffolk, as she shelters from the hot afternoon sun with her friend Angela Forster. The two older women have each had a hut on this stretch of powdery white sand for decades, and often eat sandwiches or fish and chips there, but as in many places on Britain's coast, it can be a perilous pastime. 'The birds are really vicious,' says Riley. 'If you're eating anything, you more or less have to go in to the hut or they'll take it from your hand. 'This is the worst summer I have known for seagulls, and I've lived my whole life in this place,' Riley adds, and her friend agrees: 'The mess and the smell in our town now is dreadful.' Is there anything they would like to see happen? 'Cull them,' says Forster. 'Although I wouldn't like to see them go completely – after all, they are the seaside.' Their sense of decades-long decline in a town whose fishing industry has almost vanished since the 1960s is perhaps not a surprise – but when it comes to the gull numbers, the women are not wrong. Local experts estimate the town's herring gull numbers at 10,000 – or 15% of its human population – though the birds' numbers are hard to calculate. Lowestoft's more visible gull problem, however, is its kittiwakes, another gull species whose population has grown from a single breeding pair in the 1950s to more than 1,000 nests today, splodged messily on to window sills, architraves and shopfronts throughout the town centre and leaving anyone passing underneath at risk of a foul-smelling guano splat. And this is not just a problem for Lowestoft. All over Britain, and coastal areas in Europe and the US, communities are in a flap about seagulls. North Yorkshire council is developing what it calls a gull management strategy in response to increasing complaints of 'gull mugging attacks' in towns from Scarborough to Whitby. In Lyme Regis, Dorset, authorities have introduced a public space protection order (PSPO) banning the feeding of birds to deter swooping herring gulls, having also tried flying drones and birds of prey to scare them away. The Highland council recently conducted a census of the birds to feed into its own management plans as herring gull numbers in Inverness and elsewhere soar. It is illegal, otherwise, to harm or capture any wild bird or interfere with its nest. Nevertheless, in March the former Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, called on the Scottish parliament to give people licenses to kill gulls, mentioning other Scottish councils that had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on the problem 'to no effect'. Put to a newspaper poll, two-thirds agreed. If it can seem at times that seagulls are taking over British towns, the fact is that their numbers aren't rising at all – they are falling sharply. 'Seagulls', in fact, don't really exist – the term is a catchall for 50 species of gull worldwide, six of which are commonly found in the UK. Of these, both the kittiwake and herring gull are 'red listed', meaning their breeding populations have experienced perilous drops in recent decades; while other species including the great and lesser black-backed gulls and the (now misnamed) common gull are on the amber list, meaning moderate but still concerning decline. In some traditional coastal nesting sites, the most recent national seabird census found, the populations have all but collapsed. South Walney nature reserve in Cumbria had more than 10,000 herring gulls' nests in 1999 and just 444 in 2020, a drop of 96%, according to Dr Viola Ross-Smith, a gull expert at the British Trust for Ornithology. The crash in numbers of lesser black-backed gulls at the same site was even greater, at 98%. Why? Alongside the wider biodiversity crisis, say experts, it's partly because Britain's gulls are moving into town. 'When we talk about urban gulls, not only in coastal communities or towns but also increasingly in large urban centres, it's about recognising that these birds are moving,' says Helen F Wilson, a professor of geography at Durham university whose work focuses on the social and cultural geography of humans and other species sharing the same space. 'It's not that they're increasing in number, but they are shifting away from where we might have expected to see them.' There are lots of possible reasons for that she says – warming seas, falls in their prey species, changing in fishing practices, more violent winter storms. Rather than seeing gulls as malign dive-bombers that are after our chips, in other words, we ought perhaps to consider their vulnerability. 'We need to think about what [their growth in towns and cities] tells us about what is happening elsewhere,' she says. 'Because for whatever reason, these birds are now finding urban environments much better than the coast.' They are also just carrying out their natural behaviour. 'We often describe herring gulls in very sinister ways: they're cool, calculating, muggers, cannibalistic – these very moral ways of talking about them. But what we're actually describing is natural behaviour, whether that's protecting a nest or simply feeding. Herring gulls snatch food from other birds in the wild, so it stands to reason that they would take things from people's hands.' Ross-Smith agrees. Herring gulls, for instance, can be especially aggressive – she prefers 'aggressively defensive' – while their chicks are fledging, 'but I wish people understood that the gull is merely being a very protective parent'. 'We are part of an ecosystem, and we're in a biodiversity crisis, and I think we need to be a bit more tolerant of the other species around us,' she says. As well as big environmental stresses, each town has specific local factors that may have encouraged gulls to settle. In Inverness, for example, the closure of a nearby landfill site in 2005 was one of the drivers of a very sharp increase in the city centre, according to David Haas, a senior community development manager for the Highland council. Having previously reduced the number of nests by physically removing eggs (under license), they have now moved to a range of non-lethal deterrents including the use of lasers, sonar and hawks. 'As we changed over to these methods, it's caused a lot of angst amongst people, understandably,' says Hass. They are also mindful that birds shooed from the town centre may simply move to the suburbs, 'and we have had evidence of that, where they're going into residential areas and causing a bit of mayhem in certain spots. But we're addressing that too. It's work in progress.' Similarly, the initial migration of Lowestoft's kittiwakes from its docks to its main shopping street and beyond followed the demolition of a derelict structure on which a small number of pairs were happily nesting. Finding town centre ledges even more to their liking than the cliff sides where they naturally roost, their numbers had reached 430 nests by 2018, then 650 in 2021, and more than 1,000 today, according to Dick Houghton, a retired fisheries scientist who now unofficially monitors the birds. 'And there are thousands of sites in the town where they could nest,' he says. Steam-cleaning kittiwake dung – a pungent brew, given the birds' diet of sand eels and herring sprat – from the pavement below Lowestoft's nesting sites is now a daily task, costing East Sussex council £50,000 a year, according to Kerry Blair, the council's strategic director. 'That's difficult to sustain in the current financial environment, but we can't not do it,' he says. Lowestoft, too, has experimented with nest removal and egg oiling (which stops them developing) in the past, 'but we've come a long way in terms of understanding our responsibilities', says Blair. That's included learning about the birds themselves, he says. Unlike other gulls, kittiwakes don't snatch food, and spend their winters out to sea in the North Atlantic, allowing old nests to be removed each winter. But they also like to nest in the same spot each year. So if they can't access that spot next year, it doesn't mean they'll fly back out to sea – they'll simply move to the next available windowsill along. It has led to the recognition that the birds aren't going anywhere, so people will have to learn new ways of living with them, says Blair. Rather than merely ousting the birds from their facades, for instance, building owners are now encouraged to build bespoke nesting ledges for them on more discreet walls away from public footpaths. A row of simple wooden ledges drilled to the side of a BT building now houses as many as 120 kittiwake nests, leaving the public space free of their mess. 'That's the journey that the council has been on,' says Blair. 'The Lowestoft kittiwake, when we started to look at [the issue], was about the dirt on the pavement, but it's turned into something else … It's about trying to see it as an amazing gift, really, to have these very endearing creatures living among us. Yes, it brings a few problems. Let's deal with all those problems and learn to love them living alongside us. That's a journey, I think, and more people than you'd expect in this town are starting to feel the same.'
The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
My son has taken my boots. Well, at least one of them
A few years ago someone asked me to write a quick 300 words on 'bin shoes' – dedicated footwear you leave by the door to put out the bins. At the time I was experiencing a degree of sloth I decided to dress up as indignation: I emailed back saying I knew nothing of so-called bin shoes, that I had one pair of stout boots that served me in all circumstances. This was more or less true – I'm on my sixth pair of identical pull-on ankle boots, which suit both formal and informal occasions, and all seasons. I wear them on long hikes, even though I probably shouldn't, and I slip them on late at night, without socks, when I have forgotten to put out the bins. Of course I do own other shoes, including some classic branded trainers that were deeply fashionable when I was nine, but which my mother would not buy me, presenting me instead with suspect lookalikes. 'They're supposed to have three stripes,' I said. 'These have four.' 'A bonus stripe,' my mother said. 'These are bobos,' I said, using my peer group's common slang for cheap knock-off trainers. 'What's the difference?' she said. The difference, I explained, was that when I went to school in them the other children would gather round me and sing 'Bobos, they make your feet feel fine/Bobos, they cost a dollar ninety-nine…' to the tune of the Colonel Bogey March. My mother thought this was hilarious. Anyway, last autumn my middle son let it be known that his work shoes had worn out, and that he was seeking an all-purpose footwear solution. 'What about Dad's boots?' my wife said. The middle one leaned over the kitchen table to examine my feet. 'They're very versatile,' I said. 'Yeah, maybe,' he said, frowning a little. 'I've worn these babies to funerals,' I said. 'And I've worn them to the beach.' In spite of his reservations, my wife bought him a pair. He was so pleased with them that she gave our other two sons a pair each for Christmas. For a short period I considered myself an intergenerational influencer, before the trouble started. The first time it happens I'm on my way to the shops when I notice something disquieting about my gait. I feel graceless, rackety and slow. It's just age, I tell myself, but I'm still out of sorts when I reach the front door, where I am greeted by the middle one standing in his socks. 'Are you wearing my boots?' he says. 'No,' I say looking down. 'Yes, you are,' he says, 'and I need to go to Birmingham.' 'Wow, they really are identical,' I say. 'Actually I did notice something weird when I …' 'Take them off,' he says. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Weeks later the oldest one moves back home, and promptly sets off for work in my boots, leaving me his size 10s, which fall off when I walk. 'Didn't they feel tight to you?' I say when he comes home that evening. 'They did, yeah,' he says. 'What are they, like size 8?' '8½,' I say. 'I'm actually a 9, but I know from experience they run big.' A week after that I'm late for a recording session with the band I'm in. When I go to leave the house I find a single pair of black boots by the front door: one 8½, one 10. 'He hasn't,' I say. But evidently he has. Coincidentally, the day before my classic branded trainers had split a seam, so the toe of the right one hung open, slack-jawed. I can't wear those, I think. Nor can I wear two boots of markedly different sizes, even though my son apparently can. Upstairs in my cupboard I find a pair of Slovakian canvas sneakers my wife once bought me. There is, I think, nothing else for it. As we sit in the recording studio listening to the drummer add extra cymbal crashes to a track, the guitar player turns and looks me over. 'This is a new style for you, isn't it?' he says. I look down at myself. I have on a densely patterned half-sleeved shirt I found in my holiday luggage, and shoes that might accurately be described as bobos. 'You appear to think of me as someone who doesn't have summer looks,' I say, 'but I have summer looks.' 'I wasn't criticising,' he says. 'I've got lightweight knits,' I say. 'I've got structured linens. ' My phone pings – my oldest son's reply to my recent text. 'I'm wearing trainers,' he writes. 'All the boots are in the house.' As I look down at my feet an ancient tune threads through my head: 'Bobos, they're made for hoboes, so get your bobos for hoboes today.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Country diary: A bumper year for orchids – the meadow is brimming with them
Last month, we made a choice on the farm in the midst of the spring drought. The grass was going to seed, risking the quality and amount of hay we could produce. We decided to 'top' the meadows early and hope for rain rather than settling for a poor crop. So far, it's paying off. There has been rain, and the grass, stimulated by mowing, is at last swaying in the breeze. A late hay harvest now looks possible. The drought, paradoxically, has brought a benefit. The grasses, so often dominant, have been suppressed, giving wildflowers a head start. The grazing pastures are no longer monocultures. This year, as horses swish flies, the fields are full of oxeye daisies, creating a landscape as bucolic as an Alfred Munnings painting. Also paying off is my prediction of a bumper orchid year. Wading through the wildflower meadows, I find bee orchid after bee orchid. Each has a pale pink, three-petalled flower with what looks like a fuzzy brown and yellow bee resting on it. If this were southern Europe, a species called the long-horn bee would think this was a female, misled not just by appearance but by the mimicry of pheromones. He'd have a go at mating. Whether the male ever realises he's been tricked into 'pseudo-copulation' with a fake bee I don't know, but either way, he has pollinated the plant. In the UK, the long-horn is so rare that the bee orchids self-pollinate. Then I start finding pyramidal orchids everywhere in the meadow. On top of each long stem is a flower spike, packed full of tiny, delicate individual flowers. Each has that distinctive orchid shape, varying in colour from light pink to strong purple. These ones are such bright magenta they almost glow, and will be pollinated by long-tongued butterflies, and hawk moths, whose proboscis can reach 25mm long. I pick a handful of the sainfoin fronds – loved by horses, naturally anti-inflammatory and anti-parasitic – and return to the stables where the leaves are gratefully munched. In the eaves, the baby swallows are also open mouthed, gaping and calling as the parent swoops in with food. I found a chick dead on the ground this morning, but three remain, looking more ready to fledge each day. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
