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Twenty-eight miles west of Land’s End lies the UK’s southernmost point - the Isles of Scilly. Their remoteness and microclimate make the islands a popular holiday destination amongst British holidaymakers, who go in search of sun, solitude, and seal-watching. But their distance and relative isolation from the mainland extend beyond being a hidden tourist gem, and have enabled the isles to take part in a day-long energy-saving experiment.

You would be forgiven for thinking that this recession malarkey was likely to curb the success of fairly traded, ethically sourced and organically grown products.

After all, if you’re battling to stay off the dole, and struggling to stay in demand, how righteous your rice, how principled your pumps, or how moral your mung beans are has got to be the last thing on your mind. Surely you’ll just hold out for the latest deals on industrial sized packs of fish fingers and head for shops where you can buy forty jumpers for £5.99. It’s those deals that will see you through the bleaker times is it not?

So it’s important to shop responsibly right? I need to make sure that all the products that enter my house or pass my lips are Fairly-Traded, FSC-certified, Soil Standards Association Accredited, Green-Seal, dolphin -friendly, eco-loving, against animal-testing, biodegradable. In other words, I will only buy a product that has been green-labeled within an inch of its life.

When faced with the enormity of an issue such as climate change, it is all too easy to feel utterly helpless. As we are force-fed more fatalistic griping about the aggressive advance of climate change, a passive fatigue kicks in and it becomes all to easy to surrender to our bleak fate.

But a new campaign has been launched which aims to combat the sense of feeble paralysis that has the nation in a headlock for too long. 10:10 challenges Britain to cut carbon emissions in the UK by 10% in one year. The brainchild of Fanny Armstrong, filmmaker behind The Age of Stupid, and in collaboration with The Guardian, 10:10 asks individuals, schools, hospitals, businesses and organisations to cut their emissions by 10% in 2010. How? Just by making simple changes to lifestyles, homes and workplaces.