Natural Mindfulness

Natural Mindfulness is 'letting Nature in' 

but what does this mean exactly?

  To me, it means look, listen and feel. It's March so we're used to looking out for the first flowers that appear in spring: lesser celandines:

and Coltsfoot

I can't switch off my thinking but I can direct it to the spontaneous events that are happening all around me while walking in nature. Like the emergence of a Comma butterfly from hibernation.

I find listening especially helpful. So I walk slowly, I pause but not in a self-conscious way; I listen for ten seconds and I'm constantly asking myself: 
    "What's special and different today?"
I can't see them but I can hear nuthatches and jackdaws, a buzzard flies overhead. These are the kind of things that make me glad to be alive.
Seasons change imperceptibly but every day reveals more preparations for the season ahead.
Today I heard fieldfares and song thrushes together. These two members of the thrush family overlap but soon the fieldfares will be migrating back to Norway and Sweden to nest.

  So today I heard woodpeckers drumming, a typical sound that belongs to British springtime:

https://vimeo.com/208677486

That greater spotted woodpecker has found a particularly resonant tree which he's using to announce his presence to females and other males.

Look, listen and feel and it's different every day.

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How do you cope when someone lets you down: a natural mindful approach

How do you cope when someone lets you down?

This happened to me today so I'm trying to think of mindful things I can do.

1. "There will be better days":

I like this long-suffering phrase, it reminds me that even when I'm beset by lots of problems it won't be the same tomorrow. Also that however great my angst it is, I'm not dead yet. I can always find a few tiny things I've been putting off so tomorrow really will be better, pay for the central heating, book the bike in to be serviced.

2. Tell people 

Email friends. They won't necessarily respond but some may notice and sympathise. Even more important, tell people you meet. Otherwise they might think you're being antisocial. Ask for what you need: a hug or a talk, text people, phone people, arrange to meet, light up the network of people you know.

3. Walk in Nature

Nothing works as well to restore a mindful state of mind for me as a walk outside. Watching chance happenings, birds soaring, colours in people's gardens, birdsong and the feeling of climbing a hill all help me to feel myself, maybe sad, maybe distracted. So I'm going out walking now... Nature always seems to surprise me with colours, sounds and smells, 

which brings me to:

4. Variety

More variety in food, avoid the cheapest supermarket, have regular drinks and meals, if you don't feel like baking go out and buy a treat. Beware of silently or noisily singing the same old songs, you could be wallowing in morose thoughts ie Leonard Cohen, think of different tunes. Read a poetry book like Staying Alive, mark the poems you'd choose to read aloud to someone. Baking usually helps me but today feels like a day to knit or draw. Any activities that are calming, creative or automatic, colourful. Music too, listening or playing helps me. This is a great opportunity to do things differently.

5. Notice when you forget why you're feeling sad.

This will happen increasingly as time passes but you might even notice it on the first day. It's encouraging to notice how feelings change constantly, sadness to anger, anger to fear. And even a surprising moment of humour or joy. If someone's let me down I can sometimes smile when I remember that I've let people down too. This time the boot's on the other foot.

O, to be in England... Robert Browning

Robert Browning, like Charles Dickens, was in Italy in the spring of 1845 when he wrote this poem

Home-thoughts, from Abroad

In 1845 Robert met the love of his life: Elizabeth Barrett Browning [EBB] 

But he had admired EBB from afar after reading her newly-published poems and had written his first letter to her on 10th January 1845 which began: 

'I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett' 

So he must surely have been thinking of Elizabeth, immobilised as she was by an unexplained illness when he wrote these lines. But he didn't meet EBB until May 1845. You can see how he imagines a person being in England and seeing and hearing the spring developing and growing. His verse in May is loaded with sensual imagery:

O, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the Elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge-
That's the wise thrush; he sings his song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Granny's in a muddle: Living well with Dementia

"Granny's in a muddle: Granny needs a cuddle"
A six year old grandson's response to Joy losing the thread due to young onset Alzheimer's dementia. Alzheimer's is a common form of dementia associated with amyloid plaques and nerve fibre tangles. It begins with short term memory difficulties and is associated with wasting of the hippocampus which plays a part in immediate memory. The other common form of dementia is a mixed picture associated with multiple small strokes.
I heard Joy Watson speak recently and thoroughly recommend her approach to living well with dementia. Dementia-friendly design is important and would benefit us all, with fewer accidents and better demarcation of boundaries. 

Details here.
Glass tables and visual illusions on the wall disorientate people with difficulties estimating distance due to poor vision, people who've had a stroke and those of us who walk about with a mobile in our hand.
Wendy Mitchell talks here about her diagnosis with Alzheimer's despite living a healthy life 'nothing can protect you," she says. She's keen to encourage people to contribute to dementia research. You can follow Wendy's twitter feed here:
@WendyPMitchell

The greatest challenge is to create whole communities that are sympathetic to people with dementia. People who 'get in the way' by walking slowly along the pavement may be doing the best they can to stay active.
Regular physical exercise is reported to preserve the hippocampus, a region of the brain which thins in association with Alzheimer's dementia. The Cochrane review is guarded in its summary of the value of exercise in dementia: 

There is promising evidence that exercise programs may improve the ability to perform ADLs [activities of daily living] in people with dementia, although some caution is advised in interpreting these findings. The review revealed no evidence of benefit from exercise on cognition, [thinking] neuropsychiatric symptoms [delusions, hallucinations], or depression. There was little or no evidence regarding the remaining outcomes of interest (i.e., mortality, caregiver burden, caregiver quality of life, caregiver mortality, and use of healthcare services).

Social contact seems the most important factor in helping people with dementia to function at their best. Particularly as people with dementia commonly withdraw and become isolated.  Dementia Action Alliances are springing up all over the country. You can find out your nearest initiative here. 

Mindfulness and remembering to forget

Remembering to forget is an important part of recovery from chronic illness or traumatic experience. 

Any parent knows about the need to remind a young child to use the toilet before going out to avoid 'I need the toilet' interruptions to car journeys. There comes a time, though, when the child responds with 'I already have' or 'I don't need to'. The caring parent has to remember to forget, to trust the growing child's own judgement.
The same is true for people with a chronic illness. Say, for someone who experiences urgency to pass urine. They train themselves to visit the toilet before going out or visiting new places. The fear of 'having an accident' prompts them to make this habit a routine and in the short term the habit works. 
As time passes, things can change. The habit of frequent toileting stops working and the person seeks advice. Maybe their underlying condition improves but the default habit is so deeply ingrained that they cannot see the benefit.
A similar sequence can happen in eczema or psoriasis when the urge to scratch becomes the default position. If the skin condition improves, the scratch-itch cycle stirs it up to increase the discomfort.
It is possible that ruminating on a traumatic experience causes the same unhelpful re-running of the pain and upset.
What's needed here is the ability to 'remember to forget'. But how?
Mindfulness involves a focus on the present moment with acceptance. Some methods require a habit of regular meditation and diary-keeping. 

Natural mindfulness seeks to achieve this through contact with nature, such as while walking in the countryside. The calm, spontaneity and beauty of wild nature can train us to truly accept the present moment, driving away ruminations about the past or dreads about the future. Its role in recovering from trauma and easing skin conditions remains to be discovered.

Mindfulness included in NICE recommended treatment for depression

NICE: the UK National Institue for Health and Care excellence publishes evidence based recommendations for doctors and paramedics to follow

NICE reports are thorough and specialised but largely understandable to the general public. If you visit NICE you can enter any condition in the search box and read the advice which doctors are advised to follow in treating any condition.

The recommendations are hammered out by groups of specialists of all backgrounds and are continually updated to take account of new research findings. The full guidelines are quite overwhelming in scale, so I've provided an excerpt below.

It's interesting to note that mindfulness-based treatments are now included in the section dealing with preventing recurrence of episodes of depression and also for social anxiety disorder. Here is an excerpt from the October 2009 updated guidance about non-drug treatment of depression:

Psychological interventions for relapse prevention

1.9.1.8 People with depression who are considered to be at significant risk of relapse (including those who have relapsed despite antidepressant treatment or who are unable or choose not to continue antidepressant treatment) or who have residual symptoms, should be offered one of the following psychological interventions: 

• individual CBT for people who have relapsed despite antidepressant medication and for people with a significant history of depression and residual symptoms despite treatment
• mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for people who are currently well but have experienced three or more previous episodes of depression.

The advice is specific about the duration and frequency of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.

Delivering psychological interventions for relapse prevention

1.9.1.9 For all people with depression who are having individual CBT for relapse prevention, the duration of treatment should typically be in the range of 16 to 20 sessions over 3 to 4 months. If the duration of treatment needs to be extended to achieve remission it should:

• consist of two sessions per week for the first 2 to 3 weeks of treatment
• include additional follow-up sessions, typically consisting of four to six sessions over the following 6 months. 

1.9.1.10 Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy should normally be delivered in groups of 8 to 15 participants and consist of weekly 2-hour meetings over 8 weeks and four follow-up sessions in the 12 months after the end of treatment.

It's a small, welcome recognition that a range of approaches are needed to prevent people spiralling into depression if they can't tolerate tablets or if the tablets don't help.

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Natural Mindful exercises

'See, hear and feel': the three main ways to   let Nature in 

In a mindful walk next week, we'll be exploring how our senses bring home the enduring freshness of the natural world. We'll visit some of my favourite places to test out a series of exercises in looking, listening and experiencing the natural flow and rhythm of the countryside at the very beginning of spring. 

I'll be interested to hear your ways of sensing the inspiration and spontaneity of Nature and any feedback you can give me on the exercises we try out while walking. Daily walks calm me and inspire me and I'd like to hear about ways that calmness and mindfulness can deepen for you and last throughout the day.

Exercises I'm developing include: 'Colours of the rainbow' and '3D listening'. 

Colours of the rainbow can be used alone or in pairs. The world looks real because it's composed of all the colours of the rainbow. If I search out the seven colours in order while walking: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet in turn, I surprise myself with the astonishing variety of colours in nature. As I continue to walk, that sensitivity to unexpected colours stays with me.

3D listening involves stopping at a convenient point on a hillside such as a green corridor with a view of a valley. I stand and listen with eyes closed for one minute and concentrate on the pitch and loudness of sounds I'm hearing. I try to pinpoint the direction of all the sounds I can hear. The sounds may include machines, planes overhead as well as birdsong and the wind in the trees. I aim to cultivate a non-judgmental acceptance of all I can  hear and I hope that in this way I can become a better listener.

More interesting still is the area of feeling, so I'd welcome your support not exactly in tree-hugging but in experiencing the textures and smells of the plants around us. I find this intriguing because in my experience, sensations quickly bring emotions to the surface.

So I trust we'll share our reactions to practising natural mindfulness while enjoying a convivial walk in beautiful countryside with like-minded people.

Intuition and intent

How much control do I really have over what goes on in my brain?

Cognitive behavioural approaches invite us to think that it is our habitual denigrating thoughts which lead us to ruminate on past mistakes and inadequacies. 

All I need to do is to set aside negative thoughts. And that can be immensely powerful. 

I need a range of responses to my dissenting inner voices: 
Stop        I changed my mind      Tell me later   I'm doing the best I can

I find two difficulties with this approach.

1. My uncosncious is at work. My brain may be presenting past failures to me for a good reason. When I find myself humming a tune, I generally find there is something in the mood of the piece or the wording of the lyrics that is immediately relevant to my predicament at that moment, usually something I've been overlooking. Also my unconscious is immensely clever at sabotaging my intent.
2. In order to be creative and open to intuition I need to let my thoughts flow in their own way. Being present is partly stepping aside to accept the mood I'm in. I might be down among the ghosts and monsters of the lower unconscious, a scary but immensely creative place where innocent trees turn into wild unknown worlds. Instead of looking for the stop tap, I want to marvel at the symphony of brain chemicals that is constantly shifting the way I see, hear and feel. 

I'm not comfortable with analogies of the brain as a computer: [reboot, default mode, delete] or as a business [executive function, CEO] I find the natural world more explanatory: [web of life, evolutionary tree]

My model of the self is like a planet and at any moment I find myself located at a ford where my conscious intent crosses the 'flow of consciousness'. 

My intent may be in a position of power or at the opposite pole of no control. The stream may be deep into sadness, in natural mindfulness, mingling with the people around me or high up at its source, in the safe place remote from the present.

All I can do is seek a path through the woods which reminds me of the wonder of life in all its forms, of patterns and healing and recovery.

I hold onto is this conflict between intent and intuition which you could call the battle between will and love.

Being happy

There's no science to being happy however we measure it

Boyd Tonkin writes in Saturday's Independent newspaper

here

Among the authors he quotes is Daniel M Haybron

Associate Professor of Philosophy at St Louis University

 whose acronym: SOARS is designed to summarise thinking about the philosophy and sociology of happiness:
It stands for 

Security [not necessarily wealth, a strong sense of sufficinecy and protection]

Outlook [hopeful and altruistic, not fearful and selfish]

Autonomy [free to set your own goals, not multiple consumer choice]

Relationships [not exclusively close family and friends, a network of trusted social contacts]

Skilled and meaningful activity [tasks that reinforce self-esteem and make sense of your world, whether paid or not]

Interestingly, Haybron suggests we might add: 'contact with the Natural world' to the list [SNOARS?]

From the article, I conclude that international comparisons of happiness levels and charts of the unhappiest towns in Britain are a waste of time. 

I'm not sure that I can do very much about optimising security, outlook, autonomy and relationships. My numbers of friends, ambition and sense of freedom were probably all laid down very early, based on reacting to my parents, teachers and carers.

But I suppose I could take up more skilled and meaningful activity; does that rule out computer games? What about the allotment? Hardly skilled and not very productive.
Of course I can get out into Nature more, so maybe that's the one I should concentrate on.

Active alert mindfulness

People often think mindfulness is about going inward

inducing a calm trance by focusing on an image such as a candle flame. That's true but it's not the only path to a mindful state. 

There are methods that have been used for thousands of years that rely on active, alert approaches to achieve mindfulness. The Zen master, Bokuju called out his own name as a way of clearing his mind of unneeded thoughts. Another approach is via direct attention unmediated by language; a condition achieved by training. 

Natural mindfulness has to be active and alert; it uses our instinctive response to the natural world to settle our worries, fears and regrets. For me, it is a combination of curiosity and concentration. Walking through fields and woods raises hundreds of questions like: can I tell what time of day it is? Is the wind still blowing in the same direction? Has something changed since I was last here? 

The calls of birds and rustling among the leaves draw me in to expereince the aliveness of the present moment.   

Jay Dixit offers the best ideas here: savour the present; for me any garden or wild place helps. I take issue with his statement: 'mindful people are happier' because I think mindful people are also sadder. That is, they experience the full range of emotions without dwelling on setbacks indefinitely. 

Natural mindfulness: walking in the open air to clear the mind demands that you stay alert if you're walking through a wood with badger setts and low hanging branches.  But it may be that some people have ways to focus their attention in daily life. 

One method I'm exploring is to begin with a number 5: halfway between 0 [experiencing maximum angst about past mistakes and dread of the future] and 10 [being totally in the present moment] Most of us begin somewhere near 5. We need to plan for the future and learn from the past but not so much that it clouds every moment. 

I'm interested in how people raise the figure to '6'; being more in the present; to notice what is happening now. I begin by imagining how I would feel, what I might hear and see  if I was more in the present. Then I take a deep breath in and as I breathe out, I step into the space where '6' is. 

That's all.

Natural Mindfulness

What is natural mindfulness? 

I like the phrase: 'Letting nature in'. For me, there is always something which the natural world can show us that is immediately valuable in our lives. Our unconscious is able to present that to us through our mind, body or feelings. But we need somehow to practise stepping back from everyday concerns: regrets about the past or anxiety over the future, in order to be open to this message.

How can a guide facilitate natural mindfulness? 

  [my personal view]

• By slowing down. there's no hurry in mindfulness. There is something about moving slowly through the countryside that renews our connection to the natural world. Way back in time, moving through the landscape was vital to our survival. If we spend too long indoors we miss out on this experience.
• By being in a calm, timely state of mind, body and feelings. Mental, physical and emotional pains can seem overwhelming but on a wintry day in the Cotswold countryside you have to pay attention to where you're putting your feet. But it's more than distraction: it is listening for the underlying message.
• By being curious. Curiosity, asking questions takes us to new learning. It's been said: 'Beginner's mind, Zen mind'. 
• So is a guide an expert? No. The most naive questions that a beginner could ask, such as: 'Why is the sky blue?' experts struggle to answer. A guide is not an expert, he or she is a facilitator, encouraging the conditions for natural insights to come for every person on a walk.
• Do I need to study nature in order to benefit? No. Use your favourite way of 'being in the present' going beyond overthinking, customary body sensations and well-worn emotional paths: meditation, centring, relaxation or creative visualisation and [I believe] you will find that you are more than your mind, body and feelings. Some people call this disidentifying
• Does mindfulness take a lot of effort? If you discover that this state of mind is useful, your unconscious will practise it often and enable you to use it when you need it most.
• Is it like a nature walk? It's what you make it. Maybe a wilderness experience is part of it, maybe noticing the particular season, time of day and seeing, hearing or feeling something special to that particular time and place.

The final week, access all areas

With only six days of November left, it's time to try out all strategies in order to finish the editing this month. 

These are the strategies I'm using [perhaps you have better ones]

Set goals: 

dividing my remaining task into five with 30 pages to go; that's six pages a day. On good days I'll try to exceed that.

Keep the journal: 

I [sometimes] write in my journal before going to sleep. it reminds me which scene I've been working on and shows me how far I've come in the last week. I need to see how close I come each day to my goal; the end is practically in sight.

Book train journeys

Make sure you have the hard copy or laptop to edit on the way. I have a two hour journey planned tomorrow. Trains are great for creating the illusion that there's no escaping the task. Journey times flash by when you're revising. I have another journey on the final day of the month so [if it's not overcrowded for Christmas] I can binge edit and hopefully reach the final page.

Stay away. 

Often a hotel can have the same effect as a journey, giving me nothing to do but write. I'm staying away for two nights this week. I think of it as a writing retreat. At this stage I need to trick myself with strategies like this.

Be kind to yourself. 

Obstacles often rear up at the last moment and we can't ignore the needs of work, familes and friends. This month I've had a domestic emergency: leaking pipe, workshop duties, busy weekends everything to disrupt my intent to finish editing the novel this month. It's 45,000 words long so it's not as long as some adult novels; it should be easy, no?

Bake.

It may be counterintuitive but baking helps me write because each time my dough is proving I have time to revise a few more lines of the book. The smell of baking raises my mood.Also writing increases my appetite and I have no time to shop for food.

More suggestions invited...

How to finish the novel in the drawer

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could bring an unfinished novel out of the drawer, edit and submit it? 

So why don't we?

I'm assuming you're an accomplished writer who has benefitted from critiques by other writers whose work you admire. Perhaps you've completed a course an evening class, belong to a writing group or maybe you've completed an MA. It doesn't matter, we're all in the same boat.

Editing a book, however long, is a big task, too big, needing changes to dialogue, names, and even plot. Dialogue and names are easy but changes to the plot are serious because then you'll need to alter every other chapter to be consistent.

I can't get back into that space; my life is different now. I can't read all those sources that I took ages to find. If I do they don't seem as inspiring.
I have too many other things to do.

So what is the answer?

Not having time is just an excuse. Do you feel alive when you're being creative.? To rejig your priorities, you need a pattern interrupt:

Go on a writing retreat with other aspiring writers. Their enthusiasm and determination will rub off on you. 

If you need the visual prompts, take a scrap book of images and cuttings with you, some people use Pinterest.

I can't afford an Arvon course.

Persuade your writing friends to share the cost of a weekend break. Take your partner as long as they leave you in peace for a   few hours every day.

When you return home you could have that sense of needing to find a little time every day to keep the novel ticking over in your mind. If so, set a simple goal for the following month such as revising just two pages a day.  Trick yourself by starting before the first of the month. Take the novel manuscript printed out or on a laptop on the train. As long as you can sit down on a train you can usually get something useful done. Visit distant relatives by train. Do everything to maximise editing time.
Complete the first edit. The next step is for the next blog...

Mindfulness, wilderness experiences and getting lost

I 

My first mindful walk as a guide is on Friday 23rd October. When I was out preparing the way today I was wondering: Does a winderness experience help me to reach a mindful state.

Mindfulness: 

paying attention to what I'm seeing hearing and feeling in the present moment.

I have known people who deliberately get lost: they take the narrow path at every fork and are at risk of straying onto privately owned land. I can imagine that it tests their intuition, tracking skills and makes them sensitive to every clue to the route home. Some people might find this frightening and land owners can certainly object. I have lost track of a path as night descends but I've always known roughly where I was.

Exploring mindfulness has led me to pause for thirty seconds in a pine wood, for instance, to listen to the sounds though it might be a few steps off the track. Fortunately I've often seen dog owners doing the same and I don't think a small diversion is a problem for the local land owners.

But the path I was walking today was bordered on both sides as the landowner clearly wanted to keep walkers exactly on the permitted path. I felt penned in and separated from the woodland on either side.  That got me thinking about what a true wilderness experience would be like. 

There would be no signs of human activity and no one to meet on the path and no indication of the correct route. While I was thinking this a helicopter flew low overhead, a farmer was cutting hedges and gun shots were scaring the pheasants.

It's not possible to escape the sounds of human activity. There is a rarely taken path I know which climbs the hillside in the middle of the wood, but I still see feeding stations for the pheasants and cables or drains or irrigation pipes.

It's not necessary to be in a complete wilderness to be surprised by natural beauty; one of those moments you meet when you're out walking. What helps me is to ask a question like where's that sound coming from? Or to check whether I see a particular bird that I saw at this spot last time.

Strangely what is helping me most at present is being orientated. Knowing where the sun is and where the wind is coming from. As I walk my circular route I have a reason to pay attention to what I see, hear and feel; I notice if the wind swings round and lines itself up with the sun. Checking the trees, chimney smoke and the movement of the clouds has made me aware of the ever-changing present moment. 

But everyone's different maybe people have other ways to keep directing their attention back to the present moment when out walking.

The secret of Wicked's success

The Musical 'Wicked' is a massive transatlantic success. 

What's the secret of Wicked's success?

1. Wicked champions the outsider, Elphaba is picked on for her colour and refusal to conform. We see many redeeming qualities in Elphaba: she sticks up for her teacher when he loses his voice and he falls into disrepute because he's not human. Opening scenes often feature arrival at school or college but Wicked pulls it off with humour, poking fun at the apparently sincere good witch, Glinda. But later on, the wicked witch Elphaba releases flying monkeys which cause havoc.

2. Wicked has style: strong female leads, an emerald and black colour scheme, brilliant lighting and stage effects  clocks to rival Harry Potter and Philip Pullman's Dark Materials and a cross between Victorian steampunk and 1930's American costumes. There are enjoyable touches of irony and parody. The Wizard sings a song in 1920's style reminiscent of King Herod's song in Jesus Christ Superstar 'Try it and See'.

3. It even begins with a disabled character, NessaRose whose relationship with her sister Elphaba promises an emotionally intelligent sub-plot

For all its style and popularity, the plot chunters off into nowhere land with arrests, escapes, re-arrests. The most glaring travesty of Elphaba's feisty nature comes in a stick fight with Glinda over Fiyero, the self-confessed shallow male lead.

Sadly Tessa Rose is portrayed as a mistake resulting from her parents' desire to avoid having a second daughter like Elphaba. "She's my fault," says Elphaba. The disabled sister and daughter is a millstone for all to carry. [as in Sleepovers by Jacqueline Wilson] Thus reinforcing widespread perceptions.

In one powerful scene, Tessa is cured by Elphaba's spell and stands for the first time. It must be hard for anyone in a wheelchair to witness this escapist denial of the meaning of chronic illness which harks back to sanitised fairy tales. 

Tessa Rose's fate is sealed off-stage when she is later crushed by a falling windmill and we are left to imagine that her recovery may have been temporary so she was unable to get out of the way in a sudden malevolently stirred-up storm.

The victory of style over contemporary resonance is complete.

Global Warming: UK CO2 emision trends

You'll find the most recent charts detailing the UK's performance in reducing CO2 emissions here: Skellyrocker 

Provisional figures for 2013 suggest a 20% reduction in overall emissions over the last 20 years with the biggest contribution to the fall coming from energy suppliers switching from coal towards biomass, solar PV and wind power.

Note that domestic energy use and transport has hardly changed over the years.

Renewables provided 17.8% of UK energy in the most recent figures: [3rd quarter of 2013]

The growth in renewables has largely been due to increasing use of biomass and onshore wind farms. Some biomass arises from methane and some from burning refuse and some from crops. Though they're renewable, biofuels which are grown to burn take up valuable farming land and won't reduce our CO2 production.

UK Govt uploads

A lot more needs to be done to insulate homes, switch to LED lighting and develop low carbon cars, buses and trains. Even if other countries fail to match the UK, knowledge and experience of low carbon technologies is likely to be a crucial survival factor for UK economic performance.