Flight of fancy, or a far-sighted protest?

One issue picked up by the media and now, looking like a handle for BAA to grab on to is class. Some members of plane stupid are from privaliged backgrounds, and that interests journalists for some reason. I`m not sure that this would be the worst thing in the world in normal times but in a receesion it really isnt what you want. It's easy to drive a wedge between those supposedly with the luxury of protest and those who need cheap air fairs and a strong economy.

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From the Guardian (link)


Plane Stupid's activists train in protest techniques, such as padlocking themselves to things, so as she sat on the ground near Stansted's runway, Rosie Slay was not overly concerned for her safety, despite the bicycle D-lock attaching her to a fence by the throat. Safety is always a big consideration during the group's actions, she says.

The police had arrived shortly after the protesters, and were removing them one by one from their makeshift barricade, cutting some loose with bolt cutters. It still took more than two hours, to the demonstrators' delight, though Slay didn't delay the officers for as long as she had hoped - the police found the key to her lock on the grass.

Five days after the daring 3am action that shut down one of London's airports, cancelled 52 flights, disrupted thousands of passengers, amassed huge international publicity and prevented the equivalent damage, by Greenpeace's estimate, of 2,162 tonnes of CO2, the young activists of Plane Stupid have been reflecting on what they consider as the enormous success of their intervention.

"We were really, really happy as we were getting arrested," says Slay, 20, a student originally from Hackney, east London. "We had people on the phones talking to the media and as we got more and more information about the amount of coverage, we were really elated."

Coverage of Monday's protest, and the curiously polite radicals who staged it, has focused on their backgrounds as "toffee-nosed youngsters", a collection of supposedly spoiled rich kids with more time than insight.

Still essentially a student movement, there is no question that like most university campuses, Plane Stupid is more white and more middle class than the national demographic.

But the most striking common characteristic of those who took part in the protest is their unwavering conviction, which is compelling.

Josh Moos, who like Slay is a student at Sussex University, is at 21 almost an elder statesman of the group, having been involved with the campaign since shortly after it was set up three years ago. He used to be "an armchair environmentalist", he says, but "I realised from further reading that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time. All further issues are of course important but they all become subjugated to the issue of climate change."

His unofficial role during the runway occupation was to reassure the newer campaigners. The group also provides training in techniques for resisting arrest, media skills and advice on how to deal with your parents.

In total, 54 people were arrested on the taxiway at Stansted, along with a further three as they attempted to leave. Dan Glass, one of the group's leading figures in Scotland, came south to participate with 14 other "affiliates" in Monday's action, but only two chose to get arrested on the runway. The rest preferred to keep their noses clean in anticipation of potential future protests at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.

Last summer Glass, 25, hit the headlines after supergluing himself to Gordon Brown. He rejects the middle class tag, particularly when applied to those living in the poor Glasgow suburbs campaigning against the expansion of the city's airport: "Fifteen percent of the population never even fly, and many of them live in Clydebank, where they are really affected by Glasgow airport. In Scotland the demographic of people involved includes a lot of people who are really economically marginalised," he says.

While some have characterised the action as that of "militant environmentalists", the group argues that what is seen today as dangerously radical will one day be accepted. "We are definitely on the radical end of the spectrum and that is where we wish to be," says Moos. "Visionaries are initially seen as radical before the mainstream catches up with them and accepts their policies."

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Mori Poll on UK Attitudes to Energy: March 2007

MORI carried out a poll on UK attitudes to energy in March 2007. Although some things have changed in the interim i`m sure there are still some important insights for those of us concerned with energy policy.

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Green Jobs: The time is now?

The idea of Green Jobs or sometimes Green Collar Jobs hasn't been around for that long but is certainly making headway and is starting to become a common phrase for numerous organizations working on climate change.

Alliance For Climate Protection:

Dear Calvin,

Please join us this Saturday, September 27 for the Green Jobs Now National Day of Action. Hundreds of events will be held across the country -- free concerts, rallies, teach-ins, house parties and more -- all with the goal to spread the word: we must Repower America with green jobs now.

Worldwatch Institute:

Creating millions of green jobs: Global financial markets face increasing pressures, but a report released yesterday shows that a new green economy is emerging, creating millions of jobs in the next decades that will help tackle climate change. Whether creating clean-burning fuels, installing solar water heaters, or improving the energy efficiency of homes and offices, new jobs will form a key part of the market for environmental products and services, which is expected to reach $2.7 trillion by 2020.

The landmark study, funded and commissioned by the UN Environment Programme under a joint Green Jobs Initiative with the International Labour Office, the International Trade Union Confederation, and the International Organization of Employers, was produced by the Worldwatch Institute, with technical assistance from Cornell University's Global Labor Institute.

Renewable Energy World:
"The green economy is the mother of all economic opportunities," says Lois Quam, Head of Clean Technlogy and Renewable Energy Investments at Piper Jaffray. "This transition presents such a broad and diverse set of challenges for business, it's really remarkable to think about what needs to be done." (link)

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Green Jobs: An Idea Worthy of Greater Attention in the UK?

One idea that seems to be working well for the Americans is Green Collar Jobs. In a slow economic climate with well paid manufacturing jobs at a premium and outsourcing being used a a boogeyman an idea that combines big industry, economic growth and domestic production is bound to do well. My only quaestion is why have the americans come to this so soon after the seriousness of climate change has been established while us in Europe still havent found a way of broading climate friendly policies into a mainstream political force? Perhaps we can learn something from the Yanks.

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creativity and climate change

An inconvenient truth was one hard hitting film, it also continues to produce a lot of web traffic for my blog as i found a video of the talk on which it was based available online.

Now something interesting is happening--a musical based on the film! It's a parodic look at climate change, corporate greed and the general reluctance being shown by people to actually do anything about it.

We arent going to get moving on this without both a govornment shift and a cultural shift, the cultural shift comes from attiudes of individuals changing as a response to all sorts of encounters, this is where the creative industries have a role. As we move past consensus and onto solutions more and more people are getting engaged in changing outdated attitudes towards our planet. Comedy is perhaps the best way to do this, perticularly on a topic as loaded with cynicism and as prone to triggering defencive barriers as climate change.

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Inneqaulity in the US.

Economics is flawed, at least as currently practiced. Currently markets are used quite effectively to carry out the key function of resource distribution. States cannot do this, as the Soviets so convincingly illustrated. However, distribution of economic resources is not the only problem that we need to solve.

If you are a traditional economist then the two areas of concern are:

• Distribution of resources efficiently. (this gets all the atention at present)
• Allocation of wealth. (Ineqaulity in excess leads to low economic productivity)

If you are an ecological economist then these two issues are joined by a third

• Scale. (if the physical limits of the planet are to be considered there is an optimum scale for the economy; with a given distribution and allocation pattern a variety of standards of life are possible depending on scale)

This is best explained by means of an analogy:

Boat's have a plimsol line. You can add goods to the vessel untill the water reaches this level. If you are careful and distribute the goods evenly over the vessel you may carry more than if the weight is to one side. The weight is analagous to the economic activity, the boat our planets carrying capacity and the distribution is the perfect distribution of resources in the economy.

We can stretch this analogy further to cover inneqaulity. It is well known that a unit of wealth for very poor is more productive than for the wealthy. If you give a poor farmer $500 dollars he may be able to transform his livelihood, the same can not be said for a millionaire. So if we imagine not a deck with goods to be sifted around but a series of decks where goods on the higher decks represent the wealthy we can see that this to destabilises our boat. The higher the centre of gravity the more the boat rocks, even if the load is even and not great the plimsol line will be diping into the water and tising far above.

When dealing with envieronmental issues we must embrace economics. We must say, what a facinating system, let us set it a new challange. Having largely solved distribution let us then look at scale and allocation. We must fight inneqaulity and population growth as we promote innovation and eco-efficiency.

All of this is important not only in terms of comming to grips with communal challanges but also in terms of getting such a movement off the ground. Ineqaulity has many associated malodies, it does not emerge out of thin air and the related social issues of insecurity and lack of trust are certain to promote reactionary, defencive politics not a generous progressive agenda.

The video bellow covers the current economic state of play in the US.

Panel discussants:

Alan Krueger, the Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Policy and Director of the Survey Research Center at the Woodrow Wilson School;

Douglas Massey, the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at the School;

Viviana Zelizer, the Lloyd Cotsen '50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton.

Moderator:

Stan Katz, Lecturer with rank of Professor of Public and International Affairs
Faculty Chair, Undergraduate Program

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Climate Code Red: The case for a sustainability emergency.

Climate change is a tricky issue to deal with as we all know. Scaring people to change behaviour doesn't work, big changes require large commitments but how can these be driven if not with the urgency of fear? Marketing companies are desperately trying to find a way to make climate change mitigation sexy...well, good luck with that! The general confusion tends to lead to conservatism in a time when we need radical change.

Targets are bandied around and rallied behind, 80 by 50 has become popular recently. A surprising number of US NGO's have rallied behind this despite the fact that this will leave the US having higher per capita emissions than the earth can absorb and on a timeline that many say is beyond the relevant range for dealing with this problem.

Finding our way through this is going to be tough, one point that i think we need to take is that different types of communication are needed in different contexts. If trying to sell 'green' products or services, it is a moot point as to if the green attributes should even take a high place in the marketing. When dealing with government programs, i looks increasingly like a rallying call is required, a well resourced, broad and serious attempt to cut carbon emissions on a short time frame. If we stop talking about 50 years and start talking about 5 years with regular targets for society then perhaps we can get there. Camaraderie is a way to make people feel that they can have an impact, moving a whole society, as if on a serious mission. The oft asked question 'why don't people get it, they just don't see how serious this is' has a surprisingly simple answer. No one is treating this as an emergency, if we have a war on climate change then where are the troops? It's well known that human behaviour is contextual so why should people take the extreme measure of not flying or not buying a car or spending a significant fraction of income on green home improvements. If government starts taking serious actions, funding programmes in a proportionate manner and allowing large numbers of people to access them then we just might kindle a 'climate change war spirit'.

This kind of argument has been made by the Breakthrough Institute who are promoting a government led 'global warming preparedness act'. More recently EcoEquity has produced a report calling for a climate change emergency agenda to be created.

Related:

• Climate Code Red (EcoEquiry)
• Global Warming Preparedness Act (Breakthrough Institute)

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You dont know what you think you do. But thinking it's that way makes it like that!

The Uncertainty Principal in Physics

I`m reading 'The Fabric of The Cosmos' at the moment, it's one of the first popular science books i've read for a few years and it's facinating reading. One idea that it covers early on is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal. This is concept provokes perhaps the most fundemental rethink in our world view when we accept qauntum mechanichs, no longer do we believe that we could predict the future of the universe, even given the best possible information on every particle in the universe and infinte processing power. The reason being that on the microscopic scale we are banned by nature from measuring simultaneously and exactly the position and velocity of a particle. This can be explained by thinking of shining a beam of light at a microscopic object, the stronger the beam the more reflected photons, the greater the accuracy, but, more photons also corrispond with more force. Light has a push, which although small, produces a noticable effect on microscopic objects.

The Uncertainty Principal in Life

Obscure physics, perhaps, but the idea of analysis leading to change is important. The imposibility of having a truly independent observer monitoring but not influencing a system seems relavent with regards the news media. In the case of the media, the US elections are a case in point, some of the candidates who late on in the primaries looked marginal where marginal in large part becuase the media judged them to be marginal and throughout the campaign gave them a marginal amount of airtime, wrote about them stating their marginal nature, mentioned them only in passing...the real question is where they marginal or where they marginalised? A similar dynamic plays out in all sorts of issues, how often are advocates interviewed on important developments that they are trying to change only to be asked 'do you really think that this will have an effect, aren't politicians more concerned about [parochial interest]'. Well, the effect of this is vastly different to if the interviewer had asked 'so do you expect a speedy resolution to this, you do seem to have a good case'. Questions have a great deal of incluence, perhaps more so than answers?

Being forced to think something by a question.

The influence of such 'frames' is vast, Herman Daly suggests that many of the flaws he points to in Limits to Growth (i.e deforestation is classed as income, infinte capital can flow from near zero resources, exponential growth can be sustained) have not been examined closely due to a pre-analytic vision (frame) that excludes the flaws from the realm of critical thought. Noam Chomsky explains this by means of an example. Q: Why is it that the US so rarely criticised for it's foreing politics and role in conflicts? A: By carrying out a literature search it was found that the US media have adopted 'peace process' for 'current US policy with regards to a given group of nations' over many years the US was never reported as being 'against the peace process' as the words 'peace process' by defenition exclude this possibility!

These two ideas, of questions being influence, and false pre-suppositions being built into these questions, in part explain the way propaganda works. These issues face green campaigners as a barage, the climate change conversation is filled with so many questions based on false propositions that straightening out the mess is quite a minefield. This minefield can be avoided
in one easy way: don't take on the argument!

Opportunity is the new black. Creating an opportunity is better than winning an argument and removes the need for doing so...the argument is smaller when the cost of conceeding is smaller so make that opportunity attractive and you can't loose.

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NGO's : Don't Try to 'Green' That Company!

Why do people protest when businesses take on polluting practices?

• There is one winning reason, bad PR can be expensive and theirfore can concievably drive a business towards less damaging practices. However it is extremely difficult to push a whole sector in the desired direction; it's a true race to the bottom.
  
• 
  
• But, you might say, green business is profitable, greed can be green. I`d agree with this, it can be, however it often isn't in the real world. The real world is defined by the distorting subsidies and political environment.
  

Which leads to my conclusion. We do ourselves a dis-service by campaigning for corporations with a fiduciary duty to maximise proffits to internalise costs, they are externalising machines! This sort of behaviour by greens is a result of neo-liberal indoctrination. Companies do not rightfully hold the power, govornments representing us do, go to those who hold the power to make the change.

So given the option I would rather protest at the Department of Transport when aviation expansion is proposed, not the company (BAA) that runs the airport; and i would rather protest at the department for the environment when coal expansion threatens, not at the company headquaters. We don't have the resources to go after every polluting company, busineses are going to teach themselves about running thier busineses more efficiently, what no other group of society is going to do is bring corporate interests in line with community interest through relavent regulation.

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Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism and the Politics of Possibility

When 'The Death of Environmentalism' was released some time back, it caused a lot of heat in the environmental movement. The argument continues to this day and from this longevity the impression is created that there are substantial arguments made which have yet to be countered. Indeed i believe this to be the case, and the argument has more recently been expanded by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenburger in a new book which i have just finished reading 'Break Through: From the death of environmentalism to the politics of possibility'.

This book is problematic in several ways. Firstly, there is a lot of generalisation about environmentalism: there are many people working on issues that effect the environment that don't see themselves as environmentalists. Secondly, the attacks on existing movements do seem a bit to vicious to be simply constructive criticism. Indeed the references to Nietzsche and and defence of the poorly understood concept of will-to-power, and of hubris, may leave some questioning just how much arrogance they can stomach.

"But a certain hubris is always required of people, be they environmentalists or neoconservatives, who wish to change the world."

Having accepted that the book delivers an unpalatable message from some rather unlikable messengers i ask you to read this book and try to give the critique a fair shot. I must admit that although at times the language of sociology and psychology left me uncertain about the books direction, the argument was in general very tight and for me at least, persuasive. So if you don't see yourself in the one dimensional picture of environmentalists painted, accept that an underlying concept is under attack and that concept is followed as an ideology imperfectly. The important question is weather or not you accept not the criticism but the desirability of the alternatives proffered.

The key arguments as i see them are:

1. Environmentalism has drawn a conceptual box around nature and has mobilised to protect this box. Human/Nature is only one way in which we can conceptually divide up the world. There are better ways , ways that will lead to better outcomes for interests as currently, and as more broadly defined.


2. By including humans in our vision as post-environmentalists we can broaden our sights and increase success politically. This change involves taking on non-environmental ends as part of our mission, this is crucial for making an issue as vast as climate change politically sustainable. A focus along the lines of Hawkens, Lovins and McDonugh should act as a focus for this new politics.


3. A society of economic uncertainty, inequality and poverty is not conducive to action on climate change or other issues that have similar results as climate change. We must build a movement to counter these issues, which are consistently at the top of opinion polls ans strongly relevant to elections. Part of this should be a huge state led programme of investment in energy research.
   

I agree with Nordhaus and Schellenburger on much of this. Point 1. is the nub of the essay. There is a call for, not a claim of, The Death of Environmentalism. The reasons being that the conceptual box 'environmentalism' is no longer the best one for serving our values. Point 2. is in my view an answer to the question of how we approach climate change, either as a technocratic or a systemic issue, the case made seems to be that a technocratic based approach would see the issue as pollution based, but that in order to make the requisite scale of change we need to activate people and businesses behind a positive vision that is more than simply against something bad, it is for something incredibly new and positive. Point 3. gives us some direction on a post-environmental movement. It relies on the case built throughout the early part of the book that environmentalim at its most successful was not counter cultural, but a part of generosity of heart that abounded at times of prosperity and optimism, a time when progressive politics was universally dominant in the US.

“Nothing is more central to this book than our contention that for any politics to succeed , it must swim with, not against the currents of changing social values."

If there is a weakness to Nordhaus and Schellenburger's essay then in my mind there are two candidates. Firstly, the essay tries to disband the idea of limits. In terms of a limit to growth, three tools are used to through this of into the distance. First is the idea of growth defined not as GDP but as well being; we therefore can promote growth through equality, economic justice and security. It would seem to me that this broader definition is what we are being asked to fight for, but GDP is still there at the heart of development.

"The new vision of prosperity will not be the vision of economic growth held by those who worship at the altar of the market. It will define wealth not in terms of gdp but as overall well-being"

Then the ideas that William McDonugh and his cradle to cradle thinking encapsulate well. If goods are created to be reused or there materials reincorporated then production becomes part of a cycle not part of a destructive linear process.

"What is needed, in short, is not so much less as different consumption."

Finally these ideas are paired with reference to Amory Lovins and Paul Hawken; huge advocates, not of different consumptions so much as efficient consumption. But we are left with the quote above and the words i placed in italics. Can we really move to a stage where GDP is absolutely decoupled from net material throughput of our economy?

The second apparent weakness is a pragmatic rather than conceptual one. We are told that in claiming to speak for nature and for things as they stand, we are conservative, even reactionary. Is is claimed that such appeals to nature as a higher authority are authoritarian, in the same way that religions make appeals based on there access to god's word. This took some time for me to understand or accept. I would say that in principal i now do. The environment isn't above politics. This was part of an argument that they needed to wind in order to do away with the conceptual box of environmentalism; however, in practice, we don't understand the ecology that supports us. So in virtually all cased the process of building a vision for a place we value, rather than protecting it on the basis that conservation is always good, would leave much potential value unrecognised.

I`m going to read this again in a few months. I certainly recommend that you read the book, there are many novel ideas. It's provocative stuff.

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Killing environmentalism (or rebranding it).

A couple of videos worth watching about campaigning and communicating climate change.

1. The Death of Environmentalism Ted Nordhaus + Michael Schellenburger
2. Communicate 2007 Solitaire Townsend

Further to these videos you might like to look up some of the conservative think tanks e.g Herritage Foundation, AEI, Adam Smith Institute and look at the words they use for describing thier climate change 'solutions'. It might not be a bad idea to steal there language to the greatest possible extent. Looking at the criticism of the right can also be instructive; you can carefully though not explicitly defend against such attacks in any letters you write or materials you create.

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Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility

I`m reading "Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility" at the moment. I think the book is like eating vegetables. You know there 
are lots of vitimains in them but you'd rather eat something a bit more appatising. 

That brings me on to a simple point that i forgot to post some time back:

Resisting the status quo is vital, accepting the possiblity of radically revising views is so important. The idea of 'group think' is a very real threat. People seem to revel in certain assumptions, the sort of assumptions that somone will allude to in a joke and everyone will chuckle. Whilst this easy comfort is all very well for a friendly social grouping it is deadly for the prospects of comming up with original ideas and ways of working. All the excititing stuff happens at the uncomfortable margins, where people are thinking carefully and clearly. This is where the authors of my current piece of reading are.

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Climate Change: Systematic vs Technical Perspectives

There are many opposing economic and technological perspectives on climate change; at one end is the technical view at the other is the systematic critique. Many northern NGO's share the middle ground with significant differences between the US and the UK.


At its core the technical perspectives goes something like this:

"Climate change is huge challenge for society. It's cause is greenhouse gas emissions. In order to solve the problem we therefore need to make it economically rational to reduce emissions: we need a price for carbon. The best way to allocate capital is through a cap and trade scheme."

Other elements are typically pursued under the mantra of reduced carbon emissions:

"We must look at every option including nuclear power. Biofuels can help development in the south as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Afforestation is an affordable form of carbon sequestration. Forests must be protecting by compensating for lost profit from forestry and agriculture."

The systematic critique ties together issues that may superficially seem separate. At it's core the systemic critique says:

"Those of you interested in climate change are no doubt not interested in changing weather per se but in the consequences of this change; it is therefore dishonest of you to tackle climate change in isolation of other issues that lead to these same consequences. Furthermore, although these issues are of greatest concern to you we in the south have other issues to contend with that are as severe and urgent for us. Climate change is part of the issue of sustainability--reducing carbon emissions to save the coral, the rainforest, the arctic, will not make sense if overfishing destroys the coral ecosystems, deforestation takes the rainforest and pesticides render the arctic sterile. However, all of these issues are inextricably linked to equity; in a world of poverty, disease and injustice we cannot expect the environment to be cared for in the manner required for human kind to overcome this issue of sustainability. We have no future if we fail to recognise that sustainability is the challenge of our time and only fundamental changes to the global economic system offer the solution"

Common concerns arising from this systematic critique include:

"Considering all options is just fine but future generations who would be left with nuclear powers toxic legacy have no say in the decision, and we know to well how badly decisions are made when those effected are not consulted; also it's odd to talk about economic optimisation and subsidies in the same breath! Biofuels are generally grown by wealthy farmers with the involvement of multinational corporations: this is a power structure that we do not wish to strengthen. Biofuel production to date has involved land confiscations and displacement of farmers onto virgin forests, the advantages have been limited and where they exist these have been reaped by the wealthy. Afforestation has similar land rights issues to biofuels. Protecting ancient forests is a worthy cause, however in many nations of the south a few wealthy land lords own the vast majority of the land. Is this state of affairs going to be strengthened and the price paid by the newly unemployed foresters; surely the last thing we want is a wealthy elite living off the land by doing precisely nothing, while the rest struggle to get by."

I the battle between these perspectives on climate change continues at international climate talks, in national parliaments and in my head! I believe i have given the systematic critque a favourable rendering here, however, is some ways i havent been harsh enough on the technical approach and in others i tend to agree with its wisdom. The whole question of a given approaches wisdom is however only part of the story.

We start from here not from blank. It is not clear where to draw the line: replacing the economic system with something more equitable is a noble goal, and surely must be done, but in the shot time we have is this to be our primary approach? Alternatively are the NGOs right that a middle ground must be found and that some tasks must be carried out by those corporations currently in power and on there terms?

This is a interesting if not a simple area and Rising Tide North America (False Solutions Page), The Corner House and the Trans National Institute (Bali Essay) are amongst those working on it.

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Coal: what do we do about it?

Coal, we love to hate it. It's dangerous to mine workers, it's twice as bad for the climate as natural gas, it's not much safer for local residents than for miners.

But, it just so happens to power the world: it is by far the largest source of energy in the US and 80-90% in China!

In the Europe and the US we have two options: try to stop coal power plants being built or try to stop any coal power plants without carbon capture and storage being built. We have moderatly growing needs for energy along with the need to replace old plant. Things are rather different in China and southeast Asia.

Jeremy Carl makes a compelling case that green groups need a better stance than coal is evil. Think of it this way, China has the vast majorit of its power from coal. If these plants could be upgraded affordably then far more carbon would be saved that by building gigawatts of wind power. Shouldn't there be campaigns to research more efficient coal power and to roll out this technology...discuss.

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Coal Power: Fossil Fueled or Just Fossil?

In my last post i mentioned what i consider to be one of the biggest developments in the US on climate policy this year. A coal fired power station had its application turned down, now that isnt an uncommmon thing of late, the important point was that this refusal was due to carbon dioxide (Co2). This is the first time that i have heard of anything being denies a permit due to co2 it's a bizarre state of affairs, hopefully we can see more roads, power plants, airports etc., dennied planning permission as they are inately carbon intensive activities. This is results on the grounds stuff, more positive in my eyes than traded carbon credits of uncertain voracity. Coal fired power plants are going out of vogue, fast.

There was an opinion survey taken in the US recently that illustrated the current mood of the nation very nicely. This is some optomistic reading! Go on, spoil yourself, give the latest climate science a mis and check out the changing political landscape.

[A] new poll shows that "75 percent of Americans -- including 65 percent of Republicans, 83 percent of Democrats and 76 percent of Independents -- would 'support a five-year moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in the United States if there was stepped-up investment in clean, safe renewable energy -- such as wind and solar -- and improved home energy-efficiency standards.'"

The poll was full of other bad news for Big Carbon: Only 3 percent of Americans said they would advise their power company to look to coal as a new electricity source; the idea of turning coal into gas or a liquid with federal money got support from only 15 percent; more than 80 percent of Americans felt that fossil fuels were the energy technology of the past, and that it was time for a new, renewable industrial revolution -- including 84 percent of Republicans.

Via Huffington Post


Related Reading:
My previous posts on coal fired power plants.
Me lamenting the dumb people at TXU before it dumped its plan for coal power expansion.

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Go Green With Virgin Trains

A few days ago i mentioned that i had been emailed and asked to post an unbranded advert about travel by train. It was quite obviously Virgin trains style, and i have just confirmed this after finding an article on the controvercial campaign and the virgin trains website page where the campaign is based.

A few stills from the hillarious first viral:







The message is that unsustainable transport are changing the seasons and confusing our wildlife.

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The Randy Buggers! Climate change and sexually confused wildlife...

I recieved an email asking me to highlight a video about unsustainable transport and climate change (unbranded but clearly by Virgin). In fact i get paid £10 to post this...but hopefully you will agree it was worth sharing without the sweetner!

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Global public opinion solidifies on need for emissions reduction.

When the people lead the leaders will follow...so said somone famous...and a girl i met at a climate change meeting in London some time back. Well, it looks like its time for the global political 'followers' to get there running shoes on!

Large majorities around the world believe (report) that human activity causes global warming and that strong action must be taken, sooner rather than later, in developing as well as developed countries, according to a BBC World Service poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries.

An average of eight in ten (79%) say that "human activity, including industry and transportation, is a significant cause of climate change."

Nine out of ten say that action is necessary to address global warming. A substantial majority (65%) choose the strongest position, saying that "it is necessary to take major steps starting very soon."

The logic of devloped nations acting, and supporting developing nations was also widely grapsed by people from around the globe: despite media spin it the people are clear as to what a just agreement is, one that includes india and china but acknoledges the 'North's responsibility.

The poll shows majority support (73% on average) in all but two countries polled for an agreement in which developing countries would limit their emissions in return for financial assistance and technology from developed countries....

The survey is significant as it was a fairly large sample from a wide variety of nations. The urban bias may be significant.

A total of 22,182 citizens in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, and the United States were interviewed face-to-face or by telephone between May 29 and July 26, 2007. Polling was conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan and its research partners in each country. In eight of the 21 countries, the sample was limited to major urban areas. The margin of error per country ranges from +/-2.4 to 3.5 percent.

However it's not just city folk who are worried about climate change, thanks to the nwfr for the survey results:

A new poll has some surprising findings about New Hampshire’s sportsmen.

77 percent of New Hampshire Sportsmen agree the U.S. should be a world leader in addressing global warming.

66 percent of New Hampshire Sportsmen agree global warming is an urgent problem requiring immediate action.

Will their opinions have an effect in New Hampshire’s primary? The Presidential election?

Is global warming the number one election issue?

Read more and let us know what YOU think!

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IPPR Warm Words II: Encouraging Behaviour Change (PDF)

The latest publication by IPPR on climate change is just out.

A follow up to 'Warm Words' this report (Warm Words II) studies how the dialogue about climate change is changing. What are the words being used, how is the issue being framed and what are the predominant groupings (Discourses) of language, these are the questions pursued through research on UK media and broader communications materials.

The analysis has been done and the evidence presented, the main use of this for most people is objective three: What do the discourses in the public domain suggest are some considerations for an effective campaign? Good communication is difficult but at least the most obvious pitfalls can be avoided.

The overall objectives of this project were:

1. To map the public discourse of climate change in the UK, especially highlighting what has changed since the work we conducted in 2006. This meant careful mapping of the dominant frames and discourses evidenced in popular print, television, radio and online national media coverage of climate change (for example, newspaper articles/columns, government publicity, influential blogs, material from non-governmental organisations [NGOs]).

2. To look at what characterises climate change discourse at the local level – how local press, local authorities and groups engaged in climate-related activities on the ground construct and talk about the issues and their own actions.

3. To compare these sources and discourses, and suggest implications for national and local communications and activities for all those seeking to change public behaviour on climate change.

Related Post:
I invited Simon Retallack of IPPR to LSE in order to give a presentation on the first Warm Words report, i also invited Chris Rose of Campaign Strategy and Solitare Townsend of sustainable marketing company Futterra. The talks of all three and the 'Warm Words' report can be found here.

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Creating a Movement: Vision not Causes

For a long time I viewed climate change as an issue apart from politics. I always saw that it impinged on a wide variety of areas from health to conflict and biodiversity but none the less i saw the issue as an essentially technocratic one.

I have known people who are far more political than myself and regularly used the term 'ideological' as a pejorative, basically equating it with unreasonable.

However, it must be said that the reasons for being against climate change are the same as reasons for being against much of contemporary economics and that many causes of climate change can be looked at from a radical (root cause) perspective as symptoms of a larger problem.

Doing other than this is starting to look daft. To put it simply, when i hear someone from south America telling me about the wage-slave conditions that are leading to exhaustion and death, when i hear about chevron dumping oil in a rainforest because they can...i don't see the logic in saying 'that isn't my issue' it may be more convenient to think in that way: separation of issues allows better management of one issue? In reality issues are so intertwined that we have to move our lines. It is always a difficult decision, where to draw the boundaries on your concerns, if they are two broad then is that idealistic with a lack of pragmatism...if the bounds are to narrow then you are a special interest group ignoring values that you hold dear.


I have just read a fascinating article from the USA Is Environmentalism Dead, a follow up to Death of Environmentalism. These articles have won me over and the Progressive agenda is now my arena. The battle for all of us is the physical sustainability of our planet and the path there is broad and value based...above all we need to fight for values and not for causes.

In fact there may be differences in my views and those of other self-described progressives as i think that much of current capitalism has to be torn down. Many of the existing institutions and corporations.

For now, i am however, content to call myself a reformer rather than a revolutionary.

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