The Matrix of Life

The last year has been a remarkable journey for me. This is my story.

It began with a simple thought on the 28th June 2008 after seeing my brother's film on the 10 New Commandments at last year's Edinburgh Film Festival. What would be the top 10 Rights that should be drafted into a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights? I had been playing around with the idea of how to instigate a Duty of Care for the planet into international legislation, and the UN seemed the inevitable starting point. Three days later whilst up a Scottish hillside searching out the ancient cup and ring rocks of the Kilmartin Glen , I set my intent. Such a Declaration was the necessary starting point to re-establish the relationship we humans have lost with nature. How, I wondered, could I get this to the attention of the UN?

Telephone reception being rarer than sightings of mating osprey, I switched on my mobile; a momentary flicker of activity and it rang. It was the United Nations. The date was fixed, and 5 months later I had presented my proposal.

That was the beginning, and those who have followed my blog, the Trees Have Rights Too website and heard me speak at various conferences know of some of the landmark moments. Last week, my journey culminated with me travelling into the heart of Sweden to present the call for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights at the Tallberg Forum.

Tallberg is a remarkable place in Sweden situated on the edge of the Siljan, a lake created by a meteorite over 300 million years ago. Such achingly beautiful countryside, the stillness of the lake stretching out below, it served as a potent reminder of the planet it all it's glory.

We heard from the world's foremost experts on climate change, we held workshops on potential solutions, we plotted and planned. People from the world's foremost institutions came together with the intent of making the planet a better place. These are the people who can take an idea and make it happen. As a counterbalance to all the intense discussions, I camped out beside the lake, I swam, and I thought more. Two messages came across strongly; firstly, it is too late for many of the longer-term plans being debated within the international fora. Secondly, our time-lines are wrong. We need to be looking at the next 3 years, not the next 20 to 50 years.

I realised that a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights was Plan A, but that a Plan B was needed, and by the 28th June, I had in my hand a Plan B.

So, I arrived at Tallberg with an idea - an idea for international legislation, and departed with an idea for a global social movement - a social declaration for all beings, a declaration that applied to individuals and communities rather than one within the hard law context, one that all could apply to ensure life for all, one based on values and our duty to the planet. This is not to negate the Planetary Rights, it is a part of it, but we need to go further, I realised.

Of course, no-one has ownership of ideas, and so I have now handed over the baton for Planetary Rights to the institutions and organisations that can drive it into the UN. That is the top down approach. My work in this regard is now done - my campaign is in effect over, as I believe that the baton has now been safely handed over.

Now we also need is to address matters from the other end of the spectrum - something that speaks not to institutions but to people.

What I devised was a matrix - a matrix for all life.

I can feel a global social movement coming on...

********

Today is the 4th of July, my birthday, and it's a glorious day. I am beside water again, this time the wide and wild expanse of Holkham beach in Norfolk, with winds caressing the sands over the empty dunes. Time now for a little time out.

Today is also known as Independence day. I look forward to the day it is renamed Interdependence day.

Thankyou all who have helped me in my journey over the past year. May this next one be even more exciting.

Redrawing the Map of the World

I have just returned from Anchorage, Alaska, from my attendance at the Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change. Of the 350 million Indigenous Peoples in the world, their most senior leaders from all corners of the globe coalesced for the purpose of finalizing the Anchorage Declaration. As a Celt, technically I can claim to be an indigenous person, but for the purpose of this conference, I was there in ‘observer’ capacity only - to listen but not to be heard. This is a disempowering state to be in, it has to be conceded, and one that ultimately proved to be most instructive.

What I heard over the first days was truly humbling. Stories from Asia, Africa, the Arctic, Latin America, North America, the Carribean and the Pacific of trauma, death and loss due to being the peoples at the forefront of climate change disasters. The same message came across time and again – these peoples, who tend not to be the ones generating the excess greenhouse gases, are the ones who are suffering the most.

Yet these people have no say in the current international climate change negotiations. At best they are able to have what is called ‘observer ‘ status, which means they do not have an active say in the decision-making. This is despite the fact that these peoples are the ones worst affected by climate change, the ones losing their peoples, their land, their homes, their communities torn asunder. All they can do is observe those who are sitting at the negotiation table in their limited and compromised attempts to solve the problem by market led solutions. As they perceive it (and not such an inaccurate description) all this amounts to is the unsuccessful attempt to trade away the planet. They can see all too clearly that such deals are simply not working.

Despite 7 years of carbon offsetting, questionable Clean Development Mechanism projects, limited roll-out of energy efficiency, much hot air vented over the need to see if we can successfully hide enormous amounts of CO2 back under the earth (CCS), and the attempts to rebrand coal as clean, greenhouse gases have escalated beyond all predictions. Reported to have hit 397ppm just this week, we have overshot greenhouse gas levels now by a long way, especially if you subscribe to climate expert and NASA Head of Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hanson, who calls for 350ppm if we are to avoid planetary disaster.

So, back to the conference in Alaska. I was lucky. Unlike the 350 million Indigenous Peoples of the world who have no voice at the Kyoto talks, I was exceptionally allowed to contribute to this conference. To do so was an honour I shall never forget. My suggestion was that the Anchorage Declaration was an opportunity for the Indigenous Peoples of the world to embed their values, values that the so-called developed world have lost sight of: values such as our interconnectedness with nature, the need to respect nature’s own laws and the need to work as one in harmony with the planet. Such values had been repeatedly referenced throughout the conference, and these values are intrinsic within their spiritual practices from all corners of the globe – from Amazonian tribal practices, to the Sami convictions and the Zulu way of life. This is a knowledge that must be brought to the so-called developed world international climate change negotiation table.

Remap the World: Ecological Creditors v's Ecological Debtors
I suggested that the time has come to remap the world. It’s a theme I addressed the United Nations on the 6th November 2008, when I addressed them on the need for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights. A world drawn on developed v’s developing countries basis is hierarchical and one based on outmoded empire way of thinking. It is restrictive, inaccurate, out of date and out of step with today’s realities. So very last century – infact, I would say it was so very 18th Century. It smacks of a time of the so-called Great Colonial Empire when slaves were simply a commodity to be traded, with no regard for consequence. We, the so called developed world, are doing the precisely the same today – only this time the commodity in question is the ecology of the planet. Time now to shift our approach and recognize that we have a world of ecological debtors and ecological creditors, and that it is time to stop those who are generating ever more outstanding debt and hold these ecological debtors to account.

Ecological creditors are not countries, but communities; those who are living on the planet without despoiling it, those who are living in harmony and who understand the inherent interconnectedness with all eco-systems. The ecological debtors on the other hand are those communities who are razing the planet, seizing it’s resources without concern for the consequence of others. The world of illegal loggers, extractive industries, intensive monoculture, GMO and agrochemical corporations – these are our modern world communities of ecological debtors. If we are to be serious in our attempts to stop the further escalation of greenhouse gases, we must put a stop to these debtor practices. After all, the planet is not a bank – there is no overdrawing facility. Just as we are witnessing an economic crisis due to a system built on the sand of borrowing with no pay-back, so now we are seeing the consequences of taking from the planet without recourse.

The Anchorage Declaration is a hugely important document. It is a positioning of those peoples who are affected most by climate change to demand a role as participants within the international climate change decision-making fora. I for one wholeheartedly support this move and call on them to stand strong with Unity. But it is not just the Elders who spoke at the conference. The youth voice of the Indigenous Peoples is particularly strong. They do not broker with compromise - after all it is the youth that have to live with the evolving world. Their strength is in their ability to ensure that compromise does not happen.

We can learn from the indigenous wisdom and values – indigenous peoples understand the inherent rights of the planet, and I am delighted to hear support for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights. On 22nd April Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in Bolivia's history, told the UN General Assembly that people cannot put their interests above those of the Earth. "Not just human beings have rights, but the planet has rights," he said. "What's happening with climate change is that the rights of Mother Earth are not being respected."

The remapping of the planet has now begun.Webcast of Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change, Anchorage, Alaska, April 20 - 24 2009.

Happy New Year - from Matt

In need of some winter joy? All you need ask is...where the hell is Matt?

60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - lets celebrate and look to the future

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights –and as many of you know I am now campaigning for Planetary Rights. We have chosen today’s auspicious date as the official date of our launch of the campaign’s website Trees Have Rights Too, and it's getting a good bit of coverage too, in particular online - Treehugger et all thankyou - with some national and international news. Help us get the word out and spread the news.

Help us ping it off out into the ether and get the debate rolling - we want to hear what you have to say. Some think it mad, some think it dangerously restrictive - but others understand that we have to put in place useful tools to ensure we can help restore harmony and balance with nature. It is after all but a formal recognition of rights that are inherently there.

Remember how suddenly the Berlin Wall came down? Many thought it impossible, but a culmination of events, a window of opportunity, a shift in understanding - and whoosh, everyone was there knocking it down, celebrating the German reunification. Maybe we need the same dramatic seismic shift in consciousness, a knocking down of our mental boundaries that have become erected between us and our relationship with nature and the planet. One that clears the path for us to reconnect with all of earth's communities, not just human, and to provide for the greater freedom and recognition of the planet's rights.

Come join us knock down the barriers of outmoded beliefs and pave the way for a better world.
Trees Have Rights Too

"At first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"
Mahatma Gandhi

The United Nations, Women and Climate Change

Yesterday I went in to talk with Phil Thorhill of Campaign Against Climate Change to discuss the existing gender imbalance witnessed at Campaign Against Climate Change meetings and the forthcoming speaker line-up for the Climate Change March to be held here in London on the 6th December.

It is an issue that numerous Wise Women have brought repeatedly to my attention and want addressed. Time and again I am receiving emails decrying the lack of women at the front face of the environmental movement. Many tell me they only go to hear the women now as they no longer want to hear the same old male bods banging on bleakly about doom and gloom, but that they want to hear women speak, and about solutions and progress as to how we can move forward, as well as addressing the larger implications of gender imbalance and climate change for women in developing nations.

Whether or not it is a valid complaint, it is one that should not be dismissed out of hand. The very fact that we now have three active women organisations, Wise Women, Climate Rush and WeCAN, growing daily here in the UK as well as globally is testimony to the fact that women are wanting to address this perceived discrimination. It is an issue that we here in the UK are now seeking to rectify.

The United Nations recognise this gender imbalance as well. For the last two days they held a conference in New York, organised by the Global Climate Change Gender Alliance to discuss this very issue. One of the issues The Alliance is focused on is capacity-building to ensure integration of gender into climate talks. My Wise Women at the conference have assured me that support is building fast to ensure the integration of gender issues within the national and international climate change negotiations.

We here in the UK are also capacity-building. If you are interested in being part of a growing women's coalition working together to engender great balance within the environmental field here in the UK, come and join us. The next Wise Woman Speaker Event is addressing this very issue: Women and Climate Change, on the 9th December 2008.
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UN press conference on Gender Imbalance and Climate Change
Wise Women
Climate Rush
WeCAN
WEN
WEDO
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About the GGCA: the IUCN, UNDP, UNEP and the Women's Environment Development Organization (WEDO) have come together to create the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA). The goal of the GGCA is to ensure that climate change policies, decision-making, initiatives at the global, regional and national levels are gender responsive.

Wise Women victories in the London courts

It's been a fantastic week for Wise Women environmental campaigners in the London courts. Georgina Downs, founder of UK Pesticides Campaign, scored gold with her landmark victory against the government in her long-running legal battle over the use of pesticides and Tamsin Ormond, founder of Climate Rush, received a conditional discharge for scaling the roof of Parliament (charge: criminal trespass of a protected site).

Both important rulings and both examples of the tide of change towards recognition of the importance of fighting against pollution. For Georgina it is her fight against the use of pesticides and crop spraying, for Tamsin her fight against airport expansion and escalation of aviation emissions. Whilst Georgina took the government to court, Tamsin was taken to court - but the net result was the same: both had taken direct action to prevent environmental injustice.
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The high court ruled on Friday that Georgina Downs had produced "solid evidence" that people exposed to chemicals used to spray crops had suffered harm. Defra's (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) argument that the use and control of pesticides was "reasonable, logical and lawful" was rejected. The court said the government had failed to comply with a European directive designed to protect rural communities from exposure to the toxins. It said Defra must reassess its policy and investigate the risks to people who are exposed.

For Georgina, who this is the culmination of a 7 year campaign. Living on the edge of farmland near Chichester, West Sussex, Georgina was first exposed to pesticide spraying at the age of 11, as a result suffering extensive and long-term injury to her health. Mr Justice Collins upheld her evidence as compelling.

Georgina successfully argued that the government had failed to address the concerns of people living in the countryside "who are repeatedly exposed to mixtures of pesticides and other chemicals throughout every year, and in many cases, like mine, for decades". People are not given prior notification about what was to be sprayed near their homes and gardens (and yet those who are spraying must wear protective clothes and masks).

In his ruling, Mr Justice Collins highlighted that the 1986 Control of Pesticides Regulations states that beekeepers must be given 48 hours notice if pesticides harmful to bees are to be used. The judge said: "It is difficult to see why residents should be in a worse position."

Georgina called for more recognition of what she rightly terms as "one of the biggest public health scandals of our time". She called on Gordon Brown to block any Defra appeal. "The government "should now just admit that it got it wrong, apologise and actually get on with protecting the health and citizens of this country".

The case centred on the way the government assesses the risk posed by pesticides. The current method is based on occasional, short-term exposure to a "bystander" and assumes that individuals would be exposed to an individual pesticide during a single pass.

Mr Justice Collins agreed with Georgina's long-standing charge that "this bystander model does not and cannot address residents who are repeatedly exposed". The model does not account for rural residents exposed to mixtures of pesticides and other chemicals "throughout every year and, in many cases like my own, for decades".

As Georgina pointed out on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice, "The fact that there has never been any assessment of the risk to health for the long-term exposure for those who live, work or go to school near pesticide-sprayed fields is an absolute scandal, considering that crop-spraying has been a predominant feature of agriculture for over 50 years."
........

Menawhile, just 24 hours earlier Tamsin had walked away from court with the nominal sentence of a conditional discharge for her part in scaling the rooftops of the Palace of Westminster to fight against the building a third runway. Their defence: they had protested in order to prevent a greater crime.

With nitrogen oxides near the two existing runways already exceeding those permitted under the rules, documentary evidence established BAA's efforts to evade liability by suggesting the receptors measuring pollution be moved away from the source - "which is tantamount to removing the thermometer from the patient and declaring them well". Whilst Tamsin and the others were not acquitted, her sentence (which carried a maximum of 6 months imprisonment) of a conditional discharge is a very clear indication that, where good reason exists, direct action to protect the planet is likely to be well received in the hallowed halls of the judiciary.

Well done girls - a collective cheer has been raised by all Wise Women. Wise law indeed.

UK Pesticides Campaign
Climate Rush

My call for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights

On the 6th November in Belfast at the United Nations (UK and Northern Ireland) Climate Change Conference, I called upon the United Nations to implement a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights.

Our planet is in crisis, and the United Nations are uniquely placed to implement the necessary foundations to create a new world where prevention and protection stand hand in hand.

A CRY FROM THE EARTH

This planet we call Earth is no longer a place of honour. For too many years we have abused and despoiled it, taken wilfully without regard to the consequences. We have depleted fossil fuel reserves, we have created escalating emissions, we have polluted, poisoned, damaged, destroyed and caused the extinction of numerous species.

We now know that it is because of human activity that we have a planet out of balance. The evidence is conclusive: Climate Change, with it’s escalating greenhouse gases, is a symptom of our greedy consumption of planet Earth. It threatens the very life of all remaining species, plant forms, oceans and waterways as well as human life. James Hansen of NASA has called for us to reduce our emissions to 350 ppm - that is an amount that is now less than current levels (which stand at 385ppm). It is not merely a matter of reducing our emissions by 50%, 80%, 100% as soon as possible, but to evolve and encourage a benign world where we no longer cause damage, pollution and loss.

Climate Change is a symptom of the damage we, humans, have caused by our excessive consumption of the Earth’s resources. We now know that such actions carry destructive consequences – indeed all actions carry consequences - some far more damaging than others. Equipped with the knowledge that the planet’s imbalance is caused by humankind’s actions, comes the duty to act now.

A CALL TO PROTECT

Our planet is however not beyond rescue. What is required is a seismic shift in our consciousness, not a mere reduction of our emissions. The seismic shift should give full recognition that we now owe a duty of care to our beautiful planet. No other planet in our solar system has such variety of species, species that we are losing at an unprecedented rate. Now it is time to provide protection to our planet.

Just as the humanitarian crisis of the Second World War gave birth to the swift implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years ago in 1948, so now we have a planetary crisis that needs to be addressed with equal urgency. Now is the time to call for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights.

This is my call to the United Nations to protect our world. My plea is for co-operation, not confrontation. It is your support that will provide the voice to make this happen. Please help us in our call to protect our one beautiful and fragile planet.

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This is the beginning of a the campaign for global recognition that Trees Have Rights Too.

I shall give my speech again in London on the 18th November 2008 at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1, 6.30pm - 8.30pm.

The event is free, but RSVP is required: please email events@wisewomen.me.uk
For further details of the event, see: Events

The power for action lies in all our hands. If you support the call to the United Nations to act, please help spread the word and forward this to all you think may want to support it - and even those whom you think may not!

Trees Have Rights Too

5 Green Obama Dreams

Is Mr Brown for Turning?

Yesterday Gordon Brown espoused a new world vision, proposing that society's values of "fairness, stewardship and co-operation" must be upheld in business, markets, public policy and across the whole public arena. These are welcome words, but are they just that? They come from the very man who at the 11th hour kicked out the very mechanism that would have ensured the incorporation of such values into the boardroom just two years ago.

The Operation and Financial Review, if it were still operational, would have mandated the 1,300 or so publicly listed companies in the UK to produce narrative statements assessing their performance for the next financial year, including the reporting of social and environmental risks and opportunities. The OFR was set to be included in companies' annual reports, and the first batch were to be published in April 2006. Yes, the new Companies Act was subsequently rolled out, but the included amendments (the limply termed "expanded business review") had successfully watered down any level of increased corporate accountability.

So I am greatly intrigued to hear Gordon's rhetoric. He is right of course, we do need these three values embodied within business practise. But of course, it all depends on how you define and act on these terms (I hear the chant of the Suffragettes echoing ever louder inside my head: Deeds Not Words). Could this mean a reinstatement of mandatory reporting by boards on environmental and social issues? Could it mean the bottom line not being just one of profit but also people and planet? Businesses built on partnerships, support, co-operation, equality, protection of their communities (not just human communities), gender balanced - and dare I say it, love? A place where communication and creativity thrives, where flexibility and decentralisation become the norm rather than the top-down dominator hierarchy that most corporations adhere to (and are now beginning to fail). This would indeed be the business world of the future.

Mr Brown, I hold you to your words.

If you want to know more about how to restructure corporations for the 21st century, read these two:
Ori Brafman and Rod A Beckstrom The Starfish and the Spider
David C. KortenThe Great Turning: from Empire to Earth Communities

[with thanks to John for nudging me to ping this up]

Sarkozy's Council of Wise Men

It is with some concern that I found myself reading Sarkozy’s latest proposal – the creation of a Council of Wise Men to ponder the future of Europe. The man who is touted as being in favour of women’s equality, who has half a cabinet of women (his so-called 'babes') and has traded in one intelligent lady for a younger, leggier but dumber model (she is the one who gained extensive column coverage after claiming on her recent state visit as newly married Mrs Sarkozy that she would like to have a bath with Tony Blair).

So, here we have it, 80 years on since women won the right to vote on equal terms with men, and the start of democratic representation as we know it today - 100 years after the suffragettes fought in this country for those equal rights (and a mantle in their honour I was carrying, just the previous night in Parliament Square), one of the highest profile men in the world (the EU presidency is currently vested in France) has determined that his Council for such weighty matters would be manned by well, men! The implication being that there are no women up to the job, that Sarkozy's women are for the pleasure of the eye, but little more. Certainly this is the case when it comes to weighty matters of the EU. But maybe he allows a little lassitude of the non-political persuasion when at home. How very French.

I put this very issue to a panel of women in the House of Commons last night, who were discussing why so few women are in politics (No Politics Please...We're Women!). I asked them to comment on this decision. One response came back that made me sit up, from fellow celt Lee Chalmers of the The Downing Street Project. She suggested that a corresponding Council of Wise Women be appointed - and see what issues they thought important to ponder upon - and then bring the two together.

This make a lot of sense on numerous levels. Firstly, women do approach politics in a different manner. As Helen Goodman MP pointed out last night, we think differently, we have a different agenda, we have a different style. This is not mere observation, but is fact. Investigations have established that from the age of seven, males and females develop differing approaches to the concept of reason. Males, it was discovered, are more linear in their thinking - issues tend to be either right or wrong. Whereas females diverge and become more holistic, and therefore find it difficult to answer a moral question immediately. Look how this plays out in politics, even today, with the cut and thrust and subsequent reportage on politics. One of our broadsheets presents a boxing scoring on politicians on the issue of the day.

But this is not to say that women are not suited to our masculine, male dominated political world. Decisions are at the end of the day taken in multi-lateral institutions. It's about coalition building, and women are very good at doing that. Look at Angela Merkel, she is exceptionally effective in this arena. Women network on multi and numerous levels, cross referencing and supporting.

Secondly, can a man ever properly represent a woman? Is it practical, do they have the drive to represent women's interests? To really understand and be in a woman's shoes - you really have to be a woman.

I agree with Lee, it is not simply a matter of either/or, but a matter of balance - of both male and female - if we are to benefit for all and our future, tackle trans-boundary issues such as global warming, food, poverty. That's why I set up Wise Women, my network of women who care about creating a more sustainable and environmentally benign world - to start to redress that imbalance, and facilitate more women in becoming comfortable with their voice in what is still predominantly a man's world (in this case with regard to the environment). This is not to say we need less men, but rather that we need more women stepping into leadership roles, now more than ever. It has been statistically proven that countries that have higher participation by women in politics do better and correspondingly encourage more balanced decision making.

If Sarkozy was setting up his team within a company context, he would quite rightly be accused of bias and discrimination. I am if nothing but a lawyer with years of experience in the employment courts. Discriminatory behaviour is something I understand well. Yet for some reason, when it comes to the larger stage, such rights which have been hard-fought for are so easily disregarded. Not one country has taken issue with this anomaly. Why is Sarkozy allowed to do this? The EU, that so prides itself in being transparent and accountable after the debacle of the corruption they swept out in the late 90's, has just demonstrated - that when it comes to the crunch - once again it is jobs for the boys.

I have set up my own Council of Wise Women, and I invite Mr Sarkozy to join us. Maybe that way we can find a way forward for us all.

Women's Resource Centre
The Downing Street Project
Women's Environmental Network
Women and the Vote

Climate Rush: The Aftermath

So, news. What a night! All dressed up in our Edwardian bloomers, piled hair, high collars and red sashes, 2000+ of us took to Climate Rush in Parliament Square. Just as the suffragettes of a century ago had fought for Women's Rights so here we were fighting for the Planet's Rights. The feminine energy was palpable, as was the spirit of our female ancestors.

Two of my Wise Women had made me a wonderful banner, Trees Have Rights Too, appliqued with the clothes of their mother, full of references to times past, present and future, imbued with such spirit - there were even buttons that had been worn at suffragette rallies of the previous century (thank you Tabitha and Lucy). Thus, so the wisdom of our sisters a hundred years back came pouring through - those of the past helping those in the present to move forward into the future. It was a cause they would be fully in accord with, for sure. And so we rushed (ladylike of course) at Parliament's doors.

One rather surly interviewer questioned me at length on whether the potential breach of security was justified. Yes, I replied. If it takes the storming of Parliament to get Gordon Brown to take action on climate change, then yes, the end certainly justifies the means. What of our democratic right to protest? Time now for action - that's why we were chanting the very chant of the Suffragettes - Deeds Not Words. Going by the heightened activity of my inbox and texts the following morning, all and sundry who couldn't make it supported my sentiment after hearing me speak on the 10 o'clock BBC news that night. A collective cheer, I am told, reverberated across the country.

It seems District Judge Michael Snow at City & Westminster Magistrates (an old haunt of mine) also agreed. There had been arrests - five brave ladies in pursuit of direct action were handcuffed and removed. Tamsin, who had organised the event, was up on breach of her bail conditions after having scaled the Houses of Parliament's roof in November of last year in protest against the planned expansion of Heathrow Airport. Sage DJ Snow said he recognised "the need for proportionality and one should hesitate from taking away bail from someone exercising their right to protest."

So it had been a remarkable and joyous event, with some fine cakes, tea and something far stronger to keep off the chill. Be warned Mr Brown, this is but a taster - the beginning of something far bigger. Women are fighting for the Planet (with a little help from the chaps too). We shan't stop until you and your government do so too.

For more wonderful pics, see Amelia's Blog.
video of protestand shots of friends being arrested.
Indymedia pics

Climate Rush

Monday 13th is the 100th anniversary of the Suffragettes rush on Parliament. Climate Rush (organised by Wise Woman Tamsin Ormond) ask all Wise Women - and men - to a rally and celebration in Parliament Square to call on politicians to take immediate action on climate change. Just as the Suffragettes fought for Women's Rights; now it's time that we fight for our Planet's Rights.

Speakers include wise women Caroline Lucas MEP, Rosie Boycott, and many more.

What to wear: Dress in white or wear period costume (just like our ladies on their bikes!). You will be given a Climate Rush sash. For inspiration & photos see here.
What to bring: flask of tea and cakes
Where: Parliament Square outside the Houses of Parliament, London.
WISE WOMEN rendezvous: under the Churchill statue for WW flyers and stickers. Watch out for the WW banner Trees Have Rights Too (appliqued by WW Tabitha Neal in honour of the Tree Lady and fellow Wise Woman Wangari Maathai) - there you will find a cluster of WW!
When: 5.30 pm, Monday 13th October 2008

WWW.CLIMATERUSH.CO.UK
WISE WOMEN - Women In Sustainability and the Environment

Climate Change & Me

Lots happening in my neck of the woods these days. This weekend there's a free family festival to empower you to save cash and have fun tackling climate change. It's on Saturday the 11th October 2008 11am - 6pm at Highbury Fields Secondary School.

I shall be time and space travelling with Dr Who in his tardis to look at the effects of climate change and what positive solutions we can put in place. In the afternoon I will be giving workshops on how to be an effective eco-activist (with a few newly learned tricks up my sleeve, thanks to all at Kingsnorth Climate Camp).

Fellow Wise Woman Penney Poyzer will be there too, to answer questions on how to green your home; authors Pete May (of the deliciously funny There's a Hippo in my Cistern) and Wise Woman Nicola Baird (of the fantastically practical Save Cash and Save the Planet) will be joining other writers to sign copies of top eco-must-reads. There will be clothes swaps ('swishing', for those in the know, so my 8 year old neighbour proudly tells me), there will be local grown and home-cooked fayre, there will be workshops on how to make your Victorian home more energy efficient, and how to have fun on your street. This and much more can be found at Climate Change and Me

See you there!

Global Warming - A Fable from the Himalayas

Ecuador Referendum upholds Rights of Nature

It's been a life affirming week for me - a week of intense study of Earth Jurisprudence at Shumacher College, followed by a UKELA weekend workshop in Derbyshire. Earth jurisprudence is aimed at ensuring that legal and governance systems support, rather than undermine, the integrity and health of the Earth through the development of an ecocentric approach to law and governance. While most of the world’s legal systems advance the interests and concerns of the human community and provide no real protection to other species, or to the planet itself, Earth jurisprudence proposes a radical overhaul of approaches to law making, to ensure that the planet and all species have rights, by virtue of their existence as members of a single Earth community.

But most life-affirming of all, after a week of concentrated examination of theory and application (and some unforgettable wild moments to boot) came wonderful news from Ecuador. Sunday 28th September brought a historic moment in the evolution of protection of our planet.

By an overwhelming margin, the people of Ecuador voted for a new Constitution that is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights. In a country rich with ecological treasures, including the Galapagos Islands and part of the Amazon rain forest, the constitution also calls on government to avoid measures that would destroy ecosystems or drive species to extinction. Ecuador is now the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights.

With this vote, the people of Ecuador are leading the way for countries around the world to fundamentally change how we protect nature.

Article 1 of the new "Rights for Nature" chapter of the Ecuador constitution reads: "Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public bodies."

Ecuador's constitution recognizes that ecosystems possess the inalienable and fundamental right to exist and flourish, and that people possess the legal authority to enforce those rights on behalf of ecosystems, and the requirement of the government to remedy the violations of those ecosystem rights.

What is so interesting is that this Constitution has been borne out of crisis and driven at local municipal government level. Because there have been so many abuses, pollution, violence and corruption by foreign mining companies, the people revolted against this so-called development by central government. Thus, this remarkable piece of legislation was borne of the people taking responsibility for their land.

But all is not yet perfect. Whilst the Constitution is a vast bridge in the right direction, it does at the same time incorporate sweeping powers bestowed upon the President. Pressure from US and Canadian governments remains to allow mining in particular in the south of the country where there has been less local opposition. Time will tell whether the weight of US destruction continues or is prevented.

Nevertheless this is cause for huge celebration. The world’s environmental and social crisis will only get worse, unless humans are compelled by law to respect the laws of nature and the rights of other members of the Earth community. Ecuador's Rights of Nature Constitution is Wild Law in the making - and a vitally crucial precedent that other nations must follow.


Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan
Enact International
Centre For Earth Jurisprudence
Earth Jurisprudence
The Legal Defense Fund
The Pachamama Alliance
Cotacachi
UKELA

Transition Towns Comes to London

Just a reminder of tonights event - a few places remain, so do come along if you have not already replied, we will squeeze you in.
Concerned about escalating oil prices and Peak Oil?
Frustrated at the lack of governmental support?
Wondering what to do to survive the post-petroleum world?

Mike Grenville of Changing Worlds will be discussing Peak Oil and the urgency of action required.

Rob Hopkins, author of The Transition Handbook, will be speaking on how communities can respond effectively to climate chaos and the end of cheap oil - and how to start to build local resilient networks.

Some Transition communities and other like-minded organisations are already in existence in London. Come hear what they have to say, discover what is going on in your area, learn what pitfalls to avoid when starting a group and much more.

Panel Discussion speakers: Suzy Edwards of Camden Climate Action Network, Duncan Law of Transition Town Brixton, Mary Fee of LETSLink, Lucy Neal of Transition Town Tooting and Hilary Gander of Transition Town Kingston.

With music from members of the Brass Volcanoes, a carbon-neutral jazz band

What: Transition Towns Comes to London
Who: Rob Hopkins and Others
Where: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1
When: Tues 16th Sept, 6.30pm - 8.30pm
Cost: £5 on the door (includes refreshments)
RSVP: events@wisewomen.me.uk


(photo: Rob Hopkins, Mike Grenville, Suzy Edwards, Duncan Law, Mary Fee, Hilary Gander)

* To buy the book, The Transition Handbook, visit the Wise Women Books page

Not Guilty - The Kingsnorth Six

At a time when banks and mortgage lenders are either going belly-up or being bailed-out, hurricanes are taking their toll over Asia and India, stock markets are crashing and estate agents are going out of fashion at the rate of one a day (just how many are there?), there are indications of the beginning of a shifting consciousness - in the UK at least. People are beginning to demonstrate their concerns in unusual ways, and are beginning to vote with their conscience.

Just last week at Maidstone Crown Court an unusual and important jury verdict was declared which favoured the planet and the natural world. Six Greenpeace activists were cleared of causing criminal damage around £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station. Their defence was that their occupation of the power station prevented property damage (caused by climate change). It is a pioneering case in which preventing such property damage has been used as part of a "lawful excuse" in legal defence.

This is a vitally important step in recognising potential legal 'rights' of the planet. It also gives strength to future actions by environmental activists in advocating for the rights of species and planet. The allegation hurled at the jury after the return of a Not Guilty was that it was a "sympathy vote" for Greenpeace. But sympathy is just what is required - it is a direct manifestation of a jury recognising the need to protect our planet, and they supported Greenpeace's actions in trying to do so, deeming thier actions reasonable and urgent. As Ben Stewart stated outside court: "When 12 normal people say that it legitimate to shut down a coal fire station because of the harm to the planet, then one has to ask where does that leave government energy policy?"


(Five of the 'Kingsnorth Six' at the top of the 200m chimney)

Yurtling Energy at Embercome

I've never been to an event such as the one I have just experienced this weekend. It wasn't a corporate event, it wasn't a conference, no workshops were advertised, in fact the remit was incredibly loose. Alongside 30 or so others working to tackle climate change, I had been invited to spend the weekend in Devon to share, plan and plot - and to sleep in a yurt.

Didn't take me long to say yes. I love geodesic domes, so yurts with woodfire stoves do it for me too. And the subject matter - well obviously that's my kinda thing too. I had no real understanding of what was to come of it, so I merrily pitched up with no preconceptions, just left myself open to the experience.

And it was inspirational. A bunch of equally committed individuals who are in so many varied ways making a difference; academically, politically, in business, with communities; by shaping, creating, facilitating, inspiring. All in a glorious environment, fuelled by the most delicious organic food from the gardens (all thanks to Andy, Alistair and team). Shaped by the lightest of touches by Mac, we discovered easily enough how to self-select on discussing various topics. This opened up new understanding, new connections, new inspiration. So many discussions bore so much fruit in such a short period of time, be it over wine in the evening, whilst walking in the herb garden, or sheltering together in the poly-tunnel whilst the rain poured off the sides. So much to hear, to say and to do.

It struck me that the core reason why this weekend proved so successful - why such strong bonds were established - was because we were all reciprocating. Giving and receiving experiences, sharing wisdom, offering assistance and skills. It's the stuff of true friendship, not just for us as humans, but for our interaction with the planet. Reciprocity is equally important just as it is for us human to human, but also for our interaction with our planet. It is not for us to merely take it's resources. We need to extend that reciprocity to our world as well. And that was something I learned more about this weekend when discussing how to create a sustainable world. That reciprocity applies both internally and externally if true sustainability is to be understood and created.

I left energised and revitalised, feeling the growth of not only the plants and trees in the woods that surrounded us, but also of us - individually and collectively. What comes out of this, well, that remains to be seen. But I know one thing - it will all be good for the planet.


Thankyou all.
Embercombe

New Leader of the Green Party: Caroline Lucas

Great news: Caroline Lucas has won the Green Party's first ever leadership election by a remarkable landslide of over 90%.

The UK Green party has never had a leader, leaving it faceless in a world where personality politics steals the lead regardless of values. Now it has - and what a great person to drive the Green Party forward at such a crucial juncture.


Caroline comes with gleaming green credentials: she is an acknowledged expert on climate change, international trade and peace issues and recently co-authored the Green New Deal Report.


She is a Vice President of the RSPCA, the Stop the War Coalition, Campaign Against Climate Change and Environmental Protection UK, as well as a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament National Council and a Director of the International Forum on Globalization. The think-tanks Protect the Local, Globally and Centre for a Social Europe have Caroline as an Advisory Board Member, as does the Radiation Research Trust, the Transitions Towns Network and she is also a matron of the Women’s Environmental Network (WEN).

Wise Women hits the big time in Viz

Click here to read more....

To book upcoming Wise Women events, see:
Transition Towns Comes to London, September 16th
Cosmetics and Chemicals: What is in your Shampoo, September 9th

www.ev-eon.com

ev-eon.com

The Environmentalist's Nuclear Debate: (3) My response

My response to Mark Lynas:

Why is it that you support 4th generation nuclear when Concentrating Solar Power can provide such an enormous slice of the baseload generation required, without any of the political, environmental and social detriment of nuclear?

CSP is mature technology, overnight storage is not a problem, it will be fully commercialised by 2011 - 2012, when (going by current known contracts) 9GW will be online globally, and it is anticipated if expansion continues at a conservative rate of 29% per annum, then 200GW will be online by 2020 (compare with 100GW online for wind as of this year, after 25 years). It's environmentally benign - even positive when you combine it with desalination, fast build (2 - 3 years from granting of licence to grid connection), no high insurance costs, no decommissioning and waste headaches, no trans-border devastation when bombed by an irate terrorist - only 7 years bad luck (and why bother to bomb a bunch of mirrors where each fresnel mirror can now be built and replaced in 3 minutes in any event) ...and even the political will is cranking into action now with the Med Solar Plan (20GW in North Africa by 2020) under the recently endorsed Union for the Mediterranean, the removal of the Feed-in Tariff cap in Spain due later this year (20GW by 2020), another 16GW is expected in other southern sunbelt EU countries, the generous state credits in South West America esp in California (30-50GW by 2020 thanks mainly to Arnie's ambitious targets), the Masdar Project (500MW by 2013), India (generous FIT's for solar put in place earlier this year), China (test plant outside Beijing) etc etc. CSP does not pose an energy security risk; it is not a finite resource that is being threatened (and therefore one that we go to war over). It is dependent on the heat from the sun in the deserts - an abundant resource and, moreover, less than 1% of the world's deserts can give us all our global electricity requirements - so no worries on that front either. We can therefore switch all land-based transport over to clean electricity as well. As for transporting the stuff - easy: High Voltage Direct Current lines (which have been in use since the 1950's), such as the HVDC links that run from the 3 Gorges Dam in China to Guangdong - 2,000 kilometers away - with just 3% losses per 1000 km.

So, why do we not hear more from you guys - the heroes of the environmental world - supporting, lobbying, promoting, fighting, shouting for CSP, rather than announcing your qualified support of nuclear? Shame on you.

If you would like to know more about CSP, check out TREC-UK and for an easy intro: concentratingsolarpower.info.

[table reproduced from CSP v Nuclear, Carbon2Share, Colin Challen's interparliamentary newsletter, July 2008]

The Environmentalist's Nuclear Debate: (2) Mark Lynas

The nuclear debate continues, with that other environmentalist and climate change author of note - Mark Lynas - proffering his position. Last week in the New Statesman he took, as he himself admitted, a rather stronger position than Monbiot: "that increased use of nuclear (an outright competitor to coal as a deliverer of baseload power) is essential to combat climate change." He too qualified his position, but from the point of view of the need for technological advancement. He gave as an example of potential improvement the Integral Fast Reactor (a design of fast breeder plant).

This is what he had to say about the IFR:
1. "It could generate power by burning up nuclear waste leaving only short lived by-products unfit for nuclear bombs (thus could cancel out concerns about nuclear proliferation);
2. the reactor design, is close to “fail-safe”, automatically shutting down if things begin to go wrong, because the safety mechanisms are inherent, and do not depend on human or mechanical intervention.
3. Lynas admits that such “4th generation” nuclear power stations are still a dream, but believes that they are potentially much more realistic than CCS.
4. Lynas proposes that 4th Gen plus renewable energy could provide complete decarbonisation of the worlds electricity supply and on a timetable that Dr Hansen and fellow climatologists demand."

Although I cannot respond on the technological potential of 4th generation nuclear plants such as the IFR that Lynas proposes, I know a man that can: Paul Brown, the venerable ex-Guardian environment correspondent, expert on all thing nuclear, author of the heavyweight tome Global Warning (a copy of which was sent by the President of the Republic of Maldives - a man uncomfortably close to the effects of global warming - to all 193 Heads of State, so they really have no excuse) and more recently of Voodoo Economics and the Doomed Nuclear Renaissance.
So, I wrote to him asking the following:

1. Is it true, as Lynas asserts, that 4th gen nuclear would prevent nuclear proliferation?
2. Is the design indeed close to fail-safe?
3. Is it accurate to say that 4th Generation nuclear is more realistic than Carbon Capture and Storage?

This is the response I received from Paul Brown:

"There are no grounds for saying that a fourth generation of nuclear power would prevent proliferation. There are three generations at present, the third generation is the one being constructed in Finland and another in France. It is the type the government wants to build in England.

Many "new" designs for new nuclear power stations exist, all of them called fourth generation reactors. What this means is they could be the new form of reactors adopted after this present third generation. For all of them it is claimed they will be cheaper, safer, and better in every way than the present generation. All this is unproved hype. None has been built so it all theory - like so much else about the nuclear industry. The reason they have not been built is essentially because the first one (of every design) would be very expensive to build and might not work. No government is prepared to fund them so far.

The fourth generation that Lynas is talking about is a design that will burn existing stocks of plutonium and uranium thereby reducing stocks of these bomb making materials, therefore reducing proliferation dangers. The UK government was asked by British Nuclear Fuels to sanction research and development into building one of these at Sellafield but was refused on the grounds of cost.

So the answer to your first question is no - Lynas is not correct - and no one knows whether an "integral fast reactor breeder plant" would really work. Fast breeders only worked on small scale dustbin size projects and broke every time France, Japan, and Russia tried to scale them up.

Second question: Note the "close to" fail-safe. Could have said in theory the design is fail safe. In other words it has not been tried, so how can you know? Nuclear fission is a controlled nuclear explosion. It is virtually impossible to make it fail-safe.

CCS? There are lots of problems with it. Carbon capture and storage is an unproven technology unless you count pumping carbon dioxide directly back down under the sea as they do in Norway. Carbon dioxide has no use so everything you do with it has a cost. Transporting it, pumping it etc is all expensive. Even if you worked out how to do it efficiently there are very few places in which it is possible to pump it and expect it to stay there. Old oil and gas wells have to be near the carbon dioxide capture sites and leak proof to have any chance of being viable. In my view it has limited application even if we could make it work, simply because there is nowhere to put the carbon dioxide. If you could convert it into something like else like a fuel by growing algae to make biofuels it might be a runner. It would at least reduce the impact. My view is that CCS is a red herring in the real debate. CCS and fourth generation nuclear are diversions and will never deliver on the scale we need in the timetable we need it by.

My view is that concentrated solar power, tidal turbines, wind power, solar PV, wave power, geothermal and massive improvements in energy efficiency, combined heat and power, insulation and the like, could deliver faster and enough to solve the problem. Anything else is putting off the reality and hoping technology will provide a fix. We have the technology, what we do not have is the political will. Only political will brought about by campaigners like you is going to save the planet".

Paul
Global Warning

The Environmentalist's Nuclear Debate: (1) George Monbiot

Things seem to stirring up the debate over nuclear and it's making quite a few greenies hot and steamy, to say the least. So, in order to unravel the issue at hand here is a lazy environmentalist's dummies guide to the issue in hand (part 1):

Earlier this month, George Monbiot posited his thoughts on nuclear. What he stated was that “I no longer care whether the answer (to our future electricity supplies) is nuclear or not” providing all new build meets the following stringent conditions:
1. the government sets a maximum level for carbon pollution per MW hr of electricity production, eg 80kg of CO2 – then leave the rest to the market;
2. so, total emission are taken into account;
3. the public are informed as to where and how waste is to be buried;
4. how much this will cost;
5. who will pay;
6. a legal guarantee put in place that no civil nuclear materials will be used by the military.

His qualified support is predicated on the belief that "we can no longer afford any rigid principle but one: that the harm done to people living now and in the future must be minimised by the most effective means, whatever they might be.”

Interestingly Monbiot, no slouch when it comes to reading pertinent reports (including the TRANS-CSP report), suggests that the likely outcome will progress towards the majority of our electricity being generated by a wide range of renewable energy systems interconnected by transnational supergrid networks, and with the use of storage no subsequent loss in the reliability of power supplies. "Unlike Carbon Capture and Storage," he says, "wind, wave, tidal, solar, hydro and geothermal power are proven technologies. Unlike nuclear power, they can be safely decommissioned as soon as they become redundant." So, a powerful argument in support of renewable energy, Mr Monbiot.

Here's my take on this: Monbiot's position on nuclear is one cushioned with conditionality. In essence he qualifies his view on this basis: nuclear is potentially fine to have in the equation providing certain stringent conditions are met. And, if Monbiot’s conditions are followed to their logical conclusion, the market is more than likely to dictate that other renewable technologies will fill the gap in any event.


Monbiot: Coal Scuttled

Climate Camp, Kingsnorth

It was an early dash through Smithfield, with cheeky Bummarees calling out at me as I ignored the anti-cycling signs (what signs?) and whizzed through the tail-end of the morning's meat market. Down to St Pauls, swooped round and along then over London Bridge to meet my fellow eco-warrior Vicki (Director of the Kingsnorth No New Coal film, and fellow Wise Woman) before hopping on the train down to Strood in Kent. So off we headed to support the protest against the proposed new-build coal station at Kingsnorth.
[Vicki, part of the radical wing of WW in action]

The boys in blue were out in force, (which I can only presume for them is a bit of a holiday from any serious work as this is a peaceful demo), taking inordinate care and time to stop, search and video us all. Very polite, proud and patient in explaining their PACE powers. One gets the impression they've all just passed their Advanced Activist Management Skills course. They had a super new toy parked up that was later put to much use - an all singing and dancing yellow and black helicopter which buzzed like an oversized busy bee away above the camp for most of the day. (Do plod-squabbles break out over whose turn it is to play with the machine? Ooh to be a fly on the wall of their conversations)

Into the camp, eventually, and it's glorious - a haven of peace and commonality of purpose, with hundreds of tents smattered around clustered in geographical areas (Londonium I am told has the best facilities, naturally. They have sofas in their feeding tent), composting loos to rival those at CAT, the odd freestanding turbine and PV panels. Bunting billows in the early morning breeze as the sun starts to warm the early morning haze and the clouds begin to disappear, opening up to a warm blue-skied summer day.

I am speaking on Concentrating Solar Power in the main space - the one with electricity, so I am informed. I am offered a bike to power my presentation, but sadly it seems to only give power to either the laptop or the projector, not both at the same time. How great that would have been to have had it generating clean energy to give my talk on the ultimate clean energy solution, courtesy of a fast pedlar.

By 10.30 the camp has woken up, and tent A fills. There are workshops running throughout the day and all week, which is a marvellous way to tap into some excellent speakers on all matters climate change related. It's a good turnout, and later as I survey the site I reckon there are in around 1500 folk there and some kids. One pretty eight year old tells me he will make me a paper fan for anything(!). So we seal the deal for half a choccie bar, but only once he has been assured on the contents - that it is indeed vegan and is made of raw chocolate and agave syrup. He seems very pleased. I am equally pleased with my fan.

I bump into chums old and new, catch up with more radical WW's - and Oliver Tickell, author of Kyoto 2: How to Manage the Global Greenhouse, which delights me greatly. I've been itching to read it, as my gut instinct had been telling me that it will be an important one. In a nutshell, Tickell is advocating upstream control of greenhouse gases at point of production, not of emission (ie nail the oil companies, not the consumer).

Lunch at Londonium is delicious before scooting off to the site media tent for a bit of an interview, then off to hear a few workshops: Shaun Chamberlain on TEQ's (who argues from the other end of the spectrum - downstream control: carbon rationing of the consumer), David Flemming (the originator of TEQ's) on Anarchy (whom, upon arrival at the site, was reputedly chased by eager journos wanting to know if he was an elderly Tory MP. What anarchy he could have had there!).

It's hard to leave. The evening light is long, the banter fun (Meyer Hillman is stomping around furiously, indignant about some comment made by George Monbiot), fresh garlic wafts across from Wales (no sofas here; they have hay-bales from Machynlleth), and I had promised to pop in to commune with my fellow Scottish countrymen and women (bet they do great porridge first thing). But no time, we have to go (having hitched a lift back - thank you Oliver, much appreciated). We head of into the sunset as more people are pitching up in preparation for the day of mass action and march to Kingsnorth Coal Station on Saturday. I wish I could be there - the preparations sound fantastic. The only blot spied on the landscape is the batallion of 22 police trucks filled to the gills moving in with yet more troops. What kind of world do we live in when the state deems it neccessary to lavish £7 million on policing such a well-organised, peaceful but vitally important (and legal) protest?


Climate Camp
No New Coal
Monbiot: Coal Scuttled
Kyoto 2

100 months

We have a hundred months to save the planet. When the clock stops ticking we could be beyond the climate's 'tipping point', the point of no return, so says the Green New Deal report just published today by the New Economics Foundation.

onehundredmonths.org has just launched today - I'm supporting it, Wise Women are supporting it, and I hope you will too.

-----------------------------------------

75 years since President Roosevelt launched a New Deal to rescue the US from financial crisis, a new group of experts in finance, energy and the environment have come together to propose a ‘Green New Deal’ for the UK.

And, as the Green New Deal Group launch their proposals, new analysis suggests that from the end of July 2008 there is only 100 months, or less, to stabilise concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before we hit a potential point of no return.

Proposal’s set out in the Group’s report include:

* Executing a bold new vision for a low-carbon energy system that will include making ‘every building a power station’.
* Creating and training a ‘carbon army’ of workers to provide the human resources for a vast environmental reconstruction programme.
* Establishing an Oil Legacy Fund, paid for by a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies as part of a wide-ranging package of financial innovations and incentives to assemble the tens of billions of pounds that need to be spent. These would also include Local Authority green bonds, green gilts and green family savings bonds. The monies raised would help deal with the effects of climate change and smooth the transition to a low-carbon economy.
* Ensuring more realistic fossil fuel prices that include the cost to the environment, and that are high enough to tackle climate change by creating economic incentives to drive efficiency and bring alternative fuels to market. This will provide funding for the Green New Deal and safety nets to those vulnerable to higher prices via rapidly rising carbon taxes and revenue from carbon trading.
* Minimising corporate tax evasion by clamping down on tax havens and corporate financial reporting. A range of measures including deducting tax at source for all income paid to financial institutions in tax havens would provide much-needed sources of public finance at a time when economic contraction is reducing conventional tax receipts.
* Re-regulating the domestic financial system. Inspired by reforms implemented in the 1930s, this would imply cutting interest rates across the board– including the reduction of the Bank of England’s interest rate - and changes in debt-management policy to enable reductions in interest rates across all government borrowing. This is designed to help those borrowing to build a new energy and transport infrastructure. In parallel, to prevent inflation, we want to see much tighter regulation of the wider financial environment.
* Breaking up the discredited financial institutions that have needed so much public money to prop them up in the latest credit crunch. Large banking and finance groups should be forcibly demerged. Retail banking should be split from both corporate finance (merchant banking) and from securities dealing. The demerged units should then be split into smaller banks. Mega banks make mega mistakes that affect us all. Instead of institutions that are ‘too big to fail’, we need institutions that are small enough to fail without creating problems for depositors and the wider public.

The Green New Deal Group urges the UK Government to take action at the international level to help build the orderly, well-regulated and supportive policy and financial environment that is required to restore economic stability and nurture environmental sustainability, including:

* Allowing all nations far greater autonomy over domestic monetary policy (interest rates and money supply) and fiscal policy (government spending and taxation).
* Setting a formal international target for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations that keeps future temperature rises as far below 2°C as possible.
* Giving poorer countries the opportunity to escape poverty without fuelling global warming by helping to finance massive investment in climate-change adaptation and renewable energy.

For further details and full report: NEF
onehundredmonths.org
The Final Countdown


Wise Women

The Age of Stupid

It's a humbling thing to see two children surviving the death of their father in the midst of the rubble of Iraq, in the full knowledge that his death was a direct result of the developed world's (read UK & USA) grab for oil. It's deeply moving to see the loss of a french glacier to climate change, and to hear the narrative of an 81 year old mountain guide who has lived there all his life. It's maddeningly frustrating to see the loss of a Devon wind farm application to local aesthetic fears (hey, what are motorways but a scar on our landscape? A scar that is creating part of the problem by carrying the very vehicles that are pumping damaging emissions. What an irony that we accept motorway expansion with so little fight, unlike the wind farm applications). It's challenging to view the contradictions of the oil worker who believed himself to be an environmentalist. These and other stories are the stuff of The Age of Stupid, the new movie from 'McLibel' Director Franny Armstrong and the Producer of the Oscar-winning 'One Day In September', John Battsek. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father, Brassed Off, Usual Suspects) stars as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055. He watches 'archive' footage from 2008 and asks: Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?

There were few dry eyes at the end of the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group sceening at Portcullis House yesterday afternoon. Such was the impact on an audience consisting of hardened environmentalists, seasoned campaigners and (a smattering of) concerned MP's. The Q&A session afterwards elicited some insightful responses. Colin Challen MP called for everyone to join the "Militant Green Tendency and go agitate your party of choice at every meeting you can until Climate Change is top of the political agenda". Franny Armstrong, the director, asserted that the only way forward is for there to be strong international laws put in place (a timely reminder just as the crucial Climate Bill, the world-first climate change law, is making its way through parliament). Roger Higman of Friends of the Earth, when asked whether we had enough time to turn things around, stated that he was optimistic it could be done. On a scale of 1 - 10, he put his personal belief at a 9 - 10. And Peter Postlethwaite (who forsook his normal actor's fee and stayed with chums rather than incur additional costs during filming)? Good news there: he's finally got the go-ahead for his own turbine to be installed at his eco-home in Shropshire.

Later in conversation with Mark Lynas over a pint, we nattered on the rapid evolution of knowledge on climate change. Even with a film that flags up best understanding on climate change at the beginning of 2008 (with Mark filmed in his garden shed - clearly the hub of much activity - succinctly explaining why 2 degrees is such an important figure), scientific understanding has already moved forward and the framing of the issues has shifted (see the controversial Kyoto 2 book by Oliver Tickell, due to land in book stores next week). The concept of 60 - 80% reductions of greenhouse gases has now been superceded by the general scientific acceptance that, as Mark put it, to ensure we get within spitting distance of getting no further than a 2% degree increase of temperature (and all the attendant climactic conditions that will bring) will mean that we must bring our emissions to 350 parts per million. Our emissions already stand at about 385 parts per million. Thus, we have in effect already overshot. Quite simply we need to progress to a zero-carbon world as soon as possible. That's not to knock the important message that The Age of Stupid is presenting, as Mark was quick to point out. It's valid, vital and very very good.

We Can Solve It says Al Gore

Al Gore's challenge to America to produce 100% of its power from carbon-free sources in 10 years.

wecansolveit.org

Mediterranean Solar Plan gets green light

Sometimes certain decisions are determined in the international political arena that are seismic in their potential for shaping our future yet remain largely under the radar of general public knowledge. Of course CSP being my bag, means I am here to bring you the latest sunny developments - and the future is indeed looking bright.

In Paris on Sunday 13th July at the Heads of State Summit, a formal declaration launching the Union for the Mediterranean was issued, laying out the goals and workings of the 43-member organisation. One initiative in particular holds huge promise - the formal endorsement of the Mediterranean Solar Plan, which was presented by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Even Gordon Brown has backed the Solar Plan, stating at the conference: "in the Mediterranean region, concentrated solar power offers the prospect of an abundant low carbon energy source. Indeed, just as Britain's North Sea could be the Gulf of the future for offshore wind, so those sunnier countries represented here could become a vital source of future global energy by harnessing the power of the sun. So I am delighted that that the EU is committing at this summit to work with its neighbours - including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and the League of Arab States - to explore the development of a new 'Mediterranean Solar Plan' for the development and deployment of this vital technology from the Sahara northwards.".

According to the International Energy Agency in it's recently published Energy Technology Perspectives 2008 - Scenarios and Strategies to 2050, on top of the investments in the Business-as-usual scenario, total additional investment needs for the period 2010-2050 amount to USD 45 trillion. The average year-by-year investments between 2010 and 2050 needed to achieve a virtual decarbonisation of the power sector include, say the IEA, the build of 215 million square metres of solar. Others technologies proposed to achieve 50% cuts by 2050 include 55 fossil-fuelled power plants with CCS, 32 nuclear plants and 17 500 large wind turbines as well as widespread adoption of near-zero emission buildings and, on one set of assumptions, deployment of nearly a billion electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

The Union for the Mediterranean agreed that the recent activity on energy markets in terms of both supply and demand, confirms the need to focus on alternative energy sources. Market deployment as well as research and development of all alternative sources of energy was declared a major priority in efforts towards assuring sustainable development. The Secretariat is now tasked to explore the feasibility, development and creation of a Mediterranean Solar Plan. It is expected that 20GW of CSP will be constructed by 2020, with electricity exports transmitted into Europe, and exponential growth thereafter.

The political will is now in place for the deployment of CSP plants in the Sahara Desert, with transmission of it's clean electricity into Europe. It's nemesis will of course be nuclear. But CSP has many advantages over nuclear: rapid construction times (3 years versus 10 -20 years), low environmental impact (even positive environmental impact can be achieved where desalination is incorporated in the plant, thereby providing water for both human consumption and agricultural use), unlimited availability of resource (in any given 2 week period, deserts receive the same amount of energy from the sun as is contained in all nuclear fuel reserves), lower security and terrorist risk (compare the bombing of a nuclear plant to the taking out of a bunch of mirrors in the desert - transnational devastation versus 7 years bad luck). Let the race commence.

Wild Law

I'm back - after 2 weeks in the wilderness. Well, Scotland, to be exact, but in some ways it felt like a dip into the wild. After a weekend in Edinburgh for a bit of film festival celebrations for the premier of my brother’s latest documentary (The New Ten Commandments), we headed off up the west coast to the Highlands. A land I know well and love, in part due to the lesser dominance of human impact. No TV (no problem), no radio (hmm), no phone connection (survivable), no internet connection (hugely frustrating). Just the two of us, millions of midges and a pile of books.

Where some pray under the hallowed edifices of the kirk, I communed with the ancient and sacred standing stones to be found in and around the Kilmartin Glen trying to unravel the mysteries of a civilization who had far greater connection with our planet than we do. A childhood shaped by authoritarian Catholicism and the rigid teachings of Jesuits failed to instill in me a belief in religion (the questioning of which led to much time spent outside the classroom). To this day it remains too ethnocentric and paternal for my taste. Instead, it made me question what our earth’s systems are. In time this has evolved into a recognition that all species and organisms – non-humans – have rights too.

As often happens, an accumulation of thoughts ideas and conversations come full circle. For me…a year in Vienna in 1988, working with an ecologist who taught me about Tree Tenants ... more recently, last year a conversation with a close friend about tree rights… a co-incidental introduction to a few fellow tree rights supporters … an email dialogue … an introduction to some seminal texts…an invite to an inspiring day course on Earth Jurisprudence at the Gaia Institute. Books mounted by my bedside tantalizing me to read, but I needed a little time to digest, rather than hurriedly devouring before turning my thoughts to other more immediate concerns. Thus, with very little distraction, and in the midst of the most beautiful countryside, for the past two weeks I have turned my thoughts to addressing what I now consider to be crucial for the environment - even more significant than saving our rainforests and the implementation of technological renewable energy solutions (this is not to denigrate their importance – for they are of course also vital). Something that requires nothing less than a dramatic shift in our collective consciousness.

To stop and even reverse the plundering and the violation of our world’s resources (and as a consequence that which has triggered climate change), we need a recognition of a Duty of Care for our planet. Nothing less than a mandatory principle – the creation of a legal standing of the inherent rights of the natural world - is required. Such an overriding objective should thus be accorded primary consideration by what Thomas Berry in The Great Work refers to as the the four major spheres of influence – academic, economic, political, religious and their corresponding bodies: universities, corporations, governments and religions.

Our legislative frameworks shape our societies, but somewhere within our development humanity failed to recognise that planet rights must be respected too. We now accept that the exploitation of our eco-systems is human-driven; with this knowledge comes the responsibility to act. Without an overarching recognition of planet rights, all legislation applied to provide energy and environmental protectionism remains piecemeal, incoherent and insufficient for the radical shift in consciousness and understanding that is required.

10th December 2008 will mark the 60th anniversary of our Universal Declaration of Human Rights; 60 years that have also fashioned our planning, energy and business laws and as a consequence our general belief of our dominant role within the planet. But at what detriment: a detriment that needs to be redressed now to ensure future protection. Is it not now time for an International Declaration of Planet Rights?

"The Power of the World always work in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days...all our power came from the sacred hoop of the nation and so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished"
Heka Sapa, North American Oglala Sioux 1930 - 1931


...and one I read that made me laugh out loud: There's a Hippo in My Cistern by Pete May.

350

There's a number -- a new number -- that makes this point most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A few month's ago, NASA's chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."

Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary.

In this case, though, it's worse than that because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas -- hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal, quite literally.

We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.

And we have, at best, a few years to short-circuit them -- to reverse course. Here's the Indian scientist and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year (and, by the way, got his job when the Bush administration, at the behest of Exxon Mobil, forced out his predecessor): "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

Bill McKibben, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and the author, most recently, of "The Bill McKibben Reader," is the co-founder of Project 350 ( 350.org), devoted to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. A longer version of this article appears at Tomdispatch.com.

UK-German Climate Change partnership

They say a week is a long time in politics, and I seem to have been spending a fair bit of time flitting in and out of the House of Commons this last week. Wednesday brought me to a meeting with Matthias Machnig, State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, to mark the launch of the Climate Change Partnership between the German Embassy in the UK and the APPCCG (All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group). The primary aims of the Climate Change Partnership are to strengthen bilateral political engagement between the United Kingdom and Germany on climate change issues, to promote shared learning and to make joint progress on developing policies to combat the threat of climate change. And boy, do we need this! Languishing as we do at the bottom of the EU renewable energy league table, with only Malta producing less renewable energy as a percentage of total energy consumption. Germany meanwhile is light years ahead in it's adoption of renewable energy.

In one particular respect it was a delight to hear this German minister speak - no obfuscation, no fudging, no flummery. Rather, a lot of use of terms such as "it is our strongly held belief (that nuclear is not the answer)", "we do not believe in (renewable energy credits)", "it is our clearly defined policy...", "we will not accept (a system where FIT's are harmed)". All wonderfully exacting, and if he did not like a particular question, he simply did not answer it (of course the omission in itself presented it's own position - bringing to mind Urquhart's delicious line in House of Cards: 'You may very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment'). And all backed up with implemented policies. After having been at the receiving end of a fair bit of frustrating UK politico-speak on energy issues recently, this was all music to my ears. No consultations with the renewable industry (we are onto our 3rd), simply a commitment to addressing energy issues, and a swift implementation of the necessary laws. There is an overriding sense of wir benötigen es, wir tun es - we need it, so we do it.

So, this is what Germany is doing. They are:

goal of 40% reduction of GHG emissions in Germany by 2020;

package of emissions reduction policies representing a commitment of €3.3 billion;

14 new laws and regulations, each designed to encourage businesses to conserve energy or expand Germany's production of renewable energy;

increase of 30% energy from renewables by 2020 (currently 15% - compare with UK 2%);

strong supporters of electricity liberalisation in Europe;

Germany does not believe in nuclear; committed to phasing out old nuclear plants and no new build;

€500 million ($736 million) in subsidies to encourage home- and building-owners to install efficient heating systems;

target of 10% renewable energy to be implemented in all existing housing stock, to be increased next year;

2009: one of their core legislation for next year will be on rebuild standards for inefficient housing stock;

all newbuild must meet Passive Haus standards by 2020;

creation of an International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), to build a coalition of countries and finance, bringing together all knowledge of renewable technologies, facilitate in research and policy advice. Germany is seeking UK government support and hope to implement such an agency at the Copenhagen conference in December 2009.

currently finalising it's proposals for the second Energy and Climate Package Leaders Declaration for the forthcoming G8 Summit to be held in Japan 7 - 9th July, making it clear what sort of responsibility developed and developing countries must have.

On answering questions;

believes Contraction and Convergence per capita approach is best for the long-term, but not before 2050;

supports second generation biomass from EU; will stick to 10% by 2020 as believes it is do-able;

supports demonstrator CCS, with expectation of 10-12 CCS plants throughout the EU (2 German companies, RWE CCS build by 2014, and Vattenfall). New coal stations must only be built with CCS, CHP or via CDM.

views EU supergrid as essential, pushing for strong investment;

believes that Concentrated Solar Power import from MENA into the EU supergrid is compatible for the future once infrastructure has been put in place (but that any CSP importation before 2020 must be additional, not as part of meeting EU Member State targets)

We have much we can learn from the Germans on energy policy. This looks to be a fruitful union. As my fluent-speaking Nanna used to say to me, "ya mein liebschien, es ist sehr gut."

Message from Perth, Australia

This is an email I received yesterday. It drove home how our energy requirements can be so easily disrupted, and that such a scenario happening in the UK is not so infeasible. This is what Eric had to say:

Hello Polly,

I live in Perth, western Australia, and this Sunday morning on the radio I was listening to the BBC overseas broadcasts, when the topic of Solar power was being highlighted.

I heard your name, and have since gone to various web sites linking you.

I am a "Senior Citizen", and although without any technical schooling or background, I have been wondering for many years why Solar Power has not replaced fossil fuel. I now, understand that it has been too expensive in the past, and that mining companies have been only too pleased to dig up coal, drill for oil, and "uncork" the underground and undersea gas reserves.

Perth has in the last two weeks, been made aware that an off sea gas drilling company..."Apache" rig.... had a recent flame out or explosion, causing the rig to cease operations. This has led to ONE THIRD of Perth's gas supply being closed. Repair to the rig, may take many many months, highlighting the sad reality of what can happen to industry and households.

Today's newspapers, and some politicians comments have told us that, some factories, mining companies, brewing companies, steel companies, may have to temporarily reduce staff and output. Hospitals and hotels have been advised to reduced their laundry as much as possible, in an attempt to preserve what gas is available from other outlets. Home owners have been encouraged to "turn off" lights and electric equipment when not being used, to reduce the demand on electricity from steam turbines heated from gas.

This is the Twenty First century, and it really is quite laughable, when all the technology that has evolved in the minds of mankind in the last one hundred years, leads us to cutting down on laundry, and turning the gas heater down.

This continent is the sunniest continent in the world. Blazing sun and dry open desert, lost in a flat landscape, ideal for solar power; and one off shore gas rig shuts down, leaving us an embarrassment. Even our sea water vaporisation unit, designed to help provide a flow of useable water,(* which due to too many very dry years has cause reservoirs to dry out ) has been told to shut down to lessen the demand on power. ......Thankfully its winter and we are getting rain, and not subject to another drought.

I notice in one of the web sites liked to you, suggested you have stated that CSP plants have been constructed in Spain, Australia and California.

Can you give me more information on where in Australia, and those involved in the construction and planning?

Oh, and as a P.S. one of our smelly black coal fired power stations, previously "mothballed" has been given the green light to start up again. Now is that progress.

Our State Premier Mr. Alan Carpenter, and his Energy Minister Mr. Fran. Logan, could probably....no....most probably, benefit from a communication from you and your foresight.

This is a great state in a great country, but its sad that today we are using nineteenth century resources to drive the machinery of the twenty first.

Hopefully the world will appreciate one day, people who like you, try to open the eyes of those who are not prepared to look.

Thanks
Eric Fry

TREC - AU

Solar Desalination

Acquasol

Climate Forum, London 14th and 15th June

This year's International Climate Forum has changed venue. No longer LSE, this time the fantastic 2 day event will be held at the South Camden Community School, Charrington Street, NW1 (just 5 mins behind Kings Cross Station).

Covering all the topical Climate Change issues, it is a wonderful opportunity to attend workshops covering the Science of Climate Change, Energy Solutions, Transport, International Policy, Cuba, Community Based Networks, Geoengineering, Contraction and Convergence, Direct Action - and many more. Plenary sessions will include wise words from the likes of of Michael Meacher, Tony Juniper, and Ichin Cheng.

And of course TREC-UK shall be there to raise awareness of Concentrating Solar Power. Dr Gerry Wolff will be talking on Saturday 10.30 - 12.00 on Solutions, and I shall be running a workshop on Sunday 11.30 - 13.00, DESERTEC - Clean Power from the Deserts. I will be demonstrating how half the world's energy requirements can be fulfilled by CSP by 2050, what is required to get us there and what exciting developments are in the pipeline.

Hope to see you there.

International Climate Forum

The petrol pump's running dry

Whilst Peak Oil is rapidly becoming mainstream with Joe public, amazingly the government seems to still be in denial. Malcolm Wicks, in response to questions put in the House of Commons Debate on Oil Prices, stated that "the huge increase in the price of a barrel of oil has caught the whole world by surprise and we are in, frankly, difficult and uncharted waters."

Whilst it is true we are in unchartered waters, the rise in price has been anticipated ever since Hubbert first came out with his theory on Peak Oil back in the 1950's. Unfortunately, our government has been basing their policies on forecasting of increase of oil prices to $70 - in 2020! So, no suggestion of reduced supplies there then. How is this possible? Oil is a finite resource, we are now in a position that what little remains out there is more difficult to get at and thus extraction will prove ever more expensive, not only in financial terms but also environmental costs. Thing is, Peak Oil is not a difficult concept to grasp. The tank is running dry, and as one clever bod put it, we are now trying to suck out the remaining dregs that have soaked into the pub carpet (a rather disgusting analogy, but oh so graphically pertinent). Market economics dictate that as a finite source dries up, so it's price will escalate. Mr Wicks and Mr Brown seem to be under the impression that "the solution is increased production". But of what? Certainly not oil.

Mr Wicks, have a look at peak oil.com, although you may experience delays. Spotted on their website by my mate Marm, is their new posting:

Welcome new visitors!

The site is responding slowly due to an influx of thousands of new visitors, so expect delays until our upgrades are in place.

Thanks for your patience.

Becoming a low Carbon Society

Another slightly belated blog - but it's an important one. This time I have been to the All Party Parliamentary working Group on Peak Oil and Gas (appgopo for short - an unusual acronym for sure) meeting on Becoming a Low Carbon Society, with Rob Hopkins speaking on Transition Initiatives, Simon Snowden from Liverpool University on Oil Vulnerability Auditing and Shaun Chamberlin on Tradeable Energy Quotas. Very usefully, you can view all three powerpoints and listen to the sessions online at the appgopo website. They are all worth listening to.

I'm wanting to write about TEQ's - Tradeable Energy Quotas (also known as Personal Carbon Allowances). I've written about them before, and here they are again, because like a lot of successful concepts, in essence it is simplicity itself.

TEQ's are like the toy money we played with when I was a child; there were three of us, and each was given the same allocation. We could spend it as we liked in our pretend market but with certain limitations (no sweets!). Once it was spent it was gone, but if we liked we could trade it in between each other in return for real money. How much it cost to buy in more depended on the generosity of my sister, or the meanness of my brother. An early lesson in the volatility of market conditions.

So, with TEQ's you receive your allocation to spend on energy. The allocation is preset annually, reducing each year in accordance with the requirement to reduce our carbon emissions. When you buy energy, such as petrol for your car or electricity for your household, units corresponding to the amount of energy you have bought are deducted from your TEQs account, in addition to your money payment.

Are you 'energy lean", cycle everywhere and have some whizzy microgeneration at home to cut your energy bills, and so do not use up your allocation? Then you can make some (real) money out of this. Just trade in your TEQ's and sell them to the more energy profligate. Need more than your allocation? You can buy from those who are selling their surplus.

It's a great system. It will reduce our use of fossil fuel; promote understanding of the true cost of our use of fossil fuel and it's creation of CO2 emissions;encourage behavioural change and use of clean energy alternatives. It is an equitable system (everyone treated the same); it guarantees national carbon reduction commitments in line with international targets (an independent committee would set the level allowable for the market each year in accordance with reduction national targets), it allows for a phased energy descent.

TEQs provides an effective and fair response to both climate change and resource depletion and enables a nation to ensure fair access to energy for all. It supplies the incentive for citizens, organisations and Government to work now on achieving the necessary rapid transformation in the way we use fuel into the future, and it provides time to plan ahead. It empowers localities and individuals to be able to make a tangible difference. It is fair, simple and practical, and it gets results by uniting the nation in a common purpose.

So why is this not being implemented? Last week DEFRA undertook a pre-feasibility study on the implementation of TEQ's and confirmed that there were no technical barriers to it's implementation. But that's as far as it got. No movement there - for the time being. But with escalating energy prices ( Goldman Sachs recent report claims oil price could increase to $200 per Barrel within 6 months, others believe it shan't stop there), the increased awarenesss that oil companies are consolidating (have you noticed how fast petrol stations are rapidly disappearing?), and the energy crisis becoming more painful by the day, our government might wake up soon. Indeed, BERR have just welcomed an investigatory report into future oil availablity - but this will take a year before completion. Regardless of exactly how much more (or more to the point - how little remains - even Bush thinks we're running out) exists, we know we need to wean ourselves off our oil dependency as soon as possible.

TEQ's are a simple system, one that would not take much to implement, and I'll wager will be with us sooner rather than later. The Draft Climate Change Bill allows for it's implementation without additional primary legislation, which is good news. A case of watch this space.



teqs.net

When will our Government wake up to the Energy Crisis?

This is belated blogging. But I suppose that is the beauty of blogging - you can get back to it when you have time. The last month or so I have been pretty much out of the loop of things, but I'm now back on full(ish) form, with news to tell of what I've been getting to here in London that's worth noting.

So, last week I attended the Praseg Annual Conference with my TREC hat on to get all and sundry up to speed on Concentrating Solar Power. The added bonus is of course the chance to sit in on various MP's waxing lyrical on their (sometimes not so) green credentials. One MP did stand out however: Phil Woolas MP.

This is a man who really seems to get it. In fact it is the first time I have heard a mainstream-ish Labour MP (outside the lone voices of climate change reason; Colin Challen and Michael Meacher) voluntarily raise his own views on Peak Oil. It is after all part of his remit as DEFRA Minister for the Environment; he has responsibility for climate change, energy and the environment. Nevertheless, it was interesting to hear his take. 12 months ago, he admitted, he would pay lip service to Climate Change. Now, he says, anyone who does not get it is in denial. "Well, it’s just happening, you can feel it - and see it all around the world." Yes, you do, I thought - you've grasped the urgency of the situation.

"UK economic activity accounts for 15% emissions worldwide", he went on to say (note: this is a rarely alluded to fact by our government, so well done in not sidestepping this unattractive but vitally important fact), "2% of which comes directly from within our shores. Technology transfer and a global carbon market is required – and we must include rainforests. It is wrong to assume it’s all China – my experience is that China gets the point and is addressing it."

On the Kyoto Protocol: "What concerns me is if there is not an international agreement at Copenhagen (Dec. 2009 is the date for the UNFCCC conference in Copenhagen and projected completion of UN post-Kyoto deal). I fear they will say - forget it, we will do what we have to do. But not many people are looking at the big picture. When canvassing last week, not many asked me to increase our Kyoto commitments."

On Peak Oil: "Peak Oil is a symbol of all our other rapidly depleting resources. We are running out, we can’t keep on living as if we have three planets. This is a profound challenge to us."

So, a man who talks the talk - but do we have a government who will walk the walk? The other morning when interviewed about escalating energy prices, our Prime Minister Gordon Brown on radio 4's Today programme claimed the solution was that we just need to get out there and "find more oil". Does he not know that we are, if not yet at Peak Oil pretty much on our way? The problem is, if the current escalation of energy prices to $126 a barrel are not attributable to peak oil, what will it be like when we are on the rapid downhill slalome race of declining output? This time last year oil was $75 per barrel and the lone voices predicting a hit of $100 per barrel by 2010 were viewed as extremists. Recent history demonstrates that even those with a bit of foresight were being too conservative in their estimates. As David Strahan said the other week at our WISE Women Speaker Event - we ain't seen nothing yet.

But there is a further layer of complication to add to the decline in global energy resources. We have our own homegrown decline in energy resources to contend with here in the UK. We have a swathe of opted-out old coal stations that must, as directed under EU legislation, be closed by the end of 2016. Some are already working on limited capacity. Add to this the end-of-life of most of our nuclear stations (some of which are now working at very limited capacity, and when working at full capacity only accounts for at best 3.8% of our energy requirements. A dip in the ocean, you might say, in terms of what is required post 2016), and a picture emerges of a rather rapidly growing energy gap here in the UK which we have not been preparing for. By my simple calculations, if we say energy descent kicks in by 2010 at a conservative 3% per annum (peak oil puts additional strain on other finite resources), that makes an energy deficit of 18% by the end of 2016, before taking into account the UK energy gap dip of roughly 32% of our own capacity. That makes a remarkable 50% energy deficit within 8 years.

So my calculations may be very simplistic (and possibly wrong - I am no expert forecaster). The slide above interestingly demonstrates the UK energy gap as approximately 32% reduction of capacity, with oil being completely factored out by end of 2016. Either way - there is a substantial UK energy gap that does not seem be addressed. Bill McKibben famously said in his book The End of Nature; until we feel the fear in our bellys, we will fail to act. How may more MP's need to feel that fear before they act?

London Aware Sustainability Fair at the Barbican, London

This weekend (10 & 11 May 2008) at the Barbican you will find the London Aware Fair - Green Ideas for Everyday Living. I shall be there, manning a stand for TREC-UK, and speaking today (Saturday) on Eco-living, then giving a talk on Sunday on my ever favourite subject, Concentrating Solar Power. The guys that run it have given me a 2 for the price of one offer - just go to the UK Aware website and enter the code SP241.

Hope to see you there!

Polly

Munching Watercress with the new Chief Scientific Minister

Some time ago I had been invited to hear Professor John Beddington, the new Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office for Science, speak and then to join him with some select guests for dinner. Of course to meet the man who has now stepped into the shoes of Sir David King - well, that was an invite I could not refuse. So off I headed last night to hear him, 4 months into the job, give his talk on Climate Change. Prof Beddington comes from Imperial College, where his area of expertise lies with his extensive research into fisheries as well as population biology, crop and human diseases. So no wedges here a la King. Instead, a fascinating trot through the issues of population growth(which currently stands at the jaw dropping 6 million per month), poverty analysis, agriculture and food security.

Some more salient facts: 1.1bn survive on less than 50p per day (10% of China, 41% Bangladeshi's - this is big time malnutrition level), 2.7 billion survive on less than £1 per day (80% in India, 92% in Nigeria). The problem with bringing more out of the poverty gap is that more money is then spent on meat and dairy, which in turn creates rapid growth in raw agricultural commodities. As one of my charming dinner guests pointed out to me, even more grain is then required to feed to the animals that are then fed to us (and they use 10 times as much water too), rather than just using the grain direct. And this at a time when grain prices as well as oil prices are escalating (for instance, bread wheat has has boomeranged from £72 to £193 per tonne in just two years. Add onto that additional delivery costs, and that loaf becomes far more expensive). Having just had an energy-giving heart-pounding cancer-preventing lip-smacking shot of watercress juice (the event was sponsored by the Vitacress Conservation Trust), that seemed to me to be a pretty strong argument to become a fully signed-up wheat-free veggie-loving watercress muncher.

Beddington is an extremely affable man getting to grips with all the recent media coverage, who admitted that 4 months into the job he would no longer use the word 'insane' where 'unwise' may be a more moderate turn of phrase for those who doubt the science of climate change. With his soft west country accent, and honesty in answering questions (two received "I do not know the answer to that", before attempting to address the issues presented as best he could), the enormous extent of the remit of his role was apparent. How does a man in his position get his head around not only all of the above, but also Energy and Infrastructure issues as well as Technology and Peak Oil, never mind the Honeybee crisis (could this be the gaia-canary in the coal mine)? It's a strange position to hold. Whilst it's one of independence, most government departments hold their own two scientific advisers who report to him, and he in turn reports to the PM then the cabinet secretary. I wish him well.

WISE Women: Women in Sustainability and the Environment

Calling all green ladies out there...WISE Women is a new network I have formed to bring together women who are working in, are concerned about and want to do more about sustainability and the environment. Please come join us.

First Speaker Event
Our first Speaker Event tackles one of the most pressing issues of our day: Peak Oil. We know it's running out, we know it's soon, but how do we make sense of it all and why is our government failing to address our pending energy crisis?

David Strahan, award-winning investigative journalist, documentary film-maker and author of The Last Oil Shock will unravel these and other issues surrounding the imminent extinction of Petroleum Man + Woman.

What: Peak Oil
Where: The Hub 5 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ
When: Tuesday 29th April 2008, 6.30pm - 8pm
Cost: £5 on the door

1 male guest allowed per member subject to availability (chaps, you are welcome to attend, but you do have to be a guest of a female member)

RSVP: events@wisewomen.me.uk

Joining WISE Women
If you would like to become a member of WISE Women and subscribe to further events please complete your details on our website: Join WISE Women

www.wisewomen.me.uk

Related Blog links:
Energy Crisis
Richard Heinberg on Peak Oil

Two Warnings from the North Pole

Ben Saunders from Ben Saunders on Vimeo.

On the day that Ben Saunders has had to abandon his solo expedition to the North Pole, James Hansen, Head of Nasa and one of the world's leading climate change scientists, warns of rapidly melting ice due to feed-back mechanisms from our increase in CO2 emissions. As ice sheets recede, the warming effect is compounded says Hansen. Satellite technology available over the past three years has shown that the ice sheets are melting much faster than expected, with Greenland and west Antarctica both losing mass. It is this very melting ice that has literally stopped Ben in his tracks.

A recent paper co-authored by Hansen and eight other scientists warns that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem. The EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed. If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice - that's a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster - a guaranteed disaster,"

Hansen said that he now regards as implausible the view of many climate scientists that the shrinking of the ice sheets would take thousands of years. "If we follow business as usual I can't see how west Antarctica could survive a century. We are talking about a sea-level rise of at least a couple of metres this century."


For the past 8 days Ben has witnessed first-hand the erosion of the ice making his expedition impossible to continue as equipment failed him whilst he battled with the worsening conditions of the rapidly melting ice. Battling against what has been described by many as the worst conditions in recent history, Ben has encountered miles of never ending pressure ridges, some standing as tall as two-storeys high, over which he has dragged his 65kg sledge. This is what he has to say:

"The ice conditions I have encountered have been the worst I have ever seen, and worse than I could have imagined. I am witnessing at first hand the disintegration of the last of the Arctic’s multi-year pack ice. If climate change in the high Arctic continues at its current rate, I may be one of the last to be able to attempt this journey on foot. I feel enormously privileged to have had that chance and the only true failure would have been not to have started this expedition in the first place."

Over a year ago I chatted with Ben about the receding Arctic ice. He told me then that the pace and scale of the change he witnesses is breathtaking. You can read more of what he said here.

But it is not all bad news. Hansen said his findings were not a recipe for despair. The good news, he said, is that reserves of fossil fuels have been exaggerated, so an alternative source of energy will have to be rapidly put in place in any case. Other measure could include a moratorium on coal power stations which would bring the C02 levels to below 400ppm.

As for Ben, his first-hand reports of the climate changing conditions he is experiencing are invaluable and illuminating. If we take the advice of Hansen et all, the ice may well be there for future generations of explorers like Ben to report back from.

James Hansen
Ben Saunders

The Transition Handbook

This is for Catherine, whom I hope will be inspired to set up our own Transition Initiative...

Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition movement, creating the fertile ground (literally as well as metaphorically) to generate the growth of communities that are resilient and able to embrace peak oil and climate change. He bridges the gap between the individual and the government, and provides an alternative and inclusive approach, one which enables people to work together to explore solutions on a credible scale. Just published, the Transition Handbook, explains the why and how it can be done.

And what a remarkable book it is. So good it kept me up all night until I had finished it, then bought more copies which have already been dished out (the only other book I seem to do this with on a regular basis is David Strahan's The Last Oil Shock. Both are top must-reads). It is a seminal text for our times. I'll wager that this will prove to be one of the most dynamic and important social movements of the 21st Century.

The Transition Handbook is all about the potential to progress and develop resilience within our communities, to adapt to the energy crisis whilst respecting the earth we live on. For me, it has help reshape my vision of our future on a community level and demonstrated the importance of inclusivity and strong support networks. This book is no wishy washy green-love-in. It's about business and life as we want it for a future that is in balance with our planet. One to read, reread and act upon.

transitiontowns.org
Transition Culture
Community Action

Alistair Darling's peely wally pale green budget

In Scotland the term 'peely wally' denotes a sickly pale green palor. That's the colour of the new Chancellor's budget. It had been touted to be the much needed great green budget - but it wasn't, it was a sop, a tinkering at the edges, but otherwise pretty much business as usual. In environmental terms there was no sense of seriously addressing 'stability' (he used this word a lot, 23 times, in an attempt to convince us all is well. It didn't work - it's the content that counts) at a time when our emissions continue to rise. My conclusion: it was a 'do nothing' budget.

On the up-side Darling threatened a tax on plastic bags (why threat - just do it. This is an old solution which the UK is still failing to implement), plans to penalise the most polluting cars (£950 for most polluting cars; why not make it thousands, or bolder yet - price them completely off the road or simply ban them) and reward the greenest through changes in car tax, tinkered with taxes on new green homes (retrofitting existing stock is a far larger problem that is not being properly addressed - Home Information Packs are not enough) and said a climate levy on business would continue (of course, why would it not?). "We need to do more and we need to do it now," Darling said presenting his first budget. "There will be catastrophic economic and social consequences if we fail to act." So act.

But didn't - he stood peering over the edge of the yawning abyss that lies ahead and instead stepped back. He delayed his planned rise in duty on road fuel, backed further airport expansion (this really is not joined up thinking. What fuel are planes going to be using in 10 years time? Hot air? Hot coal? No mention of the much needed reinforced public transport system to address peak oil) and simply announced a fresh consultation on boosting renewable energy. We really do not need another (sham) consultation. We need decisive decision making.

Darling did however announce the UK government support for all future allocations of carbon emission permits to power generators to be auctioned. (The current phase of European Union emission permits for the power generators were all allocated free, handing them billions of pounds in profits as they passed on the notional cost of the permits in higher energy costs to consumers) and that aviation be included in the next phase of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme. But what of this? These are not UK decisions, they are EU decisions - and this is likely outcome at EU level with all EU member states voting to support these proposals in any event.

Is this what is called sending out mixed messages? Yes, the UK government supports taxing of flights because they accept they are a large contributor to climate change (4 - 7% CO2 emissions) but, hey, lets expand our airports and get more in the air while we are at it. Hmmm.

Last night I went to hear the Climate Tzar Lord Adair Turner (Chair of the government's Climate Change Committee) speak on Climate Change. He stayed for just two questions at the end and then scooted off. When asked what he would have put in the budget, he neatly side-stepped the question, but did make a few relevant points. In fact, he did that clever thing of completely rephrasing the question. He asked, does Fuel Duty work? His answer: it makes very little impact on using cars less but it can make a big impact on size of car chosen(i.e, more informed consumerism), so yes it does work. And now that it's in place it can be racked up in future years. Yes, fair enough, but Mr Turner you yourself acknowledged at the outset of your talk that it is because of our use of burning of fossil fuels that we have rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions. So, surely you agree with me on this: does this not point to the unavoidable fact that we need to stop using the very fuel that is creating our rapidly escalating emissions, rather than merely using it less fast?

Pollution Solution: Feed-in Tariffs

Heard the term Feed-in Tariff (also referred to FIT, or REFIT - renewable energy feed-in tariff)? Bet you have. It's the catchphrase of preference for all true RE geeks (that's Renewable Energy, not Religious Education). FIT's will help solve our failing RE targets and if you do not know this already you are sooo behind the times. Our Labour government are now toying with the term and contemplating stealing the march on Tory and Lib Dem sworn FIT policy. There has even been an EDM (Early Day Motion) proposed by Labour MP Alan Simpson that is proving popular with 180 votes so far. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Renewable Energy Association are all shouting loudly for FIT's. And so they should.

So, here for you, is the complete low-down on why we so desperately need to support RE, how to do it and what FIT's are...

Why do we need RE?
If you subscribe to the basic principle that we have no option but to replace our current use of polluting fossil fuel with sustainable non-polluting alternatives (whether it be for reducing greenhouse gases and/or because of our pending energy crisis), then energy from renewables is the inevitable solution.

How can we support renewable energy?
For specific RE technologies to succeed, well-conceived government intervention is required. The simple fact is that without appropriate legislative assistance, RE systems are unable to compete. We are afterall dealing with a historical energy system predicated on the use of fossil fuel. New mechanisms are need to be implemented to open the door to RE being included and indeed, in time, fully replacing fossil fuel.

What legislation is required to make this work?
A FIT law. FIT's are a specific market mechanism to facilitate non-commercial RE technology to become commercialised in as fast as time as possible. In other words, it will take RE technology to mass production levels where it can stand alone. They do this by guaranteeing a favourable price (the tariff) for the electricity produced (feeding-in to the grid) over a set period of time (usually 20 years).

It is well established that FIT's are the most effective, cost efficient and transparent system to facilitate not only introduction of RE into the marketplace, but also to promote homegrown industry in the sector. Just look at all countries that have successful FITs, eg Germany, Spain. One aspect of FIT's that is often overlooked but is so vital is that they place a legal obligation on the utility to buy-in the renewable electricity (at a set price); thus no queueing until some ageing dirty coal plant falls off the radar to finally be accepted ongrid. Priority access for RE is a vital mandatory tool.

In a nutshell:
FIT’s
• work on a tariff rate for specific RE technologies that is guaranteed for a set period (usually 20 years). For instance, Germany has FIT's for small hydro, onshore wind, offshore wind, biomass, biogas, PV and geothermal (each RES set at different levels) but not one for CSP because they do not generate CSP on home turf;
• place a legal obligation on the utility companies to purchase electricity at set pricing levels from RES installations which are produced nationally;
• do not apply to buying in of RES from other EU countries or third party countries;
• are not trans-boundary, nor are they ever likely to be. It is the EC's intention that they remain voluntary as a mechanism for each country to implement as they see fit to promote home-grown RE;
• so far 19 out of 27 EU countries have implemented FIT's under their national legislation. Another 12 countries world-wide have adopted this system, and there also exists the use of FIT's at state level in 10 further countries.

[map of EU countries with FIT's]

FIT Benefits:
• proven to be the most successful mechanism to develop RE markets and domestic industries, and achieving the associated social, economic, environmental and security benefits;
• easy to implement and administer, FIT’s are transparent and cost-effective;
• greater flexibility can be designed into the scheme to account for changes in technology and the marketplace;
• encourage steady growth of small- and medium-scale producers;
• low transaction costs;
• ease of financing;
• investor security;
• ease of entry.

Benefit to you
+ You get to buy your own solar panel, wind-turbine etc at good price;
+ You generate your own clean energy (and sell the excess onto the grid, thus helping others too)
+ You get to keep your bills down whilst helping the planet.


There are various books on RE and potential policy, but the best of the lot is: Feed-in Tariffs, Accelerating the Deployment of Renewable Energy,2007, written by one of the foremost experts in this area, Miguel Mendoca. Amazingly, he makes a very dry subject utterly fascinating.

Even better, FIT's are so easy to adopt as national policy that there are now two websites that shows policy makers how to implement the requisite legislation:
Policy Action on Climate Toolkit - everything you need for implementing a FIT (and a nifty 5 min video too)
World Future Council - comprehensive documentation in support.

So, no reason not to get FIT, Mr Brown. Oh and one other thing - that Permitted Development Order that was shelved back on 10th October last year will need dusting off and implementing too, so that we shan't have the whole thing stymied for microgeneration installers by having to apply for planning permission. And while you are at it, could you overhaul the Low Carbon Buildings Programme too? Easy to apply for grants would be much appreciated also. That really would be a pollution solution package to shout about.

Desktop Direct Action: You can email your local MP to ask them to support the FIT EDM. Not sure who your MP is, or what their email address is? Go to TheyWorkForYou.com Easy - and effective.

Pollution Solution - no more mercury in my mouth

Ever wondered where the expression 'Mad as a Hatter' came from? I did, and out of such a casual query opened the door to a discovery that I cannot ignore. Mad as a hatter was a reference to the mental disorders that occurred in hat makers caused by the mercury once used to process felt for hats. To be more specific, it is the exposure to mercury vapour that proves to be so hazardous. When inhaled, it is easily absorbed into the bloodstream causing toxic buildup in various organs.

Mercury, thankfully, is no longer used in hat making. But it is still widely used as a major component in silver amalgam fillings. Over 50% of the compound is mercury (which equals approximately one half gram per filing = as much mercury used in a thermometer, which is loads), the other metals being silver, tin and zinc. The thing is, every time you chew or brush your teeth, that amalgam filling starts smoking and releasing it's toxic vapour. It's the mercury that causes the problems, with a substantial body of evidence demonstrating the hazards of mercury poisoning affecting the endocrine, the central nervous system, the kidneys and the brain. High levels in pregnant women are attributed to a three-fold increase in sterility, still-births and miscarriages. When mercury enters the blood after leaking out of an amalgam filling, it remains there only for a few minutes. Henceforth it is locked into the cells of our body as we excrete far less than we absorb. This is called 'Retention Toxicity'. Once in our organs it can stay there for decades. As Dr Lars Freiberg, chief advisor to the World Health Organisation on mercury safety put it, "there is no safe level of mercury" (1)

Still not convinced? You can watch this gory but nevertheless informative Youtube video on smoking mercury fillings from the IAOMT.

Given this state of affairs, how is it that mercury is so prevalent? It transpires it was that old chestnut, market economics, that had won the day. Amalgam was a cheaper compound than gold for a dental fillings, and despite health reservations, in 1819 it was introduced into the UK, and later worldwide, dental repertoire - it was touted as the filling everybody could afford. But as we now know, this has come at great cost to humans and the environment. In business terms, the external costs have not been factored in.

Thus, it looked like mercury fillings are pretty much here to stay. But times they are a- changing. So concerned about the high levels of poisoning, amalgam fillings are now banned in Sweden and Denmark. Austria is phasing out mercury fillings, and in Switzerland and Japan the dental schools no longer teach amalgam use as the primary form of dental care. In 1991, Germany's Ministry of Health recommended that no further amalgam fillings be used for children, pregnant women or those with kidney disease. In 1993 this was extended to include all women, and the Health Ministry is now considering whether to ban it's use entirely. Now recognised as such a dangerous substance, that the EU is currently onto it's second reading of a Directive proposing a Mercury Exports Ban by 2010.

Here in the UK, you can have your mercury fillings removed - not a cheap option, but one that I intend doing. It's a delicate job that requires a qualified dentist. Your dentist can measure your levels of mercuy toxicity, as can a good kinesiologist (although remember, your reading will be higher if you have just been munching beforehand) Society for Mercury Free Dentistry adheres to a strict code of practise to ensure extraction is undertaken as safely as possible (see their list for qualified dentists). In London extraction and replacement of an amalgam filling with a porcelain one costs around £700-£800 per filling (enough to make you choke on your methylmercury tainted tuna filled sarnie). In Scotland, it's roughly half the price. If you have like me a few that need replacing, a short trip over the border may just be what the dentist ordered.

If you want to read more, have a look at the following books:
Stop the 21st Century Killing You, 2005 Dr Paula Baillie-Hamilton, Vermilion and Toxics A to Z, a Guide to Everyday Pollution Hazards, University of California Press.

Mercury Free Dentistry

See also: Summary of the United Nations Environment Programme on Mercury Assesment

EU policy tracker: EU proposed Directive on the Banning of Exports and the Safe Storage of Metallic Mercury


(1) Panorama, Poison in the Mouth, 1994

Post Carbon Living: Beyond Technofix

by Richard Heinberg
Published on 4 March 2008 by The Ecologist

On January 12, The Guardian quoted departing chief scientific adviser Sir David King as saying, “any approach that does not focus on technological solutions to climate change—including nuclear power—is one of ‘utter hopelessness’.”

It is useful to have this view so succinctly stated, because it is nearly the reverse of the position I will be exploring in this column, which is that there is an overwhelming need for non-technological responses to our global environmental crisis.

I could debate the point with Dr. King, I would begin with a discussion of our differing understandings of the nature of the crisis itself. In his view, climate change is caused by technology and therefore must have a technical solution. But to me this is a blindingly superficial framing of the situation. It’s not just climate change that threatens us, but depletion of resources including oil, natural gas, coal, fresh water, fish, topsoil, and minerals (ranging from antimony to zinc, and including, significantly, uranium); as well as destruction of habitat and accelerating biodiversity loss—which is exacerbated by climate change, but is also happening for other anthropogenic reasons. In essence, there are just too many of us using too much too fast.

Thus the problem is not merely technological; it is cultural in the deepest sense. Starting a couple of centuries ago, our species embarked on a path of unprecedented growth, founded on a temporary subsidy of cheap hydrocarbon energy. Climate change is a side effect of fossil fuel consumption, and has emerged as the most critical symptom of our growth binge. But unless we address the core of the problem, other symptoms will soon overwhelm us even if we manage technically to resolve the dilemma of carbon emissions.

Addressing the core of the problem means letting go of growth; in fact, it means engaging in a period of controlled societal contraction characterized by a stable or declining population consuming at a per-capita level far lower than is currently taken for granted in the industrialized world.

For anyone who understands the basics of ecology—having to do with relationships between population, resources, and carrying capacity—nothing could be clearer. But for those who insist on seeing only technical problems with technical solutions, the forest remains lost from sight behind a single tree.

To be sure: minimally polluting technologies must be part of our response to climate change and all the other symptoms of global crisis—whether those technologies include wind turbines, better public transit systems, or more efficient electrical storage devices. But just as important are changes in individual attitudes, habits, and expectations; and more essential still is a fundamental reworking of economic institutions and policies, so that endless growth ceases to be seen as good or even possible.

Some (Sir David King among them) would say that climate change is so serious and pressing a crisis that we may have to put off grappling with other environmental problems and use any means at our disposal—including otherwise problematic technologies such as nuclear power—to address it. But there is no way we can substitute alternative sources of energy—including nuclear—for fossil fuels to reduce carbon emissions as much and as quickly as the science says we must, unless we also dramatically reduce overall energy consumption. No matter how you slice it, we’ve got to downsize and re-localize our economies, and so culture change is indispensable to the required response.

King says that wrongheaded environmentalists are keen to take society back to the 18th century or further. Yet there are few indeed who want to ditch the humanitarian and scientific advances of the past decades. This is a straw-man argument. A fairer formulation of many environmentalists’ views is this: unless we use technology within the context of a controlled, planned, sustained period of economic contraction, we will see a chaotic, depletion-led societal collapse that could make the 18th century look like paradise by comparison.

Once one accepts this larger framing of the problem and its solutions, a whole world of possibilities opens up—a world I intend to explore in future columns. Far from being a world of utter hopelessness, it is one that engages human responsibility, creativity, and community. It is one characterized by cultural maturity, rather than the advertising-fueled teenage—even infantile—attitude that assumes that the world exists only to supply an ever-expanding list of human wants. It is the world of post-carbon living toward which tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of citizens worldwide are beginning deliberately to transition.

*Richard Heinberg is a Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute and author of The Party’s Over, Powerdown, The Oil Depletion Protocol, and Peak Everything. He also has his own excellent website where you can sign up for his Museletters

* Richard Heinberg is to have a regular column in the The Ecologist. This column apears in the print copy of the March issue.

Current Thinking by Howies

Think back. Like before the Ipod, the Iphone, Google, the Breville toaster, even before black and white television, to the 1880s. Back then two men had a fight over the future of electricity and how it would reach us.

In one corner was Thomas Edison. He backed DC (electrons flowing in one direction around a circuit). In the other corner was George Westinghouse who backed AC (in which the electrons shuffle back and forth). Edison lost. The reason he lost was because over short distances spanned by early power grids AC suffered lower losses than DC. Subsequently, it became industry standard.

So what’s the big deal? Well, these days electricity travels much further than it did
in the 1880s. And DC suffers lower losses than AC. So not only does that make DC better in its own right but it would allow electricity grids to be restructured in ways that would make wind power more attractive. That would reduce the need to build more conventional (and polluting) power stations.

You see, wind power has two problems. You don’t always get wind where you want it. And secondly, you don’t always get wind when you want it.

According to Jürgen Schmid, head of ISET, an alternative-energy institute at the University of Kassel, Germany, the answer to both these problems is a continental-wide power distribution. Then the question of where the wind is blowing would no longer matter as the wind is almost always blowing somewhere. If it were windy in Spain but not in West Wales, current would flow in one direction. Conversely if it were a blustery day over here, then it would flow in the other direction.

The ‘when’ aspect of the equation would be to use a country within the European grid to store the electricity until you need it. So how does that work? Well, for example you could use Norway’s hydroelectric plants. The power is used to pump water up into the reservoirs that feed the hydroelectric turbines. That way the power is on tap when you need it.

Should the wind drop all over Europe, which happens rarely, the hydro plants could fill the gap for up to four weeks. Complicated, but at the same time, simple too.

The reason it has not been built goes back to that fight between Edison and Westinghouse back in the 1880’s. He won because high voltage is the best way to transmit power. The higher the voltage, the smaller the loss. Yet AC with its shifting current runs to earth easier, which is another way of saying it loses its power. Hence the reason why the pylons are so high off the ground.

In short, a DC pylon will beat an AC one over long distance (600 miles). And a DC line will beat an AC line at a distance as short as 20 miles. That’s why Dr Schmid calculates that a DC continental grid would allow wind to supply at least 30% of the power needed in Europe. And do so reliably.

Edison was right. DC was the best way to transmit electricity of any given voltage. He was ahead of his time.

Speed read
1 AC may no longer be the future.
2 DC suffers lower losses over longer distance.
3 This will make wind power more commercial.
4 A European-wide power distribution would mean that it won’t matter where the wind is blowing as it is almost always blowing somewhere.
5 Norway has started building DC power lines between Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Germany.
6 Edison may have been right after all.

TREC say the same - use HVDC to transmit clean electricity from concentrating solar power as well as wind throughout Europe, Middle East and North Africa:


Thanks to Howies for telling the story of electricity so well - they make cool clothes too.

Concentrating Solar Power has bright future

The very fact that within just a matter of a few months a second renewable energy conference devoted entirely to CSP was held in Spain is no co-incidence. This is an industry that is evolving by the day and such is the promise of it being on the verge of a tipping point was demonstrated by who attended. This time, attendees did not merely include international as well as national industry players but also investors and the speculators. VC's (who happily just want to throw money at CSP but complain that there aren't enough projects for them to invest in) and banks (who are becoming remarkably CSP friendly in their support) vied for space with oil and power companies who are now considering extending their rapidly depleting energy portfolios into CSP. Suddenly everyone is recognising the potential opportunity. Sign of the times.

Dr Gerhardt Knies, who has shaped the bold vision of the EUMENA - DESERTEC alliance over the past few years, now presents a viable roadmap for rapid CSP commercialisation, comparable to the remarkable achievement of the Apollo mission. To reach the goal of 3,200TWh/y required by 2050 would demand rapid deployment on the scale of 1GW every day from 2020. He calls for a EUMENA solar energy alliance - an alliance between Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to build an HVDC supergrid and share the solar resources. This is now beginning to capture the imagination of politicians and commissioners alike.

Building on the phenomenal success of feed-in tariffs for CSP in southern Europe, an EU commissioned Solar Initiative is due to commence next month. The groundswell of support for a EUMENA solar co-operation at all levels demonstrates that what was once CSP power-point is now becoming CSP power plant.

Such is the success of CSP in Spain, that the feed-in tariff cap has already been reached 3 years early. The industry is waiting to hear how far the cap will be extended to ensure progress of further development projects in the pipeline. Meanwhile in the USA, the future acceleration of CSP remains dependent on the extension of the Investment Tax Credit to ensure crucial investor support continues. They too expect to hear very soon whether a further extension of 8 years has been granted.

It is no longer a matter of 'if' but now a matter of 'when'. One thing is for sure, the next few months for CSP are full of promise.

The Pros and Cons of Solar Power

Even Malcom Wicks MP finds the prospect of CSP rather exciting. To hear the latest on CSP: Costing the Earth podcast: Bring Me Sunshine

DESERTEC
TREC-UK

Oil state backs renewables as vision of the future.

There is an irony in this: it takes an oil state to pledge 15 billion dollars for the world’s first zero-carbon and zero-waste city, designed by our own UK architectural team, Fosters + Partners, to make the rest of the world sit up and take note. This is not a developed nation pushing forward with a bit of innovative zero carbon town planning (Gordon Brown, take note - 2016 is fast drawing near and we still have the building industry lobbying over the implementation of the 10% Merton Rule, never mind building future proofed 100% zero-carbon housing by 2016), nor is this a Clean Development Mechanism project pulling in support under the Kyoto Protocol. No, it is one of the wealthiest oil nations making a grand statement of commitment to push forward with a sustainable town proposal that has taken it's remit extremely seriously.

Located near Abu Dhabi International Airport (which will doubtless be a curious relic of an earlier era by the time this has been built), Masdar City will be the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city, aiming to exceed the 10 sustainability principles of “One Planet Living”– a global initiative launched by the Worldwide Fund for Nature and environmental consultancy BioRegional. The 6 million square meter walled development to be built at Masdar will include a new university devoted to new ideas for energy production.
To remain zero-carbon within its walls, the city will be entirely car free. Carefully planned public transportation will ensure that none of the city’s inhabitants will have to walk more than 200 meters before meeting some part of the transportation link. Included in the transportation system will be a network of shaded walkways and narrow streets, creating a pedestrian-friendly atmosphere for those who prefer to travel by foot. All of the transportation system is offset with the inclusion of personalized rapid transport, ensuring rapid transit within the city limits. Outside of the walls, the development of the city was strategically sited to link to Abu Dhabi’s principal transport infrastructure, the center hub of Abu Dhabi, and the international airport via the existing road infrastructure and new public rail routes.

Along with the carefully planned intersection of transportation is the conscientious incorporation of wind, photovoltaic farms, research fields, and plantations, allowing for the Masdar to be entirely self-sustaining.

Even the development phase of Masdar has been made sustainable through a two-step phasing process, the first of which is dependent on the development of a large $350 million 100 megawatt solar plant, which will later be boosted to 500 megawatts to help ease peak-time pressure on the national grid.

The One Planet Living programme is based on 10 unique principles of sustainability. These targets are to be achieved by the time the Masdar City is completed and fully functioning in 2015.

One Planet Living principle - Masdar Target:

ZERO CARBON: 100 per cent of energy supplied by renewable energy – Photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, wind, waste to energy and other technologies

ZERO WASTE: 99 per cent diversion of waste from landfill (includes waste reduction measures, re-use of waste wherever possible, recycling, composting, waste to energy)

SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT: Zero carbon emissions from transport within the city; implementation of measures to reduce the carbon cost of journeys to the city boundaries (through facilitating and encouraging the use of public transport, vehicle sharing, supporting low emissions vehicle initiatives)

SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS: Specifying high recycled materials content within building products; tracking and encouraging the reduction of embodied energy within materials and throughout the construction process; specifying the use of sustainable materials such as Forest Stewardship Council certified timber, bamboo and other products

SUSTAINABLE FOOD: Retail outlets to meet targets for supplying organic food and sustainable and or fair trade products

SUSTAINABLE WATER: Per capita water consumption to be at least 50 per cent less than the national average; all waste water to be re-used

HABITATS AND WILDLIFE: All valuable species to be conserved or relocated with positive mitigation targets

CULTURE AND HERITAGE: Architecture to integrate local values.

EQUITY AND FAIR TRADE: Fair wages and working conditions for all workers (including construction) as defined by international labour standards

HEALTH AND HAPPINESS: Facilities and events for every demographic group

Whilst the aesthetics may not be to the liking to a Scot brought up on a diet of trees rustling, the fresh air biting and the cold still waters of mountain lochs, one cannot fault the One Planet Principles.



Masdar

Peter Meisen at GENI on DESERTEC

Peter Meisen at GENI on DESERTEC

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Peter Meisen at The Global Energy Network Institute talks about the DESERTEC initiative to promote the use of the sun in the Sahara Desert to create clean electricity for Europe, Middle East and North Africa (EUMENA).

Meanwhile, out in Southern California, where the market for renewables is growing rapidly, all utilities are starting to contract with large sun and wind maunfacturers. Peter gives an update on the California Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative, which has been set up to support and enable Southern Californian utilities to meet their Renewable Portfolio Standards and accelerate the ability to bring transmission lines to the areas where the solar plants (and wind farms) are being built.

Why is RETI so important? It has set up a co-operative committee amongst various agencies, regulatory bodies and utilities to figure out how to get through the roadblocks of accessing these wind and solar sites, thereby working with and supporting renewable energy and transmission policy development.

Overdrawing on Earth's Bank

I like Hilary Benn, I really do. He's bright, he's got style, humour, and has a slight streak of the renegade. But, at the end of the day, he's a politician, and yesterday infront of an audience in Islington, he did as politicians do so well - he dodged the tricksy questions.

Mr Benn, our Secretary of State for the Environment, had come to tell us about the outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Bali on the 3 - 14th December 2007 and to speak on what the UK government are doing on the homefront. (Bali in a nutshell: nothing binding, but US and China agreed at the 11th hour to enter into the ongoing negotiation process providing no emission targets were set, deforestation to be included in future talks, technology transfer between developed and developing nations to be promoted, and pretty much everyone bar Bush accepts the climate change science. He calls it an historic breakthrough, I call it a compromise - I suppose it all depends on how high you set the standards you want to see achieved. Mine happen to be higher). Mr Benn takes a remarkably robust view that the UK is taking great strides in tackling climate change.

But I am a grouchy environmentalist today, and from where I sit, the UK record over the past 12 months does not stack up to much achievement at all (under Labour our emissions have actually risen over the last 10 years), nor do we compare well to Europe (we have a lamentable 2% share of renewable energy in the EU, 1/10th wind power and 1/250th of the solar power that the Germans have produced). Whilst the German renewable industry increased jobs by 25,000 in 2007, we in the UK were laying people off.

Question: Why does the government not have a coherent and effectively co-ordinated policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020? So far it has been a heavy focus on nuclear in the UK, which will, if fully realised, only give us a 4% reduction by 2025 at the latest. This won't solve our (it has to be said - unambitious) 20% reduction by 2020. All we have are piecemeal announcements.

Mr Ben reminds us that we have the Energy Efficiency Commitment (energy suppliers are required to achieve targets for the reduction of carbon emissions in the UK household sector), promotion of energy efficiency (is this making any real difference? Efficiency actually encourages more use - look at increase of energy efficient cars), the introduction of the EST Green Homes Service in April and the Climate Change Bill is moving onwards - due back in for it's third reading in the house of lords at the end of March (aiming for Royal Assent in Spring 2009 - just before the next election).

40% emissions are due to the individual, say Mr Benn. So therefore we must focus on reducing the emissions of the individual. But this seems to be flawed analysis to me. If the source of the emissions, namely use of fossil fuels, is not remedied and replaced with clean alternatives (i.e renewable energy), then those emissions will continue to be released. Energy efficiency certainly delays the inevitable, but in the long term it matters not when those emissions are released - they are still going to be released, and remain out there for hundreds of years. The energy source has to be replaced - it's that simple, even a child understands this. Like many in this country, I want my energy use at home to come from renewable sources, not fossil fuel - but to actually have microgeneration installed is so ridiculously costly and enormously fraught with hurdles (planning permission, grant application etc), that it is just not a viable for the time being.

He concedes that there are exciting technologies and innovation out there, but not much industry take-off on home shores: there are lessons to be learned from Germany, he says quite rightly. This is because they, like a growing number of EU countries, have a successful and ambitious renewable energy policy framework of feed-in tariffs which means thousands of homeowners have now installed microgeneration and their renewables market is flourishing. We do not - and as a consequence we have not.(More on this coming soon)

Mr Benn points out that we are the first country in the world to adopt binding emission targets (60% by 2050 is proposed under the Climate Change Bill - and recent reports say that this is far too low, that we should be aiming for). However, often it's not so much what is said to be done, but rather the sins of omission that are so glaring. Governmental targets are all fine and well, but useless when the market mechanisms are not put in place to foster growth and development. Nor is action taken when targets are not fulfilled. That's part of the reason why we have such a poor uptake of renewable energy so far.

Turning to community and business issues, Geeta Sing, owner of the fabulous organic Duke of Cambridge pub, raised a vital issue: that of the need for business incentives to encourage sustainable businesses like hers. One of the hurdles she faces is the incredible difficulty and expense in sourcing food locally. It's not for shortage of small farms outside London, but that of transporting it in individually. She suggests a practical solution: efficient food hubs which local restaurants and food outlets could share, thereby creating a self-sufficient London. As she pointed out, the organic and environmental movement has grown out of individual responsibility. We need more than ever assistance from the government now, to help support farmers markets and local food suppliers - all too pertinent with the pending oil crisis looming ahead.

The Secretary of State for the Environment calls for us to live within our means. We all know what it is like to be overdrawn at the banks; well now it's time learn to live within the earth's capacity. For the last 200 years we have been overdrawing on the Earth's Bank, and the penalties are beginning to kick in. Time to remedy it before it crashes. Mr Benn, this I am in full agreement with.

Bali outcome

No to Nuclear, Yes to CSP

With John Hutton set to announce a new generation of nuclear power stations for the UK today, it raises the issue of what price such a benefit would be.

Whilst it cannot be denied that our current generation would benefit from nuclear energy generation, it will be future generations who will carry the detriment of the legacy that remains.

Future generations will carry the burden of policing it, paying for it as well as suffering the consequences if /when disaster strikes, which would result in substantial additional economic, environmental and social costs.

Whilst we were not fully aware of the potential future consequences back in the 1950's, or were reckless in proceeding without understanding those consequences and detriment to others, we now carry the knowledge of the inherent risks and costs to future generations. With that knowledge comes the responsibility to ensure the highest possible standards of safety and damage limitation strategies are imposed. Likewise, with it comes the duty to implement a programme of cessation of current use of nuclear as soon as possible.

The only conclusion I can draw, is this: to proceed with a new generation of nuclear would be morally wrong, especially where other solutions, including Concentrating Solar Power, are viable, cost competitive, renewable, low carbon and benign.

Greenpeace response:
Greenpeace Nuclear Power Briefing
Energy Bill:
Energy Bill, Bill 53 07-08

Earlier Postings:
Why I say No to Nuclear
Concentrating Solar Power - the DESERTEC vision
Concentrating Solar Power Basks in the Glow of a Sunny Future

Bali: UN Climate Conference outcome

It was an 11th hour nail biting, final pulling together after berating the Americans for their attempts to sabotage any agreement, which resulted in .. a compromise.

World governments agreed a negotiating framework to decide a new global climate policy by 2009 on 13th December 2007 for the post-2012 period.

The Bali road-map commits all developed countries to quantified greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and says "deep cuts" will be needed. Developing countries will commit to "appropriate mitigation actions".

Disappointingly, upon the insistence of the US, the road-map suggests no concrete emission reduction targets. But a footnote makes reference to documents from the IPCC which say reductions of up to 40 per cent by 2020 are needed to head off dangerous climate change. Greenpeace lamented the lack of references to "crucial cuts" and the "relegation of science to a footnote".

On the positive, general approval was voiced for consensuses reached on tackling emissions from deforestation, on enhancing technology development and transfer, and on stimulating financial flows to fund all climate change-related action.

However, the next two years of talks promise to be difficult. Somewhat unsurprisingly, US officials saying that they had "serious concerns" about the Bali deal. White House spokesman Dana Perino said climate negotiators "must give sufficient emphasis to the important and appropriate role that the larger emitting developing countries should play" - a clear reference to India and China. This may complicate, and indeed hinder the process - a polite way of saying it is anticipated that the US will continue to be obstructive.

[Participation in the Kyoto Protocol, where dark green indicates countries that have signed and ratified the treaty and yellow indicates states that have signed and hope to ratify the treaty. Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised to sign and ratify it - so should be coloured green also.The United States has signed the treaty but continues to refuse to ratify it.]

Technology transfer deal: a clear mandate
In a separate agreement in Bali, parties to the Kyoto protocol agreed to be fully guided by the IPCC's recommendations in setting a second round of commitments by 2009 (which suggests those 40% GHG reductions by 2020 will be implemented in due course - a matter of watch that space). It is intended for the two tracks - the Bali road-map and Kyoto - eventually to merge. A review of the protocol, which will focus also on how to enhance carbon markets, was also launched.

One deal was reached that can be considered the most significant milestone yet on the road towards a new global climate agreement for the post-2012 period. Agreement was reached on a text setting out how the industrialised world should transfer technology to developing countries. The text must still be rubber-stamped by ministers, but no problems are foreseen since it has been agreed by officials representing all parties.

The deal should create a new entity dedicated to technology transfer under the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a fund that supports environmental projects in developing countries. It is not clear whether funding will come from elsewhere within the GEF or from outside.

An expert group will analyse current and potential funding sources for a wish list of developing country technology transfer-related demands, with a view to filling gaps and developing new financing tools if necessary. It must report back by 2010.
Performance indicators for technology transfer will be developed.

Power Down: London's Carbon Neutral Night of Music

Now here's a thing - a carbon neutral music night, and not a carbon offset in sight. Instead, only natural acoustics, candlelight and organic booze (unrefrigerated of course - but that's not a problem as it's so cold outside anyway). Sounds delightful, rather romantic and, well, rather unusual.

But wait - is that a negative factor? I don't think so. Infact, it's all been rather well thought through - and such is it's success that it's now onto it's third outing. There's a serious message behind it all. Power Down strives to make fundamental changes in the way events are organised and run, without using off-setting services. Instead energy conservation and efficiency are the name of the game. When you enter into a space that is lit by candlelight and listen to music without the usual array of stage amplification, whilst supping Buddles organic beer that is thankfully cold due to being stored outside, it does make you stop and pause for thought. It can be done - and Power Down is doing it with the lightest of carbon footprint. No acoustic guitars here, thank you very much (how very last century they are).

Even the candles are made from recycled materials. Second hand vegetable oil from a local fish and chip shop has been mixed with unused wax from redundant candles to make new candles. No worries, the fishy smell has long gone (and anyway Islington chippies tend to be rather pucker affairs).

So, go along and have your preconceptions challenged - Power Down aims to bring a large array of genres to an open minded audience, from Hip-Hop, to Jazz, to Pop, to yes, Folk. There is no reason why all of these different art forms, as dependent on electricity and modern computing as they seem, cannot be stripped bare to their acoustic core. Present a musician with this task, and let's see the result. Who knows what it will sound like. Hopefully it will be intimate, intense and enlightening from the lack of barriers between the audience and the artist, air being the only remaining medium.

When: Saturday, 15th December
Where: the Islington Arts Factory, 2 Parkhurst Rd, Holloway, N7 0SF

Oh, and there will be mistletoe. With lots of dark corners, who knows what the night may bring....

Powerdown

Climate Change March

'Tis the season of goodwill and festive cheer - and there was much of that to bouy our hardcore lineup of protestors marching from Millbank outside the Houses of Parliament up to Grosvenor Square. So what that it rained? Ach, but why didn't I think to wear wellies?

Soggy feet aside, rousing speeches were given by Michael Meacher, Phil Thornhill, Caroline Lucas and more. All head nodding stuff - yes, we need to cut emmissions, this government needs to support microgeneration, introduce feed-in-tariffs (and if they don't the Tories will), give teeth to the Climate Change Bill. What is needed is action, not just aspiration. Yes, we cheered.

The best speaker, however, was left to the last. By which time any meaningful connection with my feet had been lost. But suddenly it didn't matter. George Monbiot took to the podium and gave a compelling thought-piece on capitalism and the need for individual action. Politically, little is taking shape, he says. The Bali talks promise little more than a tinkering at the edges - and I tend to agree with him. Where goverments fail, the movement for change must come from below, from grass-roots community and individual action. Monbiot proffers a different vision of how we need to live, in a world where we need to live with less.

Each time I hear him speak is somewhat akin to soaking up a compelling read, and each time I am left hungry for the next chapter. So much has evolved in the past year alone that it is said Monbiot is to revise his book Heat. This is also a man who is not afraid to let his own thoughts evolve as his own knowledge grows. If his spoken word is anything to go by, it promises to be one of the most significant books of our time.

Global Climate Campaign

Campaign Against Climate Change



[top three photos by Andrew Steele, bottom photo from Marmaduke Dando - with thanks]

The Solution is Simple

See what they say about Dylan on film.

thesolutionissimple.org
enoughsenough.org

EUMENA-DESERTEC Concept takes root in Brussels

On Wednesday, in my capacity as a representative of TREC-UK, I attended the presentation of The White Book "Clean Power from Deserts - The DESERTEC Concept for Energy, Water and Climate Security" to the European Parliament by His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, former President of The Club of Rome.

The book is based on the studies by the German Aerospace Center on the potential of deserts to supply clean power to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (EU-MENA).
It proposes a solar co-operation between the technology belt and the sun-belt, between Europe and the MENA region, to fight climate change in an economical and technically feasible way. Key technologies in the DESERTEC Concept are concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) plants with solar heat storage for day/night operation, and low-loss high voltage direct current transmission lines to bring clean power to Europe from the deserts of MENA. A seven year action plan for kicking-off the DESERTEC Concept was announced, setting down the roots for the vision to become reality: CSP plants stretching across the deserts, connecting into a supergrid network bringing clean electricity to Europe, Middle East and North Africa.

The DESERTEC Concept has been developed by the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) in collaboration with scientists at the German Aerospace Center. The presentation in the European Parliament was staged by four Members of the European Parliament - Matthias Groote, Vittorio Prodi, Rebecca Harms and Anders Wijkman - and by the Club of Rome initiative TREC.

“Every year, each square kilometre of desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil. Multiplying by the area of deserts world-wide, this is nearly a thousand times the entire current energy consumption of the world.” said Dr Franz Trieb, Project Manager for a set of reports on trans-European renewable energy networks. Not much desert would be required. As the map above demonstrates, the larger red square on the left shows an area of 254 km × 254 km of hot desert that, if covered with concentrating solar power plants, would provide electricity equivalent to the current electricity consumption of the whole world. The smaller square (110 km × 110 km) shows a corresponding area for the European Union (when it included 25 countries). Time now to translate vision into action.

The white book can be found at: DESERTEC

TREC-UK

What will we eat when the oil runs out?

What will we eat when the oil runs out? That was the question posed by Richard Heinberg at the Soil Association Lady Eve Balfour Memorial lecture held at Westminster Central Hall on Thursday night. Marm' and I decided to chew it over.

Richard Heinberg set out 4 simultaneous dilemmas that we face:
1. higher oil prices with knock-on effect on input and output transport of foodstuffs;
2. increasing demand for bio-fuels thus replacing food for fuel production;
3. extreme climate change events;
4. degredation of natural resources, of top soil and water.

All the above exacerbated by increasing population.

Calculations demonstrate that more food will need to be produced in the next 50 years than in last 1000 years combined. Post WW2, the introduction of herbicides, petro-chemical pesticides brought better living conditions through chemistry - but at a high environmental cost that was only appparent later. Ironically, this era of food expansion was called the Green Revolution. But it was, as we now know a double edged sword. A tripling of food production increased the human carrying capacity, and so we go forth and multiply ever more.

Now we are facing increasing food prices and urban poor will be impacted the most by our modern day dilemmas. Modern agriculture is highly centralised and therefore more vulnerable to disruption. Quite literally, the seams are fit to burst.

Dramatic economic transformation is needed, so says Heinberg. Transition is needed at forced pace with a dramatic increase in local food sufficiency. The government must support return to agricultural life and land reform - look to Cuba: active lobbying of agronomist was crucial.
The primary solution Heinberg proposes is a planned rapid reduction of fossil fuel used for the production of food and the organic movement to provide the necessary framework to guide and lead.

We need to introduce draft animals, oxen are an ideal choice - they do not compete with humans. Not so far fetched: some french towns are introducing horsepower again for local deliveries

Richard Heinberg puts peak oil supply crunch at 2012, with global coal peaking at 2017 - 2020. David Rutledge of Caltech suggests a similar timescale. These two are the best of the American thinkers on the subject - what they say is worthwhile considering seriously. Heinberg is an optimist: we can do it if we start now and we have to start with the organic movement. Time to start growing our own veg.


Richard Heinberg
Podcast: Lady Eve Lecture
For Dave Rutledge's most recent talk on why energy efficiency is not the answer, but reduction of fossil fuels is see: Hubbert's Peak, The Coal Question and Climate Change

Entrepreneurs with Conscience

Sometimes people enter into my life whom I recognise have the capacity to change not just my life but also the lives of so many others. There are thinkers, there are do-ers - and there are thinking do-ers. Mike Edge, Annette and Andrew Mercer fall squarely into the latter category. They are Entrepreneurs with Conscience - and are busy persuading others to do the same on the basis of three very simple principles:

1. to build ethical and environmental businesses to tackle climate change;
2. to support those working at the coal-face of climate change - the NGO's, such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and The Climate Group;
3. to make a personal commitment to reduce their own carbon footprint.

Businesses can move, and with the assistance of these people are moving, far faster than politics (and certainly faster than our current government, who as Jonathan Porritt so succinctly stated, suffer from a chronic case of NIMTO'ism - Not In My Term of Office) to tackle climate change. They are the ones recognising that there needs to be rapid change, grasping the opportunities and are backing the big solutions.

Yesterday I joined Annette to hear Andrew speak at the Be The Change Conference about his experiences as a low carbon green entrepreneur. They have set up Footdown, a forum to foster like-minded entrepreneurs with kernals of business ideas that have the potential to make a big difference. One such kernal which took seed out of one of these meetings prompted the formation of the company 2OC. 2OC has taken to market a remarkable technological solution called geo-pressure energy. Their technology (a small turbine not much larger than the palm of your hand) enables the harvesting of clean electricity from waste energy produced from gas pressure reduction stations. Each turbine creates 2 Megawatts of clean energy - that's the equivalent capacity of the Reading 2MW Wind turbine. Their aim is by 2010 to have installed generating capacity in the UK equivalent to 1 Gigawatt (1GW). That's the equivalent of removing one million tonnes of carbon (1MtC) from the earth’s atmosphere; equivalent to the amount emitted annually by the whole of the UK’s National Health Service. No small achievement.

Andrew is an inspirational speaker - and what he, his wife and his rapidly expanding team are doing is in itself remarkable. This is just the beginning. There are other such businesses galloping over the horizon. These are the people who are raising the bar, setting the new standards, creating the new world around us and acting on the bold vision needed to ensure the right solutions are put in place. As Mike says, it's time to build a war-chest and fight for the planet. Be the Change - the sky's the limit.

Entrepreneurs with Conscience
Be The Change
Footdown
2OC

CSP basks in the glow of a sunny future

So, I have seen the future. The future is bright, the future is CSP. Really, I did, and it was awe-inspiring.

After two days of intense industry and investment talk on CSP, Hywel and I determined we had to see a CSP plant for ourselves. An all-nighter with some newly found friends sampling the delights of Seville sealed our fate. Fortified with an indulgence of tapas and manzanilla, off we scooted without a map before sunrise on a rickety moped heading northwesterly to find our plant. And find it we did. Just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, shimmering in the chill morning air, there loomed a tower with beams of light shining up from the heliostats, looking for all the world as if it had been zanussied in from outer space. It stopped us in our tracks.


This is the Abengoa PS10 plant, the first commercial CSP plant in Spain, and the first solar thermal plant to use a tower commercially. It’s an 11 MW solar thermal plant that has been designed to produce 23 GWh of electricity a year, enough to supply a population of 10,000. It went online in March this year and saves about 16,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

Ach, it’s a baby plant you may scoff, this is nothing. But wait, this is just the beginning – and it does not feel so small when standing in front of one of the mirrors as it looms as high as a lamp-post, surrounded by an array of hundreds of these super-sized mirrors. Ahh, but they’re great for basking in the warmth, especially after our hair-raising-chilled-to-the-bone excursion. You can hear them humming happily, as they turn imperceptibly to track the sun: technology’s answer to the sunflower. Oh - and there on the other side of the dusty track is another one: a sister plant double the size which is due to commence operations within 6 months. It’s exciting spacey stuff.

So, the technical details: electricity is produced via 624 movable mirrors (heliostats) of 120 m2 surface each that concentrates solar radiation to the top of a 115 meter high tower where the solar receiver and the steam turbine are located. So, the sun heats the liquid up to 260 - 300*C, which in turn creates steam, which turns the turbine which creates clean green electricity. Simple really, and stunning to see.

But this is not all. Spain has big plans; a further 13 plants , each of 50MW, are due to begin construction (the great thing is these things can be built fast – just 2 – 3 years from planning licence application to laying of the mirrors) by 2010. If they could go bigger they would, but the legislative framework put in place by the Royal Decree 661/2007 ( which has created regulatory stability for access and connection rights to transmission and distribution networks of renewable electricity) currently places a cap on size and number. That will doubtless be increased in due course. There are favourable feed-in-tariffs and, by fostering such proactive policies and incentives, the Spanish government has demonstrated it’s strong commitment to back the renewable industry. They have boldly set their Mandatory Energy Objectives at 30% renewables by 2020, 80% by 2050. There is optimism that even more can be achieved, earlier and within an even tighter framework.

Globally, is estimated that up to 45 GW will be online within the next 15 years, but if those with grand vision are to be supported, the reality could be far larger than that. 500 GW would satisfy the total European electricity demand – that’s a bold vision, but not impossible (there’s a lot of desert and sun out there), and some clean tech investors across the world are beginning to think really big.

Australia is experimenting, China is looking, the Middle East and North Africa have the space and the sun to really roll this out and even America is now moving with remarkable speed in this arena. Switched on this summer was the 64MW Nevada Solar One, a 64 megawatt plant in Boulder City, Nevada. Now Acciona Energy has announced plans for their next project which will be more than three times its size. The 200 MW plant will be built by 2010. Due to the vast solar resource in the Southwest - New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, the US is now envisaging racking up new-build capacity to 1.5 GW per annum, rapidly increasing to 3 GW within 10 years. Even a year ago, such bold vision was not anticipated. What will this industry look like in a year’s time I wonder?

So, here I am back in sodden London, wondering how soon a Europe-wide and North African standardised electricity network could be put in place. It all seems like a dream, until I awoke this morning to hear Al Gore on Radio 4 saying that he has teamed up with venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins to to help finance entrepreneurs who are addressing climate change.

Having explained what the problems are with his film, he is now looking to the solutions. He’s out to prove that protecting the environment and reducing carbon emissions is good for the economy as well as the environment. Not only that, he’s putting his money where his mouth is and matching the smart solutions, such as low carbon alternatives to generating electricity. As he put it, there are a lot of technologies that already exist that have never been given their due, and now it is time to do so. One example that they are supporting, he said, was “advanced solar thermal electricity generation based on the use of highly sophisticated computer driven mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy to simply boil water to generate electricity.” Now that is a smart idea!

Generation Investment Management

Gore joins Silicon Valley's Kleiner Perkins to push green business

Latest news article: All about CSP

If you would like to know more about CSP, or help support awareness raising, go to TREC-UK

Film Preview of A Crude Awakening

Yesterday my mate Jeremy Smith (former editor of the Ecologist - so, a guy who knows his megawatts from his terrawatts) phoned on spec to see whether I'd be interested in joining him for a preview screening of a Peak Oil film and Q&A with the directors afterwards. Excellent, I said, I'm on my way. The film, A Crude Awakening, is to be released nationally on the 9th Nov.

So off I zooted to the Everyman cinema, fully expecting an audience of the great and good from Hampstead's energy royalty (David Strahan lives close by, as does Dr David Flemming, and the irascible Meyer Hillman - and given the size of some of the homes up on the hill, no doubt a whole clutch of oil magnates). Instead, it was a random audience made up of what seemed to be general passers by (that's how Jeremy happened to be invited - he was just walking along South Bank the previous evening). They were, we were promised, looking forward to a challenging debate in the Q &A session afterwards. Hmmm. If that was the case, where were the experts? This audience was largely comprised of concerned individuals picked randomly off the street.

Not wanting to spoil a good story, nevertheless let me tell you about my experience.
The first three quarters of the film has some stonking good footage of Baku oil fields and of a woman at her dressing table with all manner of things flying through the air (including her clothes!) to demonstrate what items are reliant on oil for their production. This and more is cut with various weighty talking heads from Colin Cambell to Matt Savinar (who seems to be in the process of future proofing himself with stacks of purified canned food boxed up behind him) to a range of retired oil experts, geologists, scientists and even some footage of Hubbert, the original whistleblower in the oil industry who predicted 50 years ago that oil would peak about now. The story of oil and our reliance on it is told - and told effectively.

But - it's a big but - the film then moves onto possible solutions, and wham! it seems to literally run out of energy. A slow trot through the (valid) problems with hydrogen, biomass, nuclear. Weirdly no mention of coal, and a petering out with a passing reference to solar. All a rather bleak picture which left most of the audience depressed and feeling rather hopeless.

So this was strange - a film made by a journalist who had clearly done his homework (after all that's what you do, isn't it, when you go off and make a film?) - to a certain extent, then stopped short of examining what possible solutions there out there. Well, if you have been following my blog, you know that one of my passions is Concentrating Solar Power, which to me seems to provide a huge solution. This wasn't touched on at all and I wanted to know why.

Before I even did so, it came up, and to my surprise a stock answer was given that I have often heard given before - one that often comes from oil men and nuclear supporters: that solar is the key, it's just too expensive and will take forty years of research and development. This is strange, simply because it is not correct.

Firstly, I pointed out, the technology is out there. It is mature, tried and tested technology that has been around for 30 years. Commercial-scale plants have been operating in California since the mid 1980s and are still supplying electricity to about 100,000 homes. (In fact, versions of CSP have been tried since the late 19th century, not counting Achimedes' attempts to set the Roman navy ablaze). There are also sites here in Europe (in Spain) and plants are due to be rolled out in various sunbelt countries. Electricity can be transmitted economically for three thousand kilometres or more via a Supergrid of HVDC of lines (on pylons or laid underground or under the sea). With this technology, transmission losses are no more than about 3% per 1000 km. Cost wise it is already looking to be cost-effective against the soaring oil prices (which as I write have now hit $96 per barrel - they say it will reach $100 by end of next year, but it looks set to be far sooner than that). It has been estimated that only 113 km x 113 km of desert covered in mirrors would supply all the electricity needs for the whole of Europe - that is, in desert terms, a tiny fraction of available space (and available sun). You can find out more at concentratingsolarpower.info and on the TREC-UK website.

"Well, hey what do I know, I'm just a journalist" was the response I got. Someone made the point that if such momentous a message is to be told they have a duty to give a happy ending. Maybe a happy ending is asking too much, but he had a point. At the very least a responsible examination of possible solutions would have been welcome.

Well, if they aren't prepared to do something about it I am. I leave for Seville today and the reason I am going there is to attend a conference on CSP. I want to know just how viable CSP is, just how big it can go and how soon. We need big solutions as well as small, and CSP could be just that. Watch this space - I will be reporting back live from the conference.

A Crude Awakening

TREC-UK

concentratingsolarpower.info

[photo credits of Baku oil fields: State Archives of Azerbaijan Republic, Stanley Greene, Sezin Aytuna, Mark Lewandowski]

Peak oil - it's already happened.

Sometimes there seems to be a convergence of unrelated activities, that nevertheless have a greater collective bearing than the sum of their parts. To me, the past seven days demonstrated such a synchronicity between the looming energy and environmental crises as they draw closer.

In the same week as oil prices hit over $90 a barrel, and share prices on both slides of the Atlantic went into freefall, a clarion call to act came from a group of energy experts. The respected German Energy Watch Group published a much needed independent report on our remaining oil reserves (EWG Oil Report). Unlike most other future mapping reports (such as the fair-weather approach of the IEA), this analysis does not rely on unverifiable and unreliable reserve data. Rather the analysis is based primarily on production data. It concludes that world oil production had in fact peaked in 2006.

Production, it says, will start to decline at a rate of several percent per year. By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. So what of it? Well, this steep resource depletion will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame. Crude oil is the most important energy carrier at a global scale. All kinds of transport relies heavily on oil and the future oil availability is of paramount importance as it entails completely different actions by politics, business and individuals. With a 3 - 7% decline per annum, the UK's proposed 4% plug by nuclear by 2025 is woefully inadequate. A matter of too little too late. By my simple reckoning, at the most conservative estimate, we are looking at a 54% decline by 2025, almost 70% by 2030. Peak oil is now they say, but in the UK our government and the energy industry seems to be in denial - what Jeremy Leggett, Solarcentury CEO and former member of the British Government’s Renewables Advisory Board, calls "institutional denial".

Remaining world oil reserves are estimated to be 1,255 Gb (Giga barrel) according to the industry database HIS (2006). For the Energy Watch Group (EWG), however, there are sound reasons to modify these figures for some regions and key countries, leading to a corresponding EWG estimate of 854 Gb. The report concludes that world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system, a change that will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life. Climate change will also force humankind to change energy consumption patterns by reducing significantly the burning of fossil fuels. Our way of dealing with energy issues will have to change fundamentally.

The point is made that we are now entering a period of transition. A period which will probably has its own rules which are valid only during this phase. Things might happen which we never experienced before and which we may never experience again once this transition period has ended.

Just as oil prices ebb and flow before it's own tsunami breaks, so too do our climate warnings. It was reported that absorption of atmospheric CO2 by the North Atlantic ocean has plunged by half in the last ten years. This of course has major implications: one of the world’s main carbon sinks is, for a reason that scientists can not explain, breaking down. The just released Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4) UNEP report is equally hard hitting in outlook and serves to underline the fact that the world does not face separate crises - the “environmental crisis”, “development crisis”, and “energy crisis”. They are infact all one.

The question is, what sort of framework should be and could be put in place? To that end, I trotted off to hear Jonathon Porritt speak at the RSA . He proffers a workable framework: Capitalism as if the World Matters. Like Jeremy Leggett, he recognises the lack of readiness of governments and industry to engage and suggests that the pending oil crisis will focus minds. He believes that there is a case and an opportunity for capitalism to become sustainable, providing it is also equitable. The environment and society, sustainability and social equity - these are the cornerstones of our future, if we are to have a future. You can listen to what he said here: podcast of Jonathon Porritt at the RSA

And who's going to take up the mantle of this good leadership? At governmental level, in the UK The Environmental Audit Committee has just called for a Climate Minister to have overall responsibility for co-ordinating the Climate Change Programme and a Climate Change and Energy Secretariat, with the duty to provide clear political leadership on climate change. That strikes me as an eminently sensible and vital first step. How long will it be until this is done?

I shall be off to Seville at the end of the week - a 24 hour train journey each way. It should give me ample time to read the newly revised and updated Capitalism as if the World Matters .

For other recent podcast interviews with various experts on Peak Oil see David Strahan's short and pithy interviews at
The Last Oil Shock

oil price graph: Cleantech Collective

Greenpeace response to the Nuclear Consultation

Why I say No To Nuclear

50 years to the day after the Calder Hall fire at Sellafield (then called Windscale), we find ourselves back at square one. 10 October 1957 was day the world’s first nuclear reactor generating commercial electricity caught fire. Fuel melted, the fuel cans burst, uranium ignited and fission products were released into cooling ducts and ejected out of the cooling chimneys. The plutonium-producing reactor sent clouds of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Fast forward to half a century later; last week there was another explosion. This time it was deliberate. The four 88 meter high cooling towers at Windscale were blown up as part of Sellafield’s decommissioning. In total, 50 years of nuclear capacity in the UK brings with it an additional £90 billion price tag to decommission.

And so the Windscale legacy lives on. Scientists are still trying to work out how to safely dismantle the chimney-top filter that trapped much of the radioactive smoke 50 years ago. In an ironic twist of fate, 10th October 2007 heralds the closing date of the government’s consultation on their proposed reintroduction of nuclear to the UK.

You have just today left to have your say on whether you support or oppose a new generation of nuclear plants. The only way you can have your say is by submitting your views online at nuclearpower2007.direct.gov.org. Yes, there were consultation meetings. But no, I could not attend. God knows, I tried.

As a former employment lawyer, I understand the importance of appropriate procedure and the merits of a properly conducted consultative process. As a British citizen I was entitled to take part, and felt it my duty to do so. For a consultation so important - of a controversial technology that would present a legacy for future generations stretching over many thousand of years – I discovered that it has been remarkably difficult to take part.

Various meetings were held by the government throughout the country. Seven of them, called Citizen Deliberative Events, took place simultaneously and notification was by random phone book selection |(1000 were invited, 949 attended). There were also 12 Regional Stakeholder Meetings. Representatives from local authorities, business, NGOs and other community-based organisations were invited to attend and share their views. I wanted to attend. I received notification of when the events were taking place 12 – 24 hours prior to each event. But even where I was prepared to travel last minute, the exact locations were not disclosed. They were by invitation only. Me? NFI. Problem was, I am just a concerned citizen, I was not part of an organization so therefore I was precluded from being invited to the Regional stakeholder events, and as I was not randomly selected for the Citizen Delibertative event, that avenue was closed also. There were no events open to the largest stakeholder group of all – the general public.

The thing is, I really wanted to find out more. But the government seemed unable help me on that too, so off I went to do my own research. And research I did. I have spent many hours pouring over books, data, reports and presentations. I have looked at nuclear of the past and present as well as the only reactor that is currently being built in Europe, the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) at Olkiluoto, Finland (already €700 million over budget, beset with construction problems and now two years behind schedule), to see what lessons may be learned there. I have listened to those who know better than I and I have sought the opinions (for and against) of energy experts. I have looked to see what the alternatives are and whether they are viable. I examined the immediate, mid-term and long-term social, economic and environmental costs. Finally, I looked at the worse case scenario: the possibility and the consequences of yet another reactor explosion – accidental or malicious. It seemed to me that in our current political climate, nuclear power stations are especially vulnerable to terrorist attack. We have after all witnessed how easy it is to fly into skyscrapers.

In short, I entered into my own period of consultation. As is important during a period of consultation, I remained open-minded. I believe I gave as much if not more time to this issue than I would have, had I had been given the opportunity to attend a government meeting. So I guess, had the consultation process explored the same issues and had I been given the opportunity to enter into the consultation process I would have come to the same conclusions. Maybe you, had you been given the opportunity, would come to the same conclusions too. Maybe not.


Here are some of the questions I asked and the conclusions I have reached. (If you wish to read my fuller answers to the government consultation, please contact me direct for a copy)

What is the proposed capacity of new nuclear programme?
A complete replacement of the current UK’s nuclear reactors, the combined output of 10 GW. This would generate just under 4% of total UK energy needs.

What are the proposed costs?
£15 billion is proposed for the construction programme. Inevitably decommissioning costs for a new generation would be substantially more than the current £90 billion price tag. Additional costs include the cost of providing protection against terrorist attack for nuclear plants, and for additional protection of movement – of trains and ships carrying nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. There are the costs that will extend over and above the 40 – 60 year lifespan of the reactors and will continue for thousands of years. These costs will be born by future generations – citizens that will receive no compensating benefit.

Insurance is an unknown quantity. Currently the industry is only required to pay a small fraction of the cost of insuring fully against claims, and it still remains an unresolved issue as to who would pay in the event of a disaster.Ultimately, new reactors could potentially store up substantial future costs for taxpayers which they will have to accept whether they like it or not, regardless of the potential long-term damage and the associated indirect costs.

Can it be said that Nuclear is a 'clean' energy solution?
No. What is often overlooked is the fact that large amounts of fossil fuels are required to mine and refine the uranium needed to run nuclear power reactors, for plant construction, and to transport and store the toxic radioactive waste created by the nuclear process. Furthermore, large amounts of the now banned chlorofluorocarbon gas (CFC) are emitted during the enrichment of uranium. In addition, there is the increasing use of fossil fuel required over the 20+ year lifespan of a reactor plant - as available global supplies of uranium ore declines (like fossil fuel it is a finite resource and in decline), more fossil fuel will be required to extract the ore from less concentrated ore veins and to enrich the remaining poor grades of uranium. Furthermore, current legislation allows each reactor to emit hundreds of thousands of ‘permissible’ curies of radioactive gases and other radioactive elements into the environment every year which are not factored into the equation. Thus, it is arguable that it is not a low carbon solution.

Is it correct to state that Nuclear would be a ‘home grown’ solution?
No. A new generation of nuclear power would be dependant on the mining of uranium and plutonium which is not available in the UK. Thus, the essential ingredients will need to be obtained from countries such as Kazhakstan and Russia, which raises issues of security of movement of materials and dependency on potentially politically unstable countries.

Can safety from accident be guaranteed?
Where humans are involved, safety can never be fully guaranteed. Calder Hall in 1957 was not an isolated incident. Last year Sellafield was fined half a million pounds after admitting a radioactive leak the size of a lorryload of thallium, and 160 kgs of plutonium from a relatively new Thorpe plant, raIsing concerns that new generations of technology are no safer. Numerous incidents have taken place over the decades, most recently in late July 2006 an accident at Sweden's Forsmark nuclear power station was described as a near-meltdown. Whilst not on the scale of the Three Mile Island (1979) and the Chernobyl (1986) disasters, the memory of those tragedies serve as stark reminders of the potential catastrophic consequences (See also "22 accidents since Chernobyl"). As Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala stated in the Scientific American, September 2006: “Nuclear plants are mutual hostages: the world's least well-run plant can imperil the future of all the others."

What is the true risk of terrorist attack on any one of our 17 plants?
Given that terrorism is promoted by our government as a very real threat to the UK, disproportionately this seems to have received the least attention. The online consultation commentary dismisses terrorist concerns in one single paragraph. This is worrying given the high level of concern, a concern that the government has often portrayed terrorism as our greatest threat (or, ironically, second only to climate change in terms of threat). That high level threat must surely extend to the most dangerous of all targets - the destruction of a nuclear plant. After all, as 9/11 clearly demonstrated, it only needs only one aeroplane to fly into a plant to imperil the lives of thousands (if not millions).

How dangerous are radioactive gases?
They can be life-threatening. Each cooling pool store tons of solid radioactive waste which contain toxic elements. In the event of a disaster, when released into the atmosphere they pollute the environment and human food chains, giving rise to cancer, leukemia and genetic disease, and ultimately also death to untold numbers of humans, spreading thousands of miles, as Chernobyl so clearly demonstrated.

Has a solution has yet been found to the problem of disposing of dangerous nuclear waste?
The only proposal that has been put forward is that the waste be placed in interim storage until a solution is found, much of which will remain dangerous for more than 10,000 years. In short, there is still no solution.

Are there other alternatives?
Nuclear power only provides electricity, which accounts for a 4% of the energy mix in the UK and about 3% globally with little prospect of much increase. It does not address the problem of reducing CO2 emissions from space heating and road transport
Currently Britain's centralised power stations, including nuclear, waste two-thirds of the energy put into them in the form of waste heat that escapes up cooling towers or as cooling water. Industrial sites alone in the UK could provide the potential for enough CHP capacity to deliver the same electricity output as an entire fleet of new nuclear reactors while also meeting those sites' heat needs at the same time. New build gas or coal-fired power stations could all have heat capture, providing both efficiency and energy security. Renewable energy technologies such as geothermal, hydro, tidal, solar, wind are all technologies that do not pollute, are benign, do not attract the same insurance, legacy and terrorist risks.

Microgeneration has huge potential once legislative restraints are removed, mandatory new-build and existing housing and business stock standards and supportive feed-in tarrifs are put in place.

Looking globally, there are vast resources of solar in deserts, with Concentrating Solar Power providing safe, benign, zero carbon, and inexhaustible supplies. Only 112 x 112 km of desert could provide the whole of Europe with all it's energy needs. 10 gigawatts of CSP would command €47 billion (£32.56 billion) to build (including €5 billion for the HVDC transmission links, see TRANS-CSP 2006 report) - that's approximately 1/3rd the cost of decommissioning our current 10 gigawatts of nuclear power stations. And with no risk to future generations.

Such is the abundance of our natural resources such as wind and sun that all the worlds’ energy needs can be fulfilled many times over. This all leads to one inescapably conclusion: I say no to nuclear.

If you too are concerned about our future energy supplies, then add your say to the government's consultation - it can be as brief or as long as you want (be warned, it took me 7+ hours to read and complete the online consultation document). If short of time why not sign up, log in and just write “As a concerned citizen I say No to Nuclear”. As justification, you can always put a link to this page if you endorse my findings and would like to use them in support of your position. The important thing is to voice your opinion. It’s our future, make sure you have your say. You have until 7pm tonight to do so.
nuclearpower2007.direct.gov.org.

Politics: green rhetoric v's green action

How the UK Political Parties Stack Up

Which party is really delivering the goods when it comes to addressing environmental issues? Nine of the UK's leading environmental organisations (Green Alliance, Friends of the Earth, WWF, Campaign for Rural England, Greenpeace, Woodland Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, National Trust, RSPB) have subjected the three main political parties to an environmental audit.

How green are our parties? The Green Standard report, finds that none of the parties have yet implemented policy commitments and action on the scale required to meet the
range and urgency of the environmental threats we face.

The assessment sets out a set of six robust environmental leadership tests developed by the NGOs in February. The report
uses a ‘traffic light system’:
• Green to indicate support for both ambition and commitments
• Amber to indicate a mixed picture in relation to ambition and commitments
• Red to indicate where we are concerned by both the effect of a party’s approach and a lack of positive commitments.

The Green Standard tests are:
1. UK action on climate change - Achieve reductions in UK carbon dioxide emissions of at least three per cent year on year, en route to a low carbon economy based on energy efficiency, renewable sources of energy and
decentralised energy.
2. International action on climate change - Provide international leadership to restrict global temperature rises to 2°C and ensure worldwide emissions are falling by 2015.
3. Green living - Make it cheaper and easier for individuals to reduce their environmental impact through tax, regulation, information and other powers of government.
4. Natural environment - Protect and enhance the beauty, accessibility and wildlife of the environment in our countryside, towns and seas through incentives, regulation, investment and other powers of government.
5. Planning - Value, support and develop our planning system as a democratic tool for protecting and enhancing the natural and built environment of our countryside and towns.
6. Environmental tax and subsidies - Green the tax system by increasing the amount of revenue from taxes that reduce environmental damage, and eliminate environmentally perverse subsidies.

With no ‘green lights’, the gap between Conservative aspirations on the environment and their limited policy commitments is stark. The Labour government, despite having previously displayed international leadership on climate change, is failing on its renewables and emissions targets and has failed to commit to implementing a Marine Bill and receives just one green light. The Liberal Democrats get three green lights by offering the strongest set of policies on climate change, green taxation and green living. However, the gulf between words and action remains lamentably wide. The report concludes that all three parties have failed to give sufficient attention to policies that will protect and enhance our countryside and wildlife.

With the start of the party conference season just days away,The Climate Clinic (a coalition of 30+ of the UK’s leading environmental groups, trade bodies and professional societies representing over six million members) will, for the second year running, be at the three main political party conferences. Its aim is to push for real political action to tackle climate change by mobilising the UK’s most influential scientists, politicians, industry leaders and environmental campaigners.

The Climate Clinic
The Green Standard

Anita Roddick

Tragically, she died yesterday aged just 64 from a brain hemorrhage. A truly remarkable activist, environmental campaigner and ethical entrepreneur, here are some of her own inspirational words...

I believe in businesses where you engage in creative thinking, and where you form some of your deepest relationships. If it isn't about the production of the human spirit, we are in big trouble.

I didn't go to business school, didn't care about financial stuff and the stock market.

I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in.

If I can't do something for the public good, what the hell am I doing?

Consumers have not been told effectively enough that they have huge power and that purchasing and shopping involve a moral choice.

If I had learned more about business ahead of time, I would have been shaped into believing that it was only about finances and quality management.

If you are an activist, you bring the activism of your life into your business, or if you love creative art, you can bring that in.

If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just.

If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.

Look at the Quakers - they were excellent business people that never lied, never stole; they cared for their employees and the community which gave them the wealth. They never took more money out than they put back in.

Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.

One of the interesting things is once we started to get smarter and understand the issues more, and when we realized that we were going to be a real voice, then we ventured out with an extraordinary social justice agenda.

The Body Shop Foundation is run by our staff and supports social activism and environmental activism. We don't tend to support big agencies.

There is no scientific answer for success. You can't define it. You've simply got to live it and do it.

Vigilante consumers are working with human rights groups, environmental groups - the grassroots movement - and are definitely challenging corporations.

We have been creating a whole range of publications for developing the activist. All knowledge should be shaped into action and we have been proselytizing that for many years.

We turned all the shops into action stations to educate the public on certain issues such as human rights.

We were all social activists, and the activism sort of transferred itself into a new environmental movement.

When you run an entrepreneurial business, you have hurry sickness - you don't look back, you advance and consolidate. But it is such fun.

Years ago nobody was elected on the economic ticket. It was either the education platform, or it was health or it was other issues. It is only recently that economic values have superceded every other human value.

It's a bummer.

Concentrating Solar Power

Latest short (3 mins) video on Concentrating Solar Power - the remarkable global solution to our energy needs.

The Origins of Hydroelectricity

In my pursuit to better understand energy systems, my journey has taken me to Cragside in Northumberland, the bizarre and remarkable home designed by Norman Shaw for the victorian industrialist, scientist, engineer and technical innovator, William George Armstrong (1810-1990). Perched on a crag amidst it's own micro-climate created by seven million trees of Armstrong's planting, it is the first house in the world to be powered by hydroelectricity.

It was while observing a waterwheel in action supplying power to a marble quarry, it struck Armstrong that much of the available power was being wasted. And so, very much in the manner of the Victorians of that time, off he headed to invent, amongst other things, the hydraulic crane - a quayside crane powered by water pressure. So successful was this invention that he resigned from his legal practise, raised the necessary financial backing, built a factory to manufacture cranes and other hydraulic equipment which he went onto sell in enormous quantities throughout the world.

And so there the might story end, but no...
In the spirit of a true entrepreneur, Armstrong diversified, with yet more success, into guns and warships...but I was visiting Cragside to learn more about his interests in renewable energy systems. 150 years ago Armstrong foresaw the energy predicament that we face today. Coal, he opined, 'was used wastefully and extravagantly in all it's applications.' In 1863, he predicted that 'England will cease to be a coal producing country...within 200 years.'

Armstrong believed the future lay in the harnessing the forces of water, wind and sun, but recognised that the uptake of the generation of electricity by renewable power was dependent on the end of the use of fossil fuels. He calculated that "the solar heat operating on one acre [4047m2] in the tropics would ...exert the amazing power of 4000 horses acting for nearly nine hours every day' speculating that the 'direct heating action of the sun's rays' might be used 'in complete substitution for a steam engine.' A man ahead of his time, if alive today he doubtlessly would have been a vocal proponent of CSP.

In a speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1870 (of which he was then president), Armstrong predicted the widespread use of hydroelectricity, stating that 'whenever the time comes for harnessing the power of great waterfalls the transmission of power by electricity will become a system of great importance'.

That same year Armstrong created Debdon Lake to use the water running through his estate to supply the world's first hydroelectric power station. This powered various labour-saving devices in his house including a roasting spit, a dishwasher and (a wonderful innovation) a servants lift. Turkish baths were installed as part of the innovative provision of central heating for the house, electricity facilitated the installation of an arc lamp in 1878 and the first of his friend Joseph Swan's incandescent light bulbs were installed in time for christmas 1880.

Armstrong became Britain's largest industrialist and one of the richest men in Europe. He was the first engineer bestowed a Peerage in 1887, finally dying in 1900 at the age of 90. But just as he brought so much light into his life and for others (he was exceptionally happily married to Margaret, herself an accomplished gardener, and a popular and well loved man locally), so it was with his death that the lights began to dim. From such riches, sadly, over the decades, Cragside fell into decline and likewise hydroelectricity fell out of favour.

Once more those lamps are filling Cragside with light. Now gifted to the National Trust, thanks to an extensive renovation programme the house has been completely rewired and reopened earlier this year. The aim is to reconnect the water supply from Nelly Moss Lakes to Armstrong's original Power House and to use a modern generator to provide hydroelectric heating and lighting to the building. Cragside would then be returned full circle to it's original state: a highly efficient self-contained decentralised electric infrastructure, independent and without reliance on our existing centralised electricity system with all it's attendant shortcomings of our current energy crisis.

So too must we look to ways to keep the lights on. Armstrong with his characteristic prescience stated 'As in the vegetable kingdom fit conditions of soil and climate quickly cause the appearance of plants, so in the intellectual world fitness of time and circumstance promptly call forth appropriate devices. The seeds of invention exist, as it were, in the air, ready to germinate whenever suitable conditions arise, and no legislative interference is needed to ensure their growth in proper season.' Let us hope that our current legislation does not prove to be an insurmountable block to the promotion of such renewable energy and decentralised systems.

Green Northumberland
A week in Northumberland proved to be a haven for a spot of eco-holidaying and exploring. Late summer afternoon tea and the most delicious homemade rhubarb jam in Anne and Phil's orchard with chat about their plans to build an eco-extension overlooking their vibrant and fertile organic vegetable patch...London seems a world away...

Trains:

from London take only 3 1/2 hours to Berwick upon Tweed from London, where one can stock up on all and sundry at the comprehensive Green Shop on Bridge Street.

Getting around:

take your bike. There are fantastic bike routes throughout Northumberland's numerous lanes and byways, through pretty villages, past abbey ruins, grand castles and flowing waterways. The best cycling to be had is across the causeway to Lindisfarne with the tide receding - quite literally the waves part in front of you....

Eat:

Cafe Bean Goose, Lindisfarne. An eco-haven facing out onto the village square. Lesley has thought of everything - all homemade produce made from the finest of organic and fairtrade ingredients, from Montezuma's chocolate (my favourite) wheat free brownie with added cranberries, to Holy Island strawberry jam with carbon footprint of just a matter of a cycle ride away, to organic and fairtrade teas, tisanes, coffees, juices, locally sourced veg, dairy produce and meats including Piperfield Pork (so good that they are the favoured supplier of Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck Restaurant).

Stay:

Cafe Bean Goose B&B, Lindisfarne (above the cafe). Sheets are organic cotton, water is heated by solar thermal panels, all cleaning materials are environmentally friendly, the delightful garden has a compost heap to be proud of - and breakfast, well, as you can imagine, it will be the best for miles around. Oh, and the views are just marvellous: over the abbey down to the bay and the castle in the distance.


The National Trust puts 3.5 million in front line against climate change

Revealed: cover-up plan on energy target

Ministers urged to lobby for get-out on renewables

Ashley Seager and Mark Milner, The Guardian, Monday 13th August 2007:
Government officials have secretly briefed ministers that Britain has no hope of getting remotely near the new European Union renewable energy target that Tony Blair signed up to in the spring - and have suggested that they find ways of wriggling out of it.

In contrast to the government's claims to be leading the world on climate change, officials within the former Department of Trade and Industry have admitted that under current policies Britain would miss the EU's 2020 target of 20% energy from renewables by a long way. And their suggestion that "statistical interpretations of the target" be used rather than new ways to reach it has infuriated environmentalists.

An internal briefing paper for ministers, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, reveals that officials at the department, now the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, think the best the UK could hope for is 9% of energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar or hydro by 2020.

It says the UK "has achieved little so far on renewables" and that getting to 9%, from the current level of about 2%, would be "challenging". The paper was produced in the early summer, around the time the government published its energy white paper.

Under current policies renewables would account for only 5% of Britain's energy mix by 2020, the document says. The EU average is 7%; Germany is at 13%. It acknowledges that Germany, unlike Britain, has built a "strong and growing renewables industry".

EU leaders agreed the 20% target for the bloc in spring. The European Commission is working out how to reach this .

DBERR officials fear that Britain may end up being told to get to 16%, which it describes as "very challenging". The paper suggests a number of ways ministers could wriggle out of specific commitments. It also suggests ministers lobby certain EU commissioners and countries such as France, Germany, Poland and Italy to agree to a more flexible interpretation of the target, by including nuclear power, for example, or investment in solar farms in Africa.

Officials ask ministers to examine "what options there are for statistical interpretations of the target that would make it easier to achieve".

They suggest the target lacks credibility because it is so ambitious, while acknowledging that the Germans will be difficult to persuade because the Chancellor Angela Merkel is the champion of the 20% target and wants to commit Germany to 27%.

"These flexible options are ones that may be difficult to negotiate with some member states such as Germany, who we expect to resist approaches that may be seen to water down the renewables target," the briefing says.

Environmentalists were shocked. "This briefing reads like a 'wriggle and squirm' paper," said Andrew Simms, director of the New Economics Foundation. "It combines almost comic desperation from civil servants suddenly realising that they actually have to do something to promote renewable energy, with a breathtaking cynicism as they explore every conceivable get-out clause to escape the UK's international commitments."

A spokesman for DBERR said he would not comment on leaked documents, but added: "This government is committed to renewables and reducing emissions in line with EU targets."

The Conservative's shadow secretary of state, Alan Duncan, said: "This is a staggering revelation and shows the government has known all along it won't meet its targets but has deliberately avoided admitting it. They have been living a lie."

The Lib Dem environment spokesman, Chris Huhne, agreed: "This news confirms that the government has said yes to an EU target of 20% of renewable energy without any visible means of achieving it. If the government's policy is now to have any credibility and not be seen as a cynical attempt to woo green opinion, ministers must stop fudging and start acting."

The paper reveals an aversion to renewables on the basis of perceived cost, arguing that they are a more expensive way of reducing carbon emissions than the European Emissions Trading Scheme. It estimates that getting to 9% by 2020 could cost the economy £4bn a year.

Environmentalists reject the idea that renewables are too expensive. Even £4bn a year is only about one third of the 1% of gross domestic product rich countries were recommended to spend a year combating climate change.

The paper also reveals that carbon capture and underground storage of CO2 emissions from new coal-fired power stations is projected to make little contribution before 2020. "This is betrayal of the highest order," said Rajiv Bhatia, head of renewable energy distributor Alternergy.

Jeremy Leggett, of solar energy company Solarcentury, said: "It would not surprise me if this delay in renewables deployment was the tactical objective all along for some senior officials in DTI. Serving on the government's Renewables Advisory Board from 2003 to 2006, I witnessed what cynics could easily have mistaken for a deliberate campaign of delay, obfuscation, and the parking, if not torpedoing, of good ideas coming from industry members of the board."

Read the leaked document here
Environmentalists urge Brown to overhaul Britain's energy policy

Community Action

Something remarkable is happening in the UK. Something is happening in a place near you. Quiet little places, that you might have once driven through and given little thought. But to those who live there a pioneering sprit has been unearthed. One by one villages and communities are gathering together to take action on climate change. Not for them the writing to MP's or signing of petitions. Not for them the waiting for government to take lead on how to address the impact of environmental issues on our daily lifestyles. No, they are taking matters into their own hands and promoting grassroots action by changing the way they live and work as people and communities.

What is so remarkable is that these are ordinary places taking practical steps and using practical persuasion. Villages and towns for from as far afield as Biggar in Scotland are committing to reducing their carbon emissions through tree planting, renewable energy and energy efficiency measures. Other networks, such as Transition Towns in the West Country, and the Crags network of Carbon Rationing Action Groups has at least 20 group members, from Chiswick in west London to York, Leeds and Glasgow. All are actively tackling climate change from the bottom up and are embracing the need to help their communities to live a cleaner energy, lower carbon emission, future.

One such village is Ashton Hayes, a village in Cheshire of approximately 1000 people. It is their stated ambition to become England's first carbon neutral village. Since their formal launch in January 2006, much has been achieved.

They are a community determined to do its bit to put the brakes on global warming, and it is proving immensely popular. So much so, that since the launch of their initiative, they have received £26,000 funding from Defra to assist them to take actions that should enable the village to declare itself carbon neutral in a matter of years. In their first year, they cut their emissions by 20%. Now they are busy advising other villages not only in the UK but also in Australia, Norway and Denmark on how they can do the same.

To help in its aim of becoming carbon neutral, the village has invested in a ‘carbon sink’ - new and young trees that will absorb some of the CO2 produced by residents. Chester city council has pledged its support by offering every child under seven in the area an opportunity to plant a tree at school. Local businesses have given free expert advice ranging from suitability of plants to be used.

The project has generated tremendous community support with many people keen to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through personal energy saving and lifestyle considerations, some volunteering to provide practical help, others offering tracts of land for tree planting. Recycling rates in the village have risen, The Golden Lion pub (and hub of much activity revolving around the project) has reduced it's own carbon emissions considerably and saved £200 a month by hanging laundry outside, switching off the cigarette machine at closing time and turning down the thermostat. It now serves locally sourced produce to complement their immensely popular carbon neutral quiz nights.

Energy is supplied from 100% renewable energy suppliers, such as Good Energy, and six houses have so far invested in solar panels as has the local primary school. But some of the most ambitious plans are still to come, including a microgrid to transmit renewable energy to buildings on the north side of the village from local renewable sources, a wood burner is to be installed at the school, wind turbines or solar panels to be situated on the church.

There's much strength in numbers. What started with one or two individuals has created a rolling momentum, with other villages and communities taking up similar challenges. It starts at the bottom, showing the way and then shapes decision making at the top. In this way government ministers will be encouraged to take politically bold decisions - be it the banning of high energy light bulbs, taxing of unnecessary plastic packaging, supporting renewable energy projects and local initiatives, investing in more sustainable infrastructures and setting necessary emission targets.

As one local Ashton Hayes resident commented, “it's simple really, you just start with changing the lightbulbs and keep on going from there.”

This is what George Monbiot calls active citizenship. Let me know what is happening in your town.

goingcarbonneutral
transitiontowns
carbonrationingactiongroups (CRAG)

For full article, see Concept for Living, September 2007

Nosedive for BAA

Joss Garman, John Stewart and Leo Murray outside the RCJ yesterday.
As a member of the Woodland Trust who supports the campaign for aviation to pay for the environmental damage it causes, I have kept an eye to see whether I would, along with 5 million others, turn up on BAA's environmentalist blacklist.

BAA, owned by Spanish construction and services group Ferrovial, went to the High Court in London to restrict the actions of campaigners, various environmental organisations and those due to attend the annual The Camp for Climate Action located near the airport between August the 14th and 21st.

Coming more from the stable of discourse rather than direct action, I nevertheless have a strongly held admiration for those who take to the runways to make their voice heard. They are the frontliners, the ones who make others - and clearly BAA - sit up and listen, even when they do not want to. And it has to be said that Joss Garman and Leo Murray of the anti-avaition group Plane Stupid, more than any other environmental organisation, have firmly placed the issue of flight CO2 emmissions on the radar. They have proven to be a great stumbling block in BAA's smooth flightpath of profit at the expense of the planet.

So much so that BAA felt compelled to take their own radical action, seeking an injunction to curtail protestors from disrupting Heathrow during the week-long climate change camp which is due to commence next tuesday. Their hit-list of objectional protestors included, against others, Airport Watch which is an an umbrella group of various organisations including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Woodland Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

But it didn't wash. Yesterday the proposed injunction against Heathrow Campaign Against Aircraft Noise(HACAN), No Third Runway Action Group(NoTRAG), AirportWatch and Geraldine Nicholson (Chiar, NoTRAG) was dismissed. Instead Mrs Justice Smith at the High Court imposed a vastly limited injunction covering trespass and nuisance upon just three named organisers - John Stewart (HACAN), Josh Garman and Leo Murray. All three had previously offered undertakings to the court that they would not engage in disruptive direct action. The The Camp for Climate Action planned for the 14th to 21st August is allowed to continue and remains injunction free.

This was an ambitious pitch and corporate flexing of muscle by BAA. It was in essence a challenge against some of our basic human rights: freedom of thought, conscience, expression, assembly, peaceful protest and freedom of association. However, despite demanding the whole cake they ended up with only the crumbs. Mrs Justice Swift in her decision ensured this was a victory not only for human rights but also for common sense.

The Camp for Climate Action
Plane Stupid
AirportWatch
Heathrow Campaign Against Aircraft Noise(HACAN)
No Third Runway Action Group (NoTRAG)
Woodland Trust

Switching to Renewables - the easy, equitable and cheapest option.

Major polluting energy plants and heavy CO2 emitters such as this one could soon be a thing of the past

Two new reports have recently been published, both addressing energy needs and capacities for the near future. Both point to the same premise: committing to renewable energy is both feasible and financially prudent. Good for the planet, good for the people, good for the pocket.

The first report examines our domestic potential to to reduce our carbon emissions to zero within 20 years.
Named Zerocarbonbritain, the report is a result of over a year's consolidated research by the Centre for Alternative Technology. It sets out the policy drivers required to achieve zero carbon Britain by 2027, and presents the scenario for using only proven (renewable) technology. Quite simply, the technology already exists to make the UK carbon neutral (without the need to resort to nuclear), but what is required is political determination and changes in the way we, as a society, view energy.

An ambitious, bold plan, but most importantly, it can be done.
Here and now. Here's how:
3 steps are needed to achieve zero carbon Britain by 2027 -
1. policy implementation of Contraction & Convergence and the use of Tradable Energy Quotas (carbon credit cards)
2. powering down our fossil fuel use, and
3. powering up our use of renewable energy generation

Moreover, it's an equitable solution to climate change, energy security and global equity.

The essential policy driver needed is the implementation of Contraction and Convergence (viewed by Lloyds of London as "the best hope we have"), a co-ordinated plan to reduce carbon emissions by allocating a equal share per capita basis from a limited budget, as proposed by the Global Commons Institute.

C&C In a nutshell:
Contraction: An international cap on emissions is set for the next 20 years, the amount allocated annually reduced year on year until it reaches zero in 2027.
Convergence: Each nation receives receives a national share allocation which is then divided equally per person. Over the 20 years, the allocations are reduced to a point that everyone on the planet has an equal share.

These share allocations, called Tradable Energy Quotas’ (TEQs) can be traded, bought and sold between individuals and businesses. Each year the cap on TEQs is reduced, so there are fewer to share, in line with the national budget. Gradually, individuals and companies would have to learn to make low and zero-carbon choices, due to the cost or inconvenience of doing otherwise. TEQs are tradable, and represent a source of income for cash poor households. Essentially carbon credits become a kind of parallel currency. Very quickly we would be scrapping the petrol engine, improving building standards, changing the way we produce and consume food and investing heavily in renewable energy. All it needs now is political backbone to make this a reality.


In the future you might need more than your credit card when you go to pay for your petrol, your carbon card would also have to be handy
[photo credit: www.tutor2u.net]

Nuclear v's Renewables. Still wonder which offers the best energy return on energy investment? Here's a well presented argument from Zerocarbonbritain Chapter 8:

Today’s approach to fossil-fuelled energy provision follows the pay-as-you-go principle. Like renting a house, each day’s use is paid for, but with no lasting accrual from those payments. It represents an ongoing cost.

Pursuing the housing analogy, building new nuclear power stations is like paying to build a house, paying rent to live in it (the cost of fuel and maintenance), and finally being evicted after 30 years, with the obligation to pay for the dismantling of the house and then passing to future generations the obligation to continue paying indefinite further rent. It is an ongoing, open ended liability.

Renewables present the opportunity to build and own a home outright. This home will require a significant initial investment and take time to complete. But once built, the benefit of the infrastructure is free excepting maintenance costs. Investment of this sort provides society with an enduring asset.

The second report examines the global economics of worldwide adoption of renewable technology. In the first global analysis of its kind, Future Investment - A Sustainable Investment Plan for the Power Sector to Save the Climate, the report demonstrates a powerful economic argument for a shift in global investments toward renewable energy (including solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and bio energy) within the next 23 years, and away from fossil fuel, coal and nuclear power. Savings of US $180 billion per year are predicted from switching investment to renewables from fossil fuels.

According to this joint report by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), investing in renewable energy as the source for electricity in our future will save 10 times the fuel costs of a "business as usual" scenario, saving US$180 billion annually and cutting CO2 emissions in half by 2030.

The report, which stresses the urgent need for decisive action now, gives the financial rationale for Greenpeace's earlier report Energy [R]evolution.

Number crunching:

An extra global annual investment of $22 billion in clean and renewable power plants is needed on top of current expenditure. This equates to less than a tenth of the annual subsidies currently received by the coal and gas industry.

Fuel cost savings: > $202 billion per year. This means the up front investment will pay for itself ten times over.

The global market for wind turbines was worth €18 billion in 2006, the total renewable industry $50 billion. Under an energy revolution scenario, the renewable energy would be worth a massive annual market volume of $288 billion by 2030.

+++OOO+++

Future Investment - A Sustainable Investment Plan for the Power Sector to Save the Climate

Energy [R]evolution

Zerocarbonbritain

Centre for Alternative Technology

Contraction and Convergence

Global Commons Institute

Tradable Energy Quotas’ (TEQs)

G8 - success or disaster?

Although touted as a success by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it's hard to see exactly where the success of last weeks G8 summit lies. I suppose it all depends on your hopes or fears, optimism or pessimism of outcome. Maybe for the German Chancellor and host so little was expected to be gained, that what little was achieved could be touted as a success. It all depends on whether you consider this a talking shop or a catalyst for definitive action. So, what exactly was the outcome? Er well...

G8 leaders agreed to pursue "substantial" reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, stopping short of Angela Merkel's attempts to secure concrete numerical commitments on emission reductions, including her key aim to cut gases by 50 percent by 2050. Only 6 of the countries agreed to negotiate a new global climate pact that would extend and broaden the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Russia and the US did not sign up to the non-legally binding pledge by Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Canada and Japan.

As a compromise, however, all eight nations agreed to make substantial - but undefined - emissions cuts. The eight countries also agreed to launch negotiations on climate change under the United Nations umbrella starting in December 2007 to be wrapped up by 2009.

And that's about the sum of it. Not exactly a sense of leaders rising to the challenge to respond to what Al Gore calls a "planetary emergency" by the G8 - who represent 13 percent of the world's population and 43 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Here's what Al Gore had to say on the agreement:

"It was a disgrace disguised as an achievement," Gore said at an event in Milan, where he praised Merkel for her efforts. Leaders at last week's G8 summit in Germany had not risen to the challenge. "The eight most powerful nations gathered and were unable to do anything except to say 'We had good conversations and we agreed that we will have more conversations, and we will even have conversations about the possibility of doing something in the future on a voluntary basis perhaps.'"

No hard targets. No real substance. A missed opportunity. But Bush clearly swallowed something painful, even if it wasn't a commitment to define US emission cuts - he ended up with stomach ache anyway.

Understanding IPCC reports

The other night I headed over to the Institute of Physics to hear Professor Jonathan Gregory give a lecture to a packed house on The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change. Prof Gregory is one of those scientists who comes armed with a string of positions (Snr. Scientist at the Walker Institute for Climate System Research, Prof. at the Dept. of Meteorology, University of Reading, Met Office Fellow in the Climate Change Group at the Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter - I'm sure there are more) that makes you wonder whether he is capable of being in many places and doing many things simultaneously (he is a scientist afterall). He is a man who is precise in his choice of words and concise in his explanations.

So, with that kind of background, it is no surprise that a man of those credentials is also an IPCC lead author. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the world leading authority on climate change) was established in 1988 to assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. 2007 brings the completion of the 4th Assessment Report. There are three working groups who compile individual reports for the Assessment Report: Working Group 1 addresses the 'physical science basis', Group 2 the' impacts, adaptation ann vulnerability', Group 3 'mitigation'. Prof Gregory is a lead author for the Working Group 1 (whose report was published February 2007), who were tasked with turning their immense brains, knowledge and analytical skills to the physical science basis of climate change.

Here is how it works:
A core of scientists (Working Group 1 was written by 152 lead authors from over 30 countries and reviewed by over 600 experts) are tasked to assess existing peer reviewed literature on climate change, give information on how confident they are of the calculations, compile the report and a summary for policymakers. It is only after that do the scientists sit down with the government representatives to decide whether the summary correctly reflects the report. The Working Group 1 Summary for Policymakers was approved by officials from 113 governments. So, if you are in doubt as to whether or not climate change is really happening, these are the guys who listen to. They take the hard data, the existing literature, the physical theory, the numerical modelling, the research papers, the observations, the computations, the projections and circulation models - all in all the most up-to-date information - from all over the world. Once this is assessed the IPCC brains provide information on how confident they are of the calculations. It is not opinion, but analysis. And to ensure everyone is talking the same language and understands each other, a calibrated language is used (that in itself took a bit of doing to agree, as you can imagine).

IPCC Calibrated language
very likely > 90% probability
likely > 66%
unlikely < 33%
very unlikely < 10%

Unequivocal Fact: Global Warming is happening
There is one fact which none of the scientists and experts disagree on. The warming of the climate system is unequivocal. This is not contested. The 11 of the past 12 years are the warmest on record (the exception is 1996). So anyone who claims they are still unsure as to whether or not global warming is in fact taking place must surely be privy to some remarkable data that flies in the face of what can only be considered conclusive evidence.

The Greenhouse Effect
The greenhouse effect is the rise in temperature that the Earth experiences because certain gases in the atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, for example) trap energy from the sun. Without these gases, heat would escape back into space and Earth’s average temperature would be about 60ºF colder. The gases in effect insulate the earth, rather like an invisible blanket. Because of how they warm our world, so the earth heats up underneath - rather akin to the heating up under the glass of a greenhouse - these gases are referred to as greenhouse gases. What is happening is that inside the greenhouse - planet Earth - is beginning to overheat.

Back to Prof Gregory: he gave an array of slides demonstrating the observed changes, and those that have proven consistent with expected (simulated) responses - which also demonstrates that much of the earlier future mappings have been pretty spot on.

Where such changes are inconsistent with other explanations, he explained, attributions can be made. Thus, where natural forcings alone do not explain the variations over the past 50 years, most of the observed increase in globally average temperatures since the mid 20th Century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic green house concentrations. In other words, there's >90% probability that it's all down to us - increase in temperature has resulted from the influence humans have on the natural world - from the burning of of fossil fuels and deforestation. So, there we have it - we are in all likelihood destroying the very world we live on by our own actions. Using that well worn analogy, if you were told by a medical expert you had >90% chance of dying of cancer very soon unless you stopped smoking now, what would you do? Go with the 10% off-chance that you may be okay? Or take action...

Future Simulations
Such extensive analysis of the changes in ice sheet volume, sea ice, glacier and ice cap reductions, salinity, precipitation, water vapour, green house gases, temperature, ocean heat, sea level rise, thermal expansion etc. has been put to good use. A family of future scenarios (on a business as usual premise) to the end of the 21st Century with a range of increase in temperature between 1 and 4 degrees has been computed. It does not make for pretty viewing. Even on the most optimistic scenario (and the most unlikely) of just one degree increase, does not absolve our responsibility to address what for future generations will bring even higher increases. Increase of temperature may bring positive feedbacks, such as die-back of forests, and with the loss of those sinks comes the release of even more greenhouse gases, contributing to even further and more rapid increase of temperatures.

Future warming of temperatures, in the calibrated language of the ever cautious scientists, is virtually certain, heat waves more frequent, and heavy precipitation very likely. By 2090 it is very likely that there will be no summer sea ice in the Arctic. That's a lot of dead polar bears. As for the cooling of the Gulf Stream from the increased loss of ice? Sudden collapse, as current analysis of the computations stands, is however very unlikely.

We need people like Prof Gregory and all the other lead authors and scientists to make analyse the data for us. I cannot pretend that I understand all of it, but, in the only way I can explain, I am satisfied so that I am sure that these IPCC scientists and experts know what they are talking about. Such data is inevitably our primary materials upon which we must act.

As for impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, and for that matter, mitigation of climate change - well, these two areas are the subject of reports that have been published by Working Group 2 and Working Group 3. What I need now are equally informative lectures on both those reports.

For the 2007 Working Group Reports (1, 2 & 3) go to: ipcc.ch
The reports by the three Working Groups provide a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the current state of knowledge on climate change. It is currently finalizing its Fourth Assessment Report "Climate Change 2007", also referred to as AR4 which will be available in November.

Energy Crisis

There seems to be a chill wind blowing these last few days - one which I cannot seem to inure myself against. I've mulled over how to blog for a few days now, and decided that although my focus is predominantly on the positive, sometimes it's impossible to ignore those moments where progress seems for whatever reason to have stalled.

Last week's Energy and Planning White Papers gave no cause for joy. Indeed, consisting mainly of reiteration of this government's current positioning, they seem to pose more questions than offer solutions. What could have been a prime opportunity to demonstrate leadership in taking steps to addressing our pending energy crisis was effectively sidestepped. Now with 17 EU countries adopting feed-in tariffs to kick-start their markets for microgeneration, we - a country that is just about to enter into net-import of our energy supplies - still refuses to give any form of assistance. Ah, there is one exception. The grand gesture of a one-off supplemental payment of £12 million under the Low Carbon Buildings Scheme - which will doubtless be fully utilised within a week, if earlier applications are anything to go by. Indeed, the largest PV company in the UK is currently looking at laying off staff. And this is a country that, as David Miliband stated this weekend at the Hay Literary Festival, subsidises it's transport sector (read: road expansion) to the tune of £80 million a week. Yes, that's £80 million a week. That's over £4 billion per annum. Mr Miliband, you yourself stated three times that we must take heed of Stern's advice - that to invest in prevention of climate change will be less costly to address now than later. So, Mr Miliband, it begs the question: where is the Climate Change Prevention Pot? There seems to be no evidence of any finances being set aside (or indeed distributed) to assist people in their transition from a fuel based economy to a low carbon economy and controlled energy descent.

There are two good reasons that this needs addressing now. One is that peak oil is about to sweep the world into an energy deficit within a matter of but a few years. The second, equally valid reason is that if we continue to hungrily devour our remaining fossil fuels until they are exhausted we have virtually no chance of retaining our greenhouse emissions at 450ppm - and thus leave ourselves at extremely high risk of runaway climate change.

Nuclear is still on the agenda as a solution in the UK, which is no panacea. After all, Nuclear energy in the UK amounts to but a mere 3.6% of our energy supplies. Even with 100% increase in efficiency, and the first of the new generation being rolled out in 2016 at the earliest, it's going to be a matter of too little too late. With energy deficits of 3 - 5% annually from possibly as early as 2010, this seems at best an ill-thought out plan. It's been calculated that for every £1 invested in renewables equates to £7 investment in Nuclear for the same amount of energy (remember - this is a government that says it will not subsidise Nuclear but will leave it up to market forces. So, who exactly is going to back such an expensive and dangerous venture?). The figures do not add up, especially when other long-term global solutions exist, such as Concentrating Solar Power which would supplement and complement large scale renewable projects as well as decentralised solutions such as microgeneration. This government talks about there being no one solution (true) but it is doing very little to give support to any but the one solution that is the least attractive of all. There is of course Russia - they could give us oil, coal, gas, uranium. All those juicy carbon emitters - and all from a country that all too recently proved it was perfectly capable of flexing it's muscles and turning off the tap whenever suits. Problem is, there is no coherent national strategy, no demonstration of a viable energy policy - at a time when governmental leadership is not just a political but a a moral imperative.

David Strahan, in his thoroughly researched and thoroughly readable book The Last Oil Shock poses the most pertinent of conundrums. Running out of oil should at least be good for climate change, you might think - but the reverse could be true. A growing shortfall of global oil production is likely to send the crude price skywards, and a mad dash to fill the gap could bring even higher carbon emitting alternatives. Strahan examines the most up-to-date evidence, presents the hard facts and proffers some potential future scenarios. Read it and decide for yourself.

The mood of environmentalists has changed. George Monbiot also spoke at Hay, and there was a sense of exigency, a darker tonality that I had not detected before. He was to speak on Solutions, but changed his content on the day. He warned of his concern about our pending energy crisis. His request was for us to become active citizens. Action that is lacking from the top - from our government - must come from the people now. He urges us all to go demand from our MP's that strong action be taken. Time to prepare for our future is now - and we need our government (and all governments) more than ever to help set out a clear road map to navigate the stormy times ahead.


* David Strahan, The Last Oil Shock, 2007, published by John Murray Ltd
* Interactive Oil Depletion Atlas
* What Stern Really Got Wrong, David Strahan, Prospect, May 16th 2007
* George Monbiot, Comment is Free: Our blind faith in oil growth could bring the economy crashing down

Women Demand More Action on Climate Change

Yesterday afternoon I was invited to a reception at Portcullis House for the launch of the Women's Manifesto on Climate Change, jointly produced by the National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) and my favourite charity, Women's Environmental Network (WEN).

Globally, women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to our different social roles and status. In the UK and in other developed countries, increasing costs for energy, transport, healthcare and nutrition are likely to affect women, including single mothers, more than men. In developing countries, women are already suffering disproportionately more as a consequence of climate change:
70% of the world's poor, who are far more vulnerable to environmental damage, are women
85% of people who die from climate-induced disasters are women.

This is no radical feminist tract, but a simple rallying call to the Government to take strong leadership and enable women to make a greater impact on reducing carbon emissions. A recent climate change survey conducted by NFWI/WEN of more than 500 women (amazingly, the first ever) clearly demonstrated that women care greatly about environmental issues, and are the primary household purchasers. Of the decisions made by women within the home, 93% of household food, 84% of clothing, 82% of household products, 75% of holidays, 74% of home furnishings and 61% of car purchases are made by women. My own eco-emporium, lazye.co.uk, was founded on the premise that women - as the primary purchasers and primary carers - have a key role in tackling climate change as consumers, educators and 'change agents'. This survey presents hard evidence to support such belief.

The survey demonstrates that 80% of women are very concerned about climate change (compare this with a recent EMAP survey findings of 84% women, but only 64% men) and 75% are apprehensive that government action to tackle climate change will not be taken soon enough.

According to the climate change survey, what women of the UK want most is:

Much more action in tackling climate change
97% believe the Government and industry are not doing enough.
Top priorities for action -
86% demand the Government to invest in more renewable energy
86% want manufacturers to design more environmentally friendly products
81% demand tougher carbon reduction targets

More help and guidance to reduce our impact on the environment
85% want more green products and green labelling of goods
85% want lower prices for environmentally friendly products
82% more government grants and incentives to reduce carbon emissions

More women's involvement in UK Government (87%) and international policy making (86%), to find solutions to climate change.

Greater representation of women in industry boardrooms (79%) and scientific careers (78%) to address climate change issues from a women's perspective, and as MP's (74%)

Remarkably, 94% have already begun to make lifestyle changes and are willing to do more in the future. As Penney Poyzer pointed out, behavioural change on individual level is crucial, and what is clearly demonstrated by this report is that the women of this country have the will to tackle climate change. What is needed now is the way.

I have signed as a signatory of the Women's Manifesto on Climate Change asking that

The UK Government take a strong lead

Equal involvement of women and men in decision-making

Investment in renewable energy

More environmentally friendly products

Tougher CO2 emissions targets.