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Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Commodities Carbon Rationing Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Renewable Resource Social Change Vote Loser

Poor People Gonna Rise Up

Talking About a Revolution : Tracy Chapman

When are the intellectual and political ranks going to stop trying to apply universal guilt ? The real question to ask is not, “how are we going to get average emissions down ?” You can’t treat all the people in the United Kingdom as one blurred lump. Around 20% of consumers are conscious. Another 20% to 30% are going to be hit directly by any measure designed to put an environmental tax on Carbon, and will have no choice about responding.

Climate Change worldwide is affecting the poorest first and hardest – an expression used by everyone from Nicholas Stern through to Christian Aid. But it’s a stratification of impact that isn’t just global. The poorest in the industrialised countries are suffering hardship too : people who cannot get their homes renovated after floods, people who have to apply for Fuel Poverty assistance.

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Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Carbon Army Climate Change Emissions Impossible Low Carbon Life Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Social Change Technological Sideshow

Pushy, Positive, Persuasion Pitfall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unNZDByYHzw : The Power of Persuasion
https://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/clear_and_resonant_marketing/
“Not Converts, But Consorts”

Despite what the psychologists evidence and the psychotherapists cogitate, there’s no getting through to some people, and I really think we just ought to accept that, stop with the guilt trip and the navel-gazing and admit it : the people with leadership authority have got to start telling people that things will change, whether they come along with it or not.

Everybody knows that there’s no secret to persuasion, no “how to win friends and influence people” magic techniques : you just need to have enough money to guarantee yourself the widest possible audience and the dominant narrative, and your product gets all the sales it needs, and overrides “what if” critique. TV was made for it. The Hollywood film industry is its highest and finest embodiment.

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Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Commodities Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Renewable Resource Social Change

Camped On Your Doorstep

What would you do if you met a Climate Camper face to face ? And how could you be sure ? Would they have dreadlocks ? A facepainted clown face, raggedy, dirty clothes ? Would they be shouting ?

More to the point, would they be getting in your face ? Or in your way ? Would they be threatening or violent or extremely negative ? Or would they offer you a cup of tea and a nice wholemeal organic flapjack ?

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Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Army Carbon Capture Climate Change Cost Effective Emissions Impossible Low Carbon Life Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves Social Change

10×10 : Cut Carbon 10% by 2010

The Campaign against Climate Change has been running a very thought-provoking extending compendium of ideas on how to reduce British Carbon Emissions by ten percent by (the end of) 2010, to which you are all welcome to contribute :-

https://portal.campaigncc.org/content/10-10-ban-domestic-flights

https://portal.campaigncc.org/content/10-10-ban-domestic-flights-0

https://portal.campaigncc.org/content/10-10-50-reduction-cost-public-transport

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Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Carbon Army Climate Change Energy Revival Social Change Utter Futility

Energetic Fracas at the Propaganda Workface

A momentous report in from Dorset, which seems to be one of Britain’s most radioactive frontlines in the battle between Climate Change Denial and Renewables common sense.

Susan Chapman, Green Party candidate, a colleague from the small but highly informational Take Global Warming Seriously campaign, and an active member of Poole Agenda 21, writes about the tedious, unforgiving work of campaigning for a Carbon-free energy future.

https://www.tgws.org.uk/

https://www.pa21.org.uk/

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Bait & Switch Burning Money Carbon Army Climate Change Emissions Impossible Low Carbon Life Social Change

Getting the Message Right

I was at a conference not long ago where during one of the breakout sessions I found myself sitting next to an “ad chick”, you know, a woman in advertising.

We passed the time of day, and I found I needed to challenge her on her naive belief that cars will progressively continue to get less Carbon hungry. “Within 20 years,” I soothsayed, “each adult will only have a Carbon ration for a fifth of a car”. Her face had an expression on it that was akin to painful disgust : like I was denying her her human rights, or something.

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Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Capture Cost Effective Low Carbon Life Nuclear Nuisance Peace not War Social Change

Throwing Caution To The Wind

This is possibly going to be Renewable Energy’s biggest week ever in UK history.

And we’re going to need all the Wind Power we can get to meet Ed Miliband’s lofty ambition.

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Bait & Switch Carbon Army Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Climate Change Cost Effective Emissions Impossible Nuclear Nuisance Social Change Technological Sideshow

I’d Like To Thank

At the Oscars and the BAFTAS and so on, the winners, always bleary, always blubbing, always drunk, always start with an “I’d like to thank” speech, offering genuine (or coerced) gratitude very publicly to those who collaborated (or financed) their venture : “you made it all possible”.

In true TV award ceremony style, the British Government, plus “Special Adjunct” Tony Blair, in amongst their good work pursuing Energy Efficiency and True Renewables, appear to be virtually obliged to mention the Energy and Climate “solutions” of their closest lobbyists and corporate allies, or even relatives, in the case of Gordon Brown’s brother Andrew’s company Electricité de France :-

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Carbon Army Climate Change Cost Effective Low Carbon Life Marvellous Wonderful

Save Vestas

Received by e-mail


Dear Friend,

Again, could you circulate this as widely as possible, especially to people in London and on the South Coast. Apologies for cross posting.

If you possibly can, please join a rally to save the Vestas wind turbine plant, this Saturday 11 July 2009, 12 noon, St James Square, Newport, Isle of Wight (outside Millets)

PDFs OF LEAFLETS, POSTERS AND PETITION SHEETS AVAILABLE BY EMAILING INFO@CAMPAIGNCC.ORG

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Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Army Climate Change Cost Effective Social Change Unsolicited Advice & Guidance

New Labour Can Win

As usual at these events, I bumped into a couple of political activists of various flavours and persuasions at the Fabian Society conference “Six Months to Copenhagen”, today, held in the faded-yet-still-grand setting of the Foreign Press Association, just off The Mall in London.

[ The Mall is the street that links Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. It’s not a shopping centre ].

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Carbon Army Climate Change Cost Effective Emissions Impossible

The New Green Army

As some of my more regular readers will be aware, I have been re-reading Nicholas Stern’s book “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet : How to Manage Climate Change and Create a New Era of Progress and Prosperity”.

He signed the book for me : “zero carbon or bust”, at his Book Launch at the London School of Economics, which, I think, shows his commitment to the “Defining Challenge of our Age” (now, who exactly said that first ? And about what ?)

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Carbon Army Carbon Commodities Climate Change Emissions Impossible Social Change Technological Sideshow

Adair Turner Fidgets While Coal Burns

Adair Turner must be a bundle of nerves, sitting, as he does on both the Financial Services Authority and the Climate Change Committee.

He’s often asked to speak on behalf of ideas that are shaky, like cracking down on the banks with stronger regulation, whilst avoiding blaming the banks themselves for the financial crisis :-

https://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article4959789.ece

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Carbon Army Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Climate Change Cost Effective Low Carbon Life Social Change

Climate Change and Social Justice

Britain is not Fair. The division between rich and poor is getting wider, and the number of those at the bottom of the stack is rising. This is going to have a significant impact on the ability of people in Great Britain to adapt to Climate Change policy.

Social measures must surely include public investment in de-Carbonising each home. At costs 100 times less than the announced new Nuclear Power programme, and an order of magnitude cheaper than the Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration projects, I think this shows excellent value for money as well as ethical rectitude.

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Carbon Army Climate Change Low Carbon Life Peak Oil Social Change

Transition Waltham Forest : Trees, Fresh Blood & Networking

If you or anyone you know is young and unencumbered (you know, without kids or other dependents, like an employer for example) and living in London E17 (England), please, we need you to help us roll out the Transition Waltham Forest project :-

https://www.transitionwf.org

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Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Army Climate Change Social Change Vote Loser

The End of Socialism

The British political system is currently reeling from a scandal so far-reaching and so widely-spread that it seems hard to know what shape it will take in the future.

Government Ministers and their opposite numbers in the other Parties are being thrown from their ranks, and even their “safe seats”, back home in their Constituencies.

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Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Commodities Climate Change Cost Effective Social Change

The Good Energy Lady

The green “trade show” UK Aware was held at the exhibition centre Olympia 2, West London, England on 17th April.

I was talking with the lady from Good Energy. First of all we discussed their proposal to offer a dual fuel tariff, and the fact that there is still no green gas available to domestic customers.