Some simple analysis of the Carbon Dioxide emissions in the UK leads to several pertinent conclusions :-
Category: Low Carbon Life
For some Low Carbon sanity in the United Kingdom, you have to go North of the English border to Scotland :-
At the conference “The politics of climate change : from economic crisis to business revolution” on 5th June 2009, Stelios Haji-Ioannou ended up flying by the seat of his pants.
“I’m usually [cast as] the Devil. People are trying to find a high-profile industry [to target]…[they choose] airlines.”
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.
The first in a possibly short series of short and helpful winning advice.
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 :-
Everywhere I’ve gone for the last couple of weeks, I’ve taken Nick Stern with me. Or rather, his bright blue book with the “World Class” title “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet”.
At our best, we humans, when faced with crisis, we club together and act collectively. We invent new shared ways of doing, being and providing for ourselves. We pay attention to the needs of others. We give. We receive. We share. We eat together.
What follows is part of an e-mail exchange frenzy that has been sparked by the UK Government’s decision to announce plans to invest in up to four Carbon Capture and Storage “demonstration” plants.
I couldn’t believe it : the New Scientist magazine in my hands didn’t have a car advertisement on the back cover, on the inside cover, or opposite the editorial !
Very little of what follows is original thought. But after much reflection, I feel these ideas are worthy of attention, and so I have expanded them for your consideration.
1. Contraction & Convergence Video Conferencing
Yet another international meeting on Energy Efficiency, Climate Change, Renewable Energy. Yet another brace of airline tickets for big speakers, engineers, policy-makers and scientists (and reporters) to fly in and confer.
In order to demonstrate the Contraction & Convergence framework in action, the delegates at all these meetings and conferences should reduce their carbon emissions to be in line with the lowest emitter of them all. Everyone will contract their carbon emissions, and everyone will get in line. Equal rights to pollute. The Principle of Equity.
There is enough cable and wire laid under all the world’s oceans and through the world’s rivers and soils to hold every single meeting by videoconferencing. And so it should be done.
No more flying for people of green persuasions. Follow Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute and the UNFCCC papers for development of Contraction & Convergence.