http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/ en Copyright 2010 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:35:00 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Solarcentury. For years, Jeremy has been flying the flag for the UK solar industry and for the benefits for introducing the kind of feed-in tariffs that have transformed the renewable energy scene in many other countries. Within a couple of days, Jeremy had mounted a robust defence of PV, feed-in tariffs and the importance of maintaining a long-term perspective. Citing 13 examples of inaccuracy, misrepresentation and hyperbole (reinforced by a further 12 points following up on a response from George), he has set out to set the record straight. Over the weekend I spent a happy hour reading through this four-phase battle, point by point. It matters. There’s a lot resting on the success of these feed-in tariffs, and that in turn depends on trust on the part of the general public. A George Monbiot polemic is purpose-built to undermine that trust. I really admire George. He’s a brilliant campaigning journalist, and a deep, persistent thorn in the side of today’s political and business elites. I often end up reading his Guardian articles metaphorically punching the air at the blows that he’s landed – on my behalf, as it were. This week’s article on biodiversity here in the UK is hugely impactful. But I’m sorry to say, on this occasion, that he’s way out of line. Jeremy Leggett’s detailed refutation of so much of what he was claiming in the original article demonstrates just how poor George’s initial research was, and how (on this occasion, at least) his love of adopting deliberately controversialist positions simply overwhelmed basic journalistic standards. This too is a serious matter. As one or two bloggers have already pointed out, if he’s got it this badly wrong on feed-in tariffs, what’s to say he hasn’t got it equally wrong on other critical issues? One of the talking points for me was that George declined on a number of occasions to meet with Jeremy and talk all this through – despite knowing full well the impact his article would have. More than anything else, this reveals a streak of know-it-all arrogance that has always been there in George, but which he usually keeps under control. But rather than take my word, why don’t you check it out for yourself on the Guardian and Jeremy’s own websites. If nothing else, it will help you get your head around the complexities of feed-in tariffs. George Monbiot's article http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/01/solar-panel-feed-in-tariff Jeremy Leggett's response http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/09/george-monbiot-bet-solar-pv or http://www.jeremyleggett.net/solar-revolution/]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/the_war_of_words_over_homeprod.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/the_war_of_words_over_homeprod.html Climate change Energy Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:35:00 +0000 Enough: breaking free from the world of more, and thought I might just pass it on. It’s really very entertaining! But also an indication of just how idiotically wasteful our world still is. My favourites are the ‘Dryear Ear Dryer’ and the ‘organic cotton toilet tissue’! And quite controversial to see the ‘Kindle’ in there! Reproduced from www.enoughness.co.uk, here are the most pointless, wasteful and needlessly complex gadgets for 2010… 1. Digital fridge magnet Is scribbling notes with a pen on a whiteboard too complex, too onerous… too 20th century? Here’s the Digital Video Memo, a fridge magnet on which you can record a 30-second video message. Look into the camera, press the record button and start talking. You’ve only added a digital screen, a rechargeable battery system, a computer and a camera to the planet’s landfill potential. According to users’ reports, the screen is tiny and the volume’s too low, so you have to stick your mouth right near the camera… so all people get to see is a quietly talking ear. Nominated by Karen Varga, who says, ‘You can just picture the workers in overseas factories going "What the **** are these for and why do these mad westerners need them?’ http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/digital-video-memo/index.html 2. The Bra Dyer The makers say the “Bra Dryer is a simple device which is based on the presumption that the best way to dry bras without ruining their fabric, wiring and padding is to dry them on a shape which resembles female breasts. That's why Bra Dryer is shaped like a female torso”. Rea Cris, who nominated it, remarks: “What women is seriously thinking: ‘YES! Fantastic, this is what I have been waiting for: metalic dismembered hot breasts, they'll match the wallpaper perfectly!’” Nominated by Rea Cris, Edinburgh. http://www.bradryer.com 3. The Dryear Ear Dryer Wave goodbye to towels (almost). Here’s how you can spend a lot of cash, use electricity and create lots of energy waste – with a battery-operated hot-air ear dryer. 'Drying your ears has never been simpler or more effective'. Or, at £69, could it be more expensive? The device slots into the ear canal and blows hot air. Oh, and the instructions advise you to dry your ears with a towel first. Nominated by Anna, London www.dryear.net 4. The Uroclub Here’s one for the incontinent golfer in your life: it’s the Uroclub – a hollow plastic club in which you can urinate mid-round, instead of an eco-friendly bush or tree to pee behind in the time-honoured way. And that’s not all: there’s also a tie-on ‘modesty blanket’ which you can hide your putter behind while micturating. Imagine picking out a full Uroclub instead of a driver at the 11th hole. How your dampened playmates would laugh. http://www.uroclub.com/details.html Nominated by Robert Chamberlain 5. 100% organic cotton toilet tissue‘We can wipe our arses cheaply with something that is recycled from a renewable resource,’ says Julian Baggini. ‘So why set aside valuable agricultural land to grow cotton for us to do so? This is surely pseudo-green nonsense and not from some greenwashing multinational but an apparently lovely fluffy planet-friendly company called Spirit of Nature.’ Nominated by Julian Baggini http://www.spiritofnature.co.uk/acatalog/5180.html 6. Cuisinart Soup Maker‘When I saw it in a friend’s catalogue my jaw dropped,’ says Stephen Watson, who nominated this. ‘It’s clear that there's a growing trend to these products, namely the “this does one thing well” item. Instead of using a saucepan which can be used for soup, stews, custard, sauces and much more, you buy a £149 soup machine to make soup. Then you have to find a place to store it. Presumably in the same cupboard as the waffle maker, sandwich maker, ice cream maker, yoghourt maker and so on ad nauseam.’ Nominated by Stephen Watson http://www.lakeland.co.uk/cuisinart!REG-soupmaker/F/keyword/soup/product/13356 7. Reel Putter A golf putting club with an attached fishing reel, so you can reel in your putts. ‘I think They copied this idea from a Bugs Bunny cartoon,’ says Blacknose. Nominated by Blacknose http://www.reelputter.com/ 8. Operatic pasta timer So, you want to cook pasta, you have no sense of time – or even a kitchen timer – and you’ve never learnt how to tell if your pasta’s al dente (i.e. throw it at a wall and see if it sticks). You may be the one person on earth who needs the Al Dente Operatic Pasta Timer. It's a pasta timer in the shape of a little man, which has an inbuilt water-activated timer. When the water has been boiling long enough, the timer sings with an electronic computer voice. It sings opera. After seven minutes, it sings The Triumphal March from Aida; after nine minutes, The Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, from Nabucco, and after 11 minutes La Donna e Movile from Rigoletto. Here at Landfill Towers, we like fresh pasta that cooks in three minutes. Guess it would be soggy. Nominated by Philip Evans, France http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/silly/odd-gadget-al-dente-operatic-pasta-timer-089395 9. ‘The Stig' merchandise‘Putting aside the environmentally cavalier antics of Top Gear, it just ends up a million miles from anything to do with a racing driver, with bubble bath and duvet sets,’ says Jeremy Wilson, who nominated this: ‘It’s the worst kind of lazy tick-box merchandising, for equally lazy present buyers whose imagination doesn’t stretch beyond the ‘gift ideas for men’ shelf of the department store. If you received a Stig item for Christmas, you’ve probably already thrown it away. The least we could do is put it all in the bin in China and save ourselves the shipping emissions.’ Nominated by Jeremy Wilson http://www.officialproducts.co.uk/section.php/32/1/official-topgear-the-stig-merchandise 10. The Kindle‘Not only is it a completely unnecessary piece of electronic rubbish, it seeks to replace a design classic: the far-from obsolete, cheap and entirely reusable (ask any library!) book,’ says Ben Duncan, who nominated it. ‘It creates a whole new market in copyrighted material as it does so, meaning literature is reduced from being a pastime and an art form to being a piece of tradable intellectual property.’ Nominated by Ben Duncan, Brighton http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C/?tag=gocous20&hvadid=4139393477&ref=pd_sl_1a1t9bh4e6_e http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C/?tag=gocous20&hvadid=4139393477&ref=pd_sl_1a1t9bh4e6_e ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/the_landfill_prize.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/the_landfill_prize.html Consumption Waste Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:49:36 +0000 does provide the benchmark for the whole of the retail world. It’s visionary, it’s applied, it’s comprehensive (as in covering all the sustainability bases), and it’s succeeding in getting whole-company buy-in, through the high level “How We Do Business” Committee, chaired (and driven!) by Sir Stuart Rose. So it’s well worthwhile checking out the new version of Plan A, available at: http://plana.marksandspencer.com/media/pdf/planA-2010.pdf ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/ms_set_a_sustainable_benchmark.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/ms_set_a_sustainable_benchmark.html Consumption News Retail Sustainable Food Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:50:17 +0000 scale in all those sectors to get the right drivers in place to make the innovation happen. From niche to mainstream. Easy! But scale means different things in different sectors. I spent a day last week at Ecobuild - ‘the biggest event in the world for sustainable design, construction and the built environment’. That absolutely wasn’t a claim that could have been made at the first Ecobuild, five years ago, which attracted no more than 1000 visitors. This year, there were more than 50,000 people there. Earls Court was flush with exhibitors, from some of the biggest companies in the UK to distinctly ‘alternative’ start-ups taking a massive gamble on enough people falling for their particular ‘breakthrough innovation’. There were countless meetings and debates going on the whole time, and the kind of buzz that one doesn’t always associate with events of this kind. For the politicians who’d dropped in, and wandered around looking a bit bemused, it all said one thing: no more niches. This was about scale. New orders. Expanding markets. Innovation (in the construction industry!). And even, dare one say it, new jobs. I won’t be churlish by pointing out that this supply-chain journey (from niche to huge, scaled opportunity) could have been stimulated by the political system many years ago – as it was in Germany, Scandinavia and so on. At least we’ve got there now, and it’s exciting. The UK Green Building Council has been a central part of that journey, and is now providing the kind of leadership (across this complex industry and beyond) that the politicians need in order to stay in touch with the developments on the ground. The UK Green Building Council launched its new Green Building Manifesto at Ecobuild – and it’s well worth a look. ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/no_more_niches_we_need_sustain.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/no_more_niches_we_need_sustain.html Built Environment Innovation Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:44:11 +0000 any reservations about the notional sustainability benefits of current GM crops, let alone about the massively hyped potential benefits of future GM products, is to open oneself up to the charge of debilitating technophobia. Shades here of George Bush beating up his NATO allies over the Iraq war: “If you’re not with us, you’re against us”. Sorry, Chris, but that’s really not the deal. Interviewed on Radio 4’s Farming Today, he suggested that anti-GM campaigners would really have to ‘move on’ in terms of their opposition on both environmental and health grounds – given that the balance of the available evidence would appear to indicate a relatively clean bill of health for GM on both counts. If only it were that easy. One’s judgement about ‘the balance of the evidence’ depends largely on where that evidence comes from, and even pro-GM advocates are very uneasy about the stranglehold that the big biotech companies have over access to data and transparency of the data used by regulators. I wonder how content Chris is, as Chair of the Environment Agency, about the quality of that evidence, and the credence that should be attached to it? Furthermore, I wonder what Chris means by ‘environmental concerns’ in this context? I’d be astonished if he is not worried about the biggest environmental concern of all: the fact that even the next generation of GM ‘solutions’ promise little if anything in terms of reducing the dependence of modern intensive agriculture on fossil fuels and hydro-carbon-based inputs. On broad sustainability and governance grounds, GM-scepticism still seems to me to be the most appropriate response to the latest surge of evangelism for all things GM. But balance in this debate seems to be entirely lacking. As the IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, Technology for Development) Report in 2008 so eloquently pointed out, there are so many things that can and should be done right now to address issues of food security and increased yields without casting all our eggs in the GM basket. (Don’t ask, incidentally, what happened to the IAASTD Report, which has, to all extents and purposes, been ‘disappeared’. Some would say precisely because it was so sceptical about GM.) But for reasons I still can’t fathom, people like Chris get hugely over-excited about GM whilst remaining resolutely underwhelmed by all those other aspects of sustainable food production and distribution that would make a far bigger difference to an infinitely greater number of people in a far shorter period of time. This is clearly not a rational process, whatever GM advocates may say. Indeed, I’d go so far as to suggest that Chris is just the latest ‘big name’ to have given into the phenomenon of what I can only describe as ‘GM fetishism’. President Sarkozy recently accused his fellow world leaders of having given in to ‘GDP fetishism’. By which he meant (I assume!) that their obsessive preoccupation with GDP at the expense of every other measure of prosperity, wellbeing and quality of life, was seriously impairing their judgement. By the same token, it is clear to me that the elite of today’s farming establishment (plus a few misguided Greenies) have clearly given in to a form of GM fetishism, which overshadows every other measure of innovation, sustainable yield improvement and resource efficiency in farming today. I am sure Chris doesn’t see himself as a GM fetishist. But then he has also converted to the pro-nuclear cause over the last few years, and I have noticed that this is rich ‘two for one’ territory: go nuclear and throw in GM evangelism for good measure. Or vice-versa. That, it would seem, is the only way to demonstrate one’s serious scientific credentials these days. Or so some sad people say. ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/genetically_modified_fetishism.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/03/genetically_modified_fetishism.html Farming Genetic modification Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:46:29 +0000 Review) Some people say that this is all old hat. The Black Report, the Acheson Report, the Wanless Report. And now the Marmot Report. Same old, same old. In some instances, that’s true. But there are many completely new insights in this report, building on new evidence. For instance, the principal recommendation (‘give every child the best start in life’) is based on new research looking at what happens between birth and the third year of any child’s life. Just looking at the difference between the most advantaged and the least advantaged on indicators like birth weight, post-natal depression for mothers, regular bed times, being read to every day, breastfeeding and so on, you can see why this is the critical point of intervention. After the age of three, a lot of future interventions may well be far less impactful. And by the age of five, brighter, poorer kids have been overtaken by less bright kids from families that are better off. Intriguingly, the most inspiring talk of the day came from the Deputy Chief Fire Officer from Merseyside. The Fire and Rescue Service on Merseyside has been running a community engagement and advocacy programme for the last 10 years, providing advice in the first instance on fire prevention, but then helping local residents think much more about all those things that exacerbate health inequalities (smoking, alcohol, drugs, poor quality housing, poor diets and so on), whilst simultaneously increasing fire risk – if only indirectly. His officers are now putting out 50% fewer fires than 10 years ago. The Deputy Chief Fire Officer didn’t bring this out explicitly, but his presentation provided a powerful analogy for the whole day. Shift the effort (and the investment) upstream – into prevention and brilliant public service interventions in people’s lives – and the downstream costs can be progressively reduced. But if you don’t do that, there’ll be no reductions downstream. The vast majority of health practitioners are well aware of that. But the truth of it is that after 30 years of talking about prioritising prevention and public health, practically nothing has been done about it. Just 4% of total health spending in the UK goes on prevention and public health. The Marmot Review doesn’t make a particularly strong case on that score. But the truth of it is that all its recommendations may well make no more progress than the recommendations of its predecessors unless that imbalance is addressed. ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/02/the_marmot_review_health_and_i.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/02/the_marmot_review_health_and_i.html Health Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:57:48 +0000 So the first blow has fallen on Cadbury’s from its new owners, Kraft. The Keynsham plant near Bristol will close, despite the fact that Kraft promised to keep it open (that was actually a bit weird, as Cadbury itself had announced that Keynsham would be closed at some stage in the future). And the fear, of course, as much in the mind of Peter Mandelson as in the minds of all Cadbury’s workers, is that this is just the first of many cuts that will be brought forward during the next few years. I haven’t written about this since the takeover. Apart from the odd sardonic chuckle as the process unfolded (with that arch-globaliser Mandelson shedding a few crocodile tears at another ‘great British company’ being gobbled up by ‘predators’ like Kraft – or Warren Buffet (who owns about 9% of Kraft) complaining that it’s a really bad deal for Kraft shareholders, however good a deal it might be for Cadbury shareholders), it’s been too bloody miserable. The optimists would have curmudgeons like me cheer up a little. They point to the pledges made by Kraft to stick by Cadbury’s ethical and Fairtrade commitments. Just before the Cadbury’s Board accepted the bid it announced that Green & Black’s would be moving its entire range to Fairtrade by the end of 2011, which elicited the following emollient words from Kraft: “We strongly support certification as a way to improve sustainability in cocoa farming, so we welcome this step by Green & Black’s. Cadbury and Green & Black’s have proud histories in ethical sourcing, and if our offer is successful, we look forward to maintaining this heritage.” Just so long as you ignore the unmistakable sound of grinding teeth behind the reassuring words, perhaps that really is something to be optimistic about. But it is still a wretched outcome. And surely a complete failure on the part of Cadbury’s shareholders to tell the difference between ‘a good price’ and ‘lasting value’. Roger Carr, who has just stepped down as Chairman from Cadbury, having felt ‘obliged’ to recommend to shareholders the offer of £11.7 billion (up from the opening bid of £9.8 billion in September last year) has now weighed in with some ‘radical ideas’ to ensure that something similar doesn’t happen again. He has suggested raising the ‘victory margin’ from 50% plus one share to 60% plus one share, and that simultaneously there should be a rule that those who bought shares during the course of any takeover battle would not be permitted to vote until the battle was over. Useful ideas. But the lack of any genuinely radical ideas during the takeover battle was very noticeable. “This is just the way it is with markets”, as one commentator put it. Indeed! Which is why we go through the same nightmarish process with every single takeover proposal. Why don’t we, for instance, have more John Lewis look-a-likes in the UK? The John Lewis Partnership is hugely admired even by people in the City – even if they don’t really approve of its ‘bizarre’ employee benefit Trust. But this example has been followed by very few companies over the years. As is the case with Scott Bader (a successful chemicals company), and Tullis Russell (a successful paper company in Scotland). But there is still Royal Mail, which currently has only one shareholder (the Government), which would make it easier to think of some kind of employee ownership basis. Allan Leighton, Royal Mail’s Chairman, has indeed hinted at the possibility of some kind of employee share-ownership. The interesting thing is that employee-owned companies regularly outperform those in the FTSE All-Share Index. Over the last 17 years, employee-owned companies have outperformed FTSE All-Share companies each year by an average of 10%. In the third quarter of 2009, for instance, employee-owned companies’ share prices were up 27.6% compared to FTSE All-Share companies share prices, which were up 21.3% over the quarter. But we are still so stuck in our wretchedly unsustainable ways when it comes to ownership structures within the capitalist economy. http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/02/lesson_from_krafts_cadbury_tak.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/02/lesson_from_krafts_cadbury_tak.html Economics Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:44:50 +0000 any public figure at this stage of the debate. The politics of climate change in Australia are even worse that they are here in the UK. That may well be, paradoxically, because changes in their own micro-climates over the last 10 years have been so much more visible. And painful. And this has polarised the debate about whether these changes are primarily a consequence of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, or primarily natural climate variability. The end result is that the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, might have to call a general election to break the impasse on his proposals for a carbon-trading scheme. Could it get that bad here in the UK? Very improbably, but the whole tenor of the debate has deteriorated so badly, so rapidly, that it's now a serious political headache, rather than a minor irritant. The combination of the ‘climate gate’ fiasco at the University of East Anglia and the growing concerns about the workings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), broader concerns of the whole peer review process (the so-called ‘Gold Standard’ of scientific research), and the utter failure of Copenhagen has transformed the climate debate here in the UK. Where they were once thought as contrarian outliers, both the Daily Mail and the Daily Express are now thought to be closely aligned with public opinion. Ed Miliband (the Secretary of State in the Dept of Energy and Climate Change) must be in despair. So should we be pressing the panic button? I think we should. The damage done to the credibility not just of climate science but also of the UK’s entire approach to climate change is already serious – and getting worse. This could be extremely problematic in the run up to the general election. So if I was Gordon Brown, I would be asking David Cameron and Nick Clegg to issue a joint invitation to Martin Rees, the President of the Royal Society, asking him to convene a high-level Scientific Panel to comment on ‘the state of the science’ two years from the publication of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report at the end of 2007. Does it still stack up? What should people make of all these recent revelations? Is the Climate Change Act (to which all three political parties have signed up) still based on robust scientific foundations? Can people still have confidence in the way climate science drives climate policy? Martin Rees would be asked to recruit three or four top scientists (reflecting different shades of opinion), a couple of business people (like James Dyson or Richard Lambert of the CBI), and a couple of scientifically-literate ‘pillars of the community’ in whom the general public has absolute trust. No NGOs, let alone campaigners! Give them two months. Bang out a short, sharp report written for lay people, not for scientists. Blitz the media. Run a full-page ad in the Mail and Express for weeks on end – instead of today’s highly questionable ‘Act on CO2 ‘ ads. Overkill? Possibly. It seems ludicrous that what is still by any standards a rock-solid scientific consensus should have to be shored up by such extreme measures. But if we don’t, might we be looking at an Aussie-style meltdown in public opinion in the near term? ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/02/time_to_press_the_panic_button.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2010/02/time_to_press_the_panic_button.html Climate change Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:27:03 +0000 serious scientists, carrying out their work in good faith, and publishing in properly peer-reviewed journals. That, after all, is how the scientific method works: any scientific hypothesis is only as good as the rigour with which it is put to the test on the basis of potentially conflicting or inconsistent data. But there are two problems with this, and both relate to the inability of the media to understand the nature of the scientific process, and to act responsibly within that understanding. First, so much of the dissenting stuff does not emanate from scientists of that kind. Much of it is based on speculation, exaggeration and manipulation of other people’s data. It’s never been published in proper journals, never been subjected to proper peer-review, and completely fails to meet any of the basic tests for “sound science”. Much of it lives and breathes through the blogosphere. And almost all of it is arrant nonsense. Second, when the science moves on, the contrarians (and the scientifically-illiterate media that love to front those contrarians) refuse to move on at the same time. So yesterday, for instance, The Independent’s Science Editor, Steve Connor, did a brilliant two-page spread demonstrating how the all-time favourite thesis of the contrarians (that climate change is not in any way man-made but is a consequence of variations in solar activity - particularly sunspots) has been comprehensively dismantled since the two principal scientists involved in this theory (Svensmark and Friis-Christensen) first published their findings. And those two have been completely unable to refute the dismantling that has been done. Without that critical contrarian prop in place, much else falls. But we wouldn’t expect the Daily Express to follow the science that closely, would we? Which makes it really difficult to go on being “inclusive” about these contrarian views, or indeed tolerant of the malign media forces that sustain them. ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/12/the_media_and_climate_change_c.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/12/the_media_and_climate_change_c.html Climate change Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:27:28 +0000 here.]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/12/blogging_and_phlogging.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/12/blogging_and_phlogging.html Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:33:18 +0000 As you read the daily reports from Copenhagen, spare a thought for the hundreds of environmental and development activists out there, keeping the cause of ‘climate justice’ under the noses of government delegations, UN Officials and the media. It always amuses me when I hear sarcastic journalists refer to these conferences as ‘junkets’ or ‘jamborees’. In reality they are more like a descent into hell, with delegates surrounded on the one hand by the demons of utter mind-numbing tedium, and on the other by the gremlins of mischievous government delegations intent on emasculating any final agreement. The formal process is focussed on the draft text, which summarises that agreement with much of its text still in brackets. These brackets can only be removed via unanimous agreement between all government delegations. It’s often the same ones (from Saudi Arabia onwards!) that stick to their oil-drenched arguments, yielding as little as they can possibly get away with short of total opprobrium descending upon them as other delegations get angrier and angrier. That goes on for days, until the elected politicians bowl up next week, and it starts all over again. The only escape for knackered greenies is alcohol, liver-numbing quantities of which are consumed every evening. That’s what life is like for the poor sods that have to do the work in the formal conference. Far more stimulation is available for those attending the informal, largely NGO conference (the Klimaforum in Copenhagen), buzzing away on the margins of the government negotiations. Every now and again positive messages flow out of the NGO forum to cause a bit of a stir inside the conference, but nothing like as often or as powerfully as the negative energy flowing in the other direction. Which is exactly what happened on Tuesday, when a document leaked to the Guardian revealed a ‘secret text’ put together by a group of rich countries (including the UK and the US), which pretty much undermines every single aspect of the tortuous negotiations that have been going on over the last two years. Inside the conference venue the bracket-bashing goes on uninterrupted. But when something like that happens, everything else goes pear-shaped. Anger, incredulity, rage, despair and dark, demonic humour take over until the alcohol kicks in. Some junket! http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/12/booze_and_bracketbashing_insid.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/12/booze_and_bracketbashing_insid.html Climate change Government Politics Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:39:44 +0000 life’s work of this extraordinary man. From the mid-1960s onwards, he was often the first to raise big sustainability issues, to pursue them ferociously through the pages of The Ecologist (established in 1969 and “virtualised” 40 years later in 2009), and to keep confronting people with the often uncomfortable logic of what it means to fashion genuinely sustainable lives for an ever-expanding number of human beings on an ever-shrinking planet. Sadly, I didn’t see much of Teddy in his last few years. But he was often present in my thinking about different issues, particularly in terms of his views on population, economic growth, agriculture, GM and so on. And nowhere more powerfully than in the renewed debate about the potential role of nuclear power in a more sustainable world. Right now, those who still feel that nuclear power has no role to play in a genuinely sustainable world are completely downcast at having to fight those same old battles all over again – this time with the added problem of a growing number of serious environmentalists who’ve thrown in their lot (holding their noses as they go) with the nuclear option. It has to be said that there’s no enthusiasm for the fight. How could there be? And at the moment, there’s no clear sense of where the leadership is going to come from. More than ever, we’re going to miss that utterly uncompromising, forensic focus that Teddy brought to bear on the nuclear industry – especially in terms of Windscale/Sellafield, Dounreay, Sizewell and so on. Without Teddy, who is going to rub people’s noses in the continuing scandal of nuclear waste mismanagement, and remind people that this government promised time after time that there would be no expansion of nuclear power in this country until it had sorted out the problems of nuclear waste? Who is going to hold to account politicians and industry leaders for whom secrecy remains the default mindset? Who is going to expose the near-fraudulent accounting practices endemic within the nuclear industry that continue to blind people to the true economic costs and penalties involved in nuclear power? Who is going to interrogate the philosophical and moral implications of one generation imposing on the next a set of problems and security hazards for which they themselves have absolutely no solution? And who is going to take on those sincere but utterly misguided environmentalists who’ve “gone nuclear” over the last few years because they feel there’s no alternative? Sustainable development activists can’t afford to be absolutist about new technology developments. When the facts change, we should indeed change our minds. Even in the Green Party (after very lively discussions with Teddy himself!), I argued that we should be open to the theoretical possibility that evolved nuclear technologies, at some point in the future, might have a contribution to make to a genuinely sustainable energy mix. And who can tell what lies ahead in that regard. Once issues regarding cost, public subsidy, waste, decommissioning, proliferation, vulnerability to terrorism and availability of uranium have all been addressed and sorted, maybe that day will dawn. But it hasn’t dawned yet. And there’s nothing in the latest reactor designs currently under consideration that tell me that it’s going to dawn any time soon. As Teddy would be pointing out right now, by the time that day does dawn, it will almost certainly be too late anyway. And we will have wasted all that time and all that money fixated on our nuclear fantasies, and failing to do the obvious sustainable stuff on efficiency and renewables. So I don’t doubt that those still opposed to the nuclear option will be drawing down on Teddy’s astonishing life work, as they reluctantly pick up their cudgels all over again. ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/12/time_to_renew_fight_against_nu.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/12/time_to_renew_fight_against_nu.html Energy Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:48:59 +0000 The Standing of Sustainable Development in Government. Not an all-signing, all-dancing retrospective, and certainly not a completely dispassionate study. But useful for all that, I hope. View full report]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/11/the_standing_of_sustainable_de.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/11/the_standing_of_sustainable_de.html Government Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:32:20 +0000 will come, and from the perspective of our long-term prospects, they need to come as rapidly as possible. And to be as traumatic as possible – otherwise, politicians and their electorates will rapidly revert to the current mix of non-specific anxiety and inertia. Post-Katrina, for instance, public opinion in the US provided the best example of this phenomenon. It took just two years for Fox News and other right-wing shock-jocks to straighten out deviant US citizens who’d started to think that it really might be time for the US to get stuck in on climate change. But Australia provides an even more compelling story. Over the last few years, it’s had more than its fair share of traumatic shocks. Earlier this year, Melbourne broke its record February temperature by a full 3°C to hit 46.8°C. This was also the day of Australia’s worst ever bush fires, with 173 people killed and 2000 homes destroyed. The Murray-Darling Basin (Australia’s food bowl, with nearly 40% of Australia’s agricultural production based around its waters) has been in so-called ‘drought’ since 2002. Flow levels are now down to 5% of their long-term average. As a result, it’s now assumed that the globally significant wetlands and lake system at the river’s mouth will face ecological collapse over the next few years. And now there’s a new report out in Australia, featured in the Guardian on Wednesday, (‘Managing Our Coastal Zones in a Changing Climate’) which reveals that more than £80 billion of property is at risk from rising sea levels and more frequent storms – and that’s going to send a bit of a shock wave down the backbones of the 80% of Australian citizens who live along the coastline! The report’s principle policy proposal is that there should be a ban on any further development at beach level. So what’s been the net impact of all these shocks on Australian politics? The victory of Kevin Rudd over John Howard in the most recent general election in Australia was attributed in part to his relatively progressive stance on climate change. But since then, there’s been one set back after another in terms of introducing appropriate policy interventions, with Australia’s mining and coal industries in full-on defensive mode, and its equivalent of the CBI acting exactly like our CBI did under the Neanderthal leadership of Digby Jones a few years ago. The outcome of which is that Australia is still doing very little on climate change, and has no chance whatsoever of meeting its Kyoto targets. It still pursues its dreams of unbridled affluence, California-style, and is about as far from adopting a leadership role as it is possible to get. Clearly the shocks to their systems just haven’t been bad enough – which gives us some sense of just how bad future climate shocks are going to have to be to drive any serious transformation. ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/leaders_will_be_shocked_into_c.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/leaders_will_be_shocked_into_c.html Climate change Government Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:02:50 +0000 You can’t fault our Government for its ongoing efforts to get people to focus on the Copenhagen Conference. Both the Prime Minister and Ed Miliband are out there emphasising the ‘make or break’ nature of the event: governments either seal the deal now, or we could be into drift for a couple of years. Personally I’m not so sure about this kind of rhetoric. It probably wouldn’t be the end of the world if it took another six or nine months to get the right deal sealed – and that means a deal with the US on board. And that probably won’t happen until some kind of climate bill has got through the US Senate. That, at least, was the prevailing view at the end of the most recent round of talks in Bangkok a couple of weeks ago. The Senate is bogged down in health insurance stuff; Obama doesn’t want to use his political capital to try and force it through the Senate prior to Copenhagen; and he absolutely doesn’t want a re-run of the Kyoto process, where Al Gore signed off on the Kyoto Protocol only to find that the Senate would have nothing to do with it later on. And that’s the reason Obama hasn’t accepted the invitation to go to Copenhagen himself in order to bring his own personal leadership to bear on the negotiations. Because the focus of a lot of this discussion is about Obama and most people just seem to have bought into this approach. That’s just the way it is: unfortunate timing and all that. America doing its best in difficult domestic circumstances. I must say, I don’t quite see it like that. I think this represents a massive failure on Obama’s part. As the rest of the world raises its game (particularly in key countries like China, India and Brazil), the United States’ negotiating position, in essence, doesn’t seem to have advanced much beyond George Bush’s negotiating position. US negotiators still refuse to acknowledge historical responsibility. They’re still trying to force developing countries to do what America itself has totally failed to do up until now – and doesn’t show much readiness to do it even now. They’re still trying to change the baseline date from 1990 to 2005 – and, in essence, want to tear up Kyoto rather than build on it by allowing each country to determine its own path to greenhouse gas reductions. For US negotiators, read Obama. I don’t know why everyone (and particularly Government ministers) is being so ‘understanding’ about this. It’s a despicable, immoral, self-serving, treaty-wrecking negotiating position which, in the current context, where the need for action is so much greater, and so many other countries are now playing ball, is no better than what George Bush was doing during his eight poisonous years in the White House. http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/us_position_on_copenhagen_may.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/us_position_on_copenhagen_may.html Climate change Government News Politics USA Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:12:31 +0000