http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/ en Copyright 2010 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:27:03 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 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 George Monbiot in The Guardian (September 28th) for continuing to campaign on population issues. Yes, well ……. On 27th January 1979, George Monbiot was celebrating his 16th birthday. I’m sure he was having lots of fun, in a precociously environment-friendly way. On 27th January 1979, I was happily engaged in drafting the Ecology Party’s Manifesto in preparation for the General Election in May 1979. As it happens, that Manifesto was particularly strong on equity issues, with an uncompromising call for the burden of taxation to target the very rich, and for economic policy explicitly to combat conspicuous consumption. As a member of the Green Party for the next 30 years, I’ve continued to advocate policy positions of that kind at every single point in my career. I only mention all that just in case there’s anyone else out there (apart from George Monbiot) who believes that just because I’m concerned about the issue of population that I must, by definition, be unconcerned about poverty, unconcerned about the super-rich, and only happy when schmoozing with billionaires on their luxury yachts. It seems extraordinary that I should have to account for myself in that way. But the characterisation of people concerned about population as elitist, uncaring monomaniacs demeans those who use such rhetorical devices to exercise their own dim prejudices about population – such as George Monbiot. For this particular attack, George prays-in-aid a new report from the eminent academic David Satterthwaite, just published in the journal Environment and Urbanisation. David has looked at the correlation between population growth and growth in greenhouse gas emissions in different parts of the world between 1980 – 2005. He comes to the not terribly surprising conclusion that in somewhere like sub-Saharan Africa, population has grown very fast (18.5%) and emissions hardly at all (2.4%), whereas it’s the other way round in countries like the US. He goes on from there to suggest that the West simply shouldn’t bother about spending billions of aid money providing contraception in the developing world, because poor people have such low per capita emissions anyway. All very logical at first glance. But all very baffling when you dig a bit deeper. David’s article also refers to China – where emissions have risen by 44.5% since 1980 (as per capita incomes rose fast), even as the population grew by very little because of their ‘one child family’ policy. So just try out this retrospective hypothesis for the fun of it. Imagine, back in 1978, that the Chinese Government had petitioned rich countries to fund its family planning programme. Imagine, we’d said ‘no’, not on ethical grounds (for the purpose of this retrospective hypothesis), but because we didn’t think it would represent ‘good value for money’ in terms of helping China keep future emissions of greenhouse gases under control. 30 years later, as we now know, had there been no ‘one child family’ policy in place, there would have been 400 million additional Chinese citizens, each one of them now emitting on average 4.5 tonnes per annum – precisely because they’ve been getting richer faster. So do you think we might feel then just a touch regretful? Fast forward to today. Imagine India came to us now asking for help with a new family planning programme. Simply not worth it, says David, because India’s emissions are currently very low – less than 2 tonnes per person. So no family planning programme takes place – despite the fact that India’s population is currently growing by around 15 million a year. By 2035, that means that India’s population will have risen by roughly one third of a billion additional citizens. Average per capita emissions will then have risen to (say) 4.5 tonnes per person – where China’s emissions are today. (I can assure you that India would be very disappointed at such a slow rate of growth, by the way). That means another 1.4 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, that could have been abated, right now, at a remarkably low price. Nice one, David. The point is a simple one. Hopefully (because poverty in these countries is wretched), poor people today (even in Africa) won’t stay poor. And certainly I hope there’s no one out there who believes that they will have to stay poor to help us with the problem of climate change. As incomes rise, so too will emissions. And if population is rising too, the end result is a substantial net increase in emissions – which could so easily be averted. Take Uganda. 50% of Uganda’s population of 33 million is aged below 15. Population is growing at 3.2%. Average fertility is around 6.5 children per woman. On a business-as-usual projection, Uganda’s population will be around 100 million by 2050. (These figures are from the Population Reference Bureau.) Worst case for Uganda? The country implodes, primarily because of completely unsustainable population growth. That means emissions stay low, but that’s hardly a good economic outcome either for Uganda or for the world. Slightly better case? Uganda’s rich thrive, their incomes rise fast, and average emissions soar, even as the poor stay poor and their emissions don’t rise. Best case? Uganda introduces the best ever family planning programme in Africa, with unstinting support from the rich world. Incomes rise by more than in any other scenario, emissions rise too, but with a population of around 40 million (instead of 100 million) that’s not really so much of a problem. Unfortunately, Uganda’s President Museveni is an out-and-out pro-natalist. He can’t wait for Uganda to have a population in excess of 100 million. Neither, apparently, can George Monbiot. ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/george_monbiot_the_guardian_po.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/george_monbiot_the_guardian_po.html Population Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:35:54 +0000 Low Carbon Communities Challenge, which consists basically of a £10 million pot that communities can apply to for funding for their own low-carbon initiatives – which might be a housing retrofit scheme, a biomass plant, or even electric vehicle charging points. Up to 20 communities will be selected as the lucky winners. It’s a good scheme, underpinned by a ‘specialist support squad’ made up of partners with expertise from inside and outside government – including The Energy Savings Trust, The Carbon Trust, WRAP, and the Third Sector. So let’s hope DECC is overwhelmed by applications! ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/10_million_will_fund_best_lowc.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/10_million_will_fund_best_lowc.html Government Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:41:39 +0000 The Cadbury versus Kraft takeover battle can be characterised in all sorts of ways: UK versus the US; medium-sized multinational versus mega-multinational; “brash and blousey” (as one commentator put it) versus lean and green. But the characterisation that matters most is what kind of capitalism these two companies stand for. Forum for the Future has been working with Cadbury for a long time, on a number of pioneering sustainability issues. So there’s no doubt I’m just a bit biased. But there are few really successful companies out there that are so overtly values-led. And even fewer Chief Executives whose words make me get up out of my seat and shout “Yes, Yes, Yes!” Todd Stitzer (the man in question) would be quite embarrassed at that idea. He doesn’t do over-the-top. Which is why his recent speech at a Fair Trade conference in London on September 24th is so important. “Capitalism is characterised as a one-way relationship in thrall to profit margins and shareholder returns. But I have always believed that there is more than one type of capitalism. It is true that unbridled capitalism can be a destructive beast, not just to those it does business with but to the company itself. History shows that those who operate in this way inevitably come undone. They over-leverage and under-invest to the detriment of the whole enterprise. The recent past has presented numerous examples, which all business leaders and shareholders would do well to learn from.” He didn’t spell it out in so many words on that occasion, but his fierce opposition to the takeover by Kraft arises out of that deep concern about the nature of capitalism itself – and the brutish acquisitiveness that drives so much theoretical “value-creation”. The Kraft bid is so transparently all about size, cash and clout, with little if any interest in heritage, culture and values. Kraft has, of course, got a case to make on its own ethical and environmental performance. Any company that can market one of its many coffee products under the brand name of “Sustainable Development” clearly can’t be all bad. But compared to the way in which Cadbury has set about embracing Fair Trade (its recent accreditation for Dairy Milk is seen as a huge step forward in this regard) and committing to swathes of ambitious and community-based targets is just in a different league. Stitzer describes this as “principled capitalism”, something which comes more naturally to Cadbury than to many companies, partly because of its extraordinary Quaker origins and progressive values: “We see this principled capitalism, which has been woven into the very fabric of Cadbury over the course of almost two centuries, as fundamental to our ways of working and part of our identity and success. Take it away, or dilute it, and you risk destroying what makes Cadbury a great company.” Despite the economic crash, despite the humbling of the arrogant, neo-liberal fanatics that brought the global economy to the edge of the abyss, and despite the recognition that the rapacious excesses of the last twenty years must now be driven out of the system, we just don’t hear many Chief Executives talking like that. Hardly any. Hardly ever. More than ever, the world needs that kind of leadership. Capitalists need that kind of leadership. And Cadbury’s shareholders need to be mindful of that bigger picture as well as of the financial stakes involved. http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/cadbury_fights_for_principled.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/cadbury_fights_for_principled.html News Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:44:19 +0000 ‘Prosperity Without Growth?’ was met with a combination of disdain and indifference that only the Treasury is capable of. The Commission was told, in no uncertain terms, that this just wasn’t the kind of advice that the UK Government needed. So I had particularly good reason to celebrate the publication of a new report, authored by Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen on the 'Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress’, commissioned personally by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, questioning the continued obsession of nations with conventionally measured economic growth. “For years, statistics have registered an increasingly strong economic growth as a victory over shortage – until it emerged that this growth was destroying more than it was creating,” said Sarkozy, endorsing the report. “The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so”. President Sarkozy has instructed France’s national statistics body to update its gathering and reporting of economic statistics in line with the report’s recommendations. Better yet, he will invite other world leaders to join his crusade against what the report describes as “GDP Fetishism”. “France will put this report on the agenda of all international meetings, including next week’s G20 Summit,” Sarkozy said. I fear he’ll get very short shrift from Gordon Brown, who will see it as an irritatingly Gallic distraction from the serious business of getting the global economy back on track. Inconveniently, that’s precisely the same track that has caused such devastating damage to the Earth’s life support systems that sustain us, has unleashed what could still prove to be irreversible climate change, has left between one and two billion people living in conditions of dire poverty, and has ruthlessly promoted private greed and avarice over social wellbeing and community cohesion. In other words, exactly the kind of growth-based economics that “destroys more than it creates” – to paraphrase the French President. ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/09/sarzoky_launches_crusade_again.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/09/sarzoky_launches_crusade_again.html Politics Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:09:12 +0000 You can check them out on our website - a bit of provocation, not just for health professionals! ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/09/nhs_fit_for_the_future_report.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/09/nhs_fit_for_the_future_report.html Health Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:28:27 +0000 Teddy Goldsmith, one of the most important and original thinkers the Green Movement has ever had, died on August 21st 2009. In a funny kind of way, I’m where I am today because of Teddy Goldsmith. I wouldn’t have joined The Ecology Party (now the Green Party) if I hadn’t read ‘Blueprint for Survival’ in 1972: I probably wouldn’t have stuck with the Green Party were it not for the radicalism and intellectual integrity of the Ecologist magazine; and without all of that, I probably wouldn’t have been the right person for the Friends of the Earth Director’s job in 1984 (from that point on, I think Teddy can be absolved of further responsibility!). I was completely bowled over by the ‘Blueprint for Survival’ in 1972. Despite the odd spasm of late sixties-60’s student rebelliousness, politics had played little part in my life before then. Indeed, I had hated student politics at Oxford. But ‘Blueprint for Survival’ was a ‘get real’ summons like no other. I promptly got my hands on all the back copies of the Ecologist (which started publishing in 1969) and pretty soon joined the Ecology Party – just after Teddy’s highly entertaining campaign in the 1974 General Election in Suffolk, where he rode around the constituency on a camel – to alert prospective voters to the imminent threat of desertification elsewhere in the world, as well as in Suffolk itself! I got to know him well after that – usually via the medium of passionate debates and arguments about every conceivable aspect of green politics. His virulently anti-establishment views constantly entertained, his depth of knowledge was daunting, and the way he pursued the ‘inner logic’ of a particular issue, even into the depths of political incorrectness was very stimulating. The obituaries have wrestled with the difficulty of placing Teddy on any conventional political spectrum – which is a fairly crazy thing to want to do anyway. He could be withering about every political persuasion, and seriously loved getting people worked up as he challenged their complacent orthodoxies. Was he intolerant? Not particularly. Xenophobic or even racist? Absolutely not. He just advocated a particular kind of uncompromising sustainability that inevitably made things uncomfortable for friends and foes alike. And thank God for that. He was an extraordinary man. And I owe him a huge amount. http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/09/my_debt_to_teddy_goldsmith.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/09/my_debt_to_teddy_goldsmith.html Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:32:10 +0000 Securing the Future) in 2005. The ‘mainstreaming’ imperative that drives all our work (“to make sustainable development the central organising principle of everything Government does”) may not as yet have got as far as we would have liked, but it has got a lot further than many may once have thought possible. Getting the balance right between our advisory and capacity-building work on the one hand, and our watchdog work on the other, remains something of an art form – and it has to be said there have been several ministers (and even more senior civil servants!) who have been pretty angst-ridden about that balancing act over the years. But though it’s bound to be frustrating for any government to have a body like the SDC commenting on weaknesses as well as strengths (the media, of course, are only ever interested in the former!), I suspect the conclusion amongst most of them is broadly supportive. At least, I very much hope it is! So full marks to the government (and to DEFRA in particular) for some serious process innovation here, and to that cohort of SD champions inside the system working away indefatigably to improve the performance of their organisations, often invisibly and usually unloved. They have been amazing. But the real strength of the Commission lies in that combination of experienced, passionate and totally committed Commissioners, working closely with an extraordinarily professional and equally committed Secretariat. It has been an unbelievable privilege to be part of that – and, in true SD style, to leave things at least a little bit better on quitting the post than they were on arriving! ]]> http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/07/looking_back_on_nine_years_at.html http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/07/looking_back_on_nine_years_at.html Government Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:09:26 +0000