December 2, 2009

Not so nice now: is Canada the main obstacle to a climate deal?

Posted by Jeremy under climate change, energy and fuels, politics | Tags: , , |
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With just five days to go until the Copenhagen summit, things are moving pretty fast in the world of climate change. Obama now plans to attend, which is great news. Gordon Brown will also be there in person, and so will our future monarch Prince Charles.

The reports are coming in too. Yesterday’s headlines included the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, who boast the Bond-villainesque acronym SCAR. They predict a sea-level rise of 1.4 metres by the end of the century, doubling the previous estimate. Obviously that’s new research and may or may not be confirmed, but it certainly ups the ante if it’s true.

Among the politicians and scientists waving the flag for a robust deal, there are also those who are working in the opposite direction, and the most important of them is somewhat unexpected: Canada. The big enemies of Kyoto have always been the US and Australia, who refused to ratify it. But it was Canada who ratified it and then publicly renounced their targets in order to pursue the tarsands project. There was no way they could exploit their filthy oil reserves and meet their emissions targets at the same time, so the targets had to go.

On the one hand, who can blame them? Under Alberta’s vast forests lies the largest new source of oil in the world, and the rising oil price was making it economically viable to extract for the first time. Canada could be the new Saudi Arabia, and Canadians can all be as fabulously wealthy as the Saudi princes…. if only it wasn’t for this pesky climate change business.

As George Monbiot points out in his scathing article this week, Canada has done more to obfuscate and stall a global deal than anyone else in recent years. As the US, China and India have all come on board in recent weeks, Canada has ended up being the country to watch in the coming conference.

Before we point the finger, it’s worth remembering that it’s Shell, a British company, that’s leading the tar sands charge, and it does so with money from British banks – including RBS, which you and I apparently own. And of course, Canada’s choice is the same one we’re all making in other ways: economic growth now, or environmental stability in the longer term? It’s a question that will last well beyond Copenhagen, whatever the outcome might be.

 

December 1, 2009

Doing conservation and development together – a story from Rwanda

Posted by Jeremy under conservation, development | Tags: , |
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Last week at the DICE 20th birthday I met an inspiring man called Edwin Sabuhoro, who works in gorilla conservation in northern Rwanda. His innovative work combining development and conservation earned him the IUCN Young Conservationist of the Year in 2008, and his projects have also won eco-tourism awards.

“When I was growing up I was involved in conservation work,” says Edwin, “and then I went to work for one of the national parks. The biggest problem in the parks was poaching, people coming in from the outside and killing wildlife, encroaching on park land. We saw the wildlife diminish and the parks degraded. Our answer as park rangers was just guards and guns – we’d run after people, shoot them or chase them away. We didn’t have any other message than ‘this is a park – don’t come in here. If you come in here, I’ll shoot you.’ That didn’t work. There had to be a better way to stop people killing wildlife.”

Edwin came to do a masters at DICE, expecting to be given the answers. Instead, they told him to find his own, and that the people most likely to have the answers were the ones currently being shot at. “I was involved in rescuing a baby gorilla, but five gorillas were killed and the men were caught. I talked to the families responsible, and their challenge to me was that if they were not employed to do a job, not getting paid, how were they going to eat? They are struggling to feed themselves, and if you were starving and you saw wildlife, would you not kill it? That’s when I realised we needed to do conservation in a way that would benefit local people, helping them to understand the resource they have, and want to protect it.”

“You can’t avoid it – conservation and development have to go hand in hand. Local people have to be involved in the planning. It was too easy to care for the wildlife, and forget about the people living around them. They are suffering, languishing in poverty, they don’t have food, but these are the people that should be the number one custodians and first beneficiaries of the resource.”

The first priority then, was to create an alternative source of food, turning poachers into farmers. “Instead of poaching wildlife,” Edwin explains, “we gave people start-up funds and enrolled them in a farming programme. Then when they get seeds the following year, they pass those on to another family.”

This took people off the park lands, but it didn’t go quite far enough – the local people weren’t killing the gorillas, but they weren’t benefiting from them either. That led to an eco-tourism venture. “We have tourists coming to visit the village, and we wanted people to benefit from this, so we started a cultural village. After visiting the gorillas, tourists come and learn directly from the community, with art, food, and dances.” Former poachers now lead western tourists in traditional dance and drumming sessions. Through the eyes of the tourists, the community came to view the gorillas differently. “Now people understand that the natural resource that people are coming to see is also generating an income.”

“We’ve seen the number of poachers decrease, and the population of gorillas increase,” says Edwin. “I’ve seen that if we bring conservation and development together, with the local community right at the heart, then you get truly sustainable conservation.”

The next challenge is to share that story more widely, in other national parks in Rwanda, and in other countries around the region. “As well as telling our story, we’re also raising the capacity of the local community to manage their own resources, through education” says Edwin of his future plans. “We’re teaching men and women about family planning, and encouraging them to keep their children in school, so that everyone gets to learn and be involved in conservation.”

 

November 30, 2009

The value of nothing

Posted by Jeremy under books, film | Tags: |
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I really enjoyed Raj Patel’s book Stuffed and Starved, so I’m pleased to see that he has a new book out in January – The Value of Nothing. I’ll let him introduce it:

 

November 29, 2009

What we learned this week

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  • No matter how big Google may seem, search engines only search 0.03% of the total internet.
  • On the other hand, what if GDP was the only feasible way to put a price on environmental impact?
 

November 28, 2009

Today is Buy Nothing Day

Posted by Jeremy under consumerism, events, shopping | Tags: |
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Celebrate by buying a big old pack of nothing from dothegreenthing’s amusing Amazero site.

 

November 27, 2009

The Dubai bubble bursts

Posted by Jeremy under business, wealth | Tags: |
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Economic collapse is never a laughing matter, but I won’t be shedding any tears over the Dubai headlines today. In case you missed it, Dubai World, the state-owned investment and construction company, has announced that it needs to delay the next repayment on its $80 billion debt. Stock markets took a bit of a stumble as banks with big investments in Dubai absorbed the news. Just two years ago Dubai could boast that it had a quarter of all the world’s cranes, but they’re silent now. Construction has stopped, the decade long property bubble burst.

For one thing, Dubai is a monument to hype and ego. World’s biggest man-made island, world’s tallest tower, it’s all there. It’s also massively unsustainable – outdoor air conditioning, indoor ski slopes, golf courses in the desert. Per capita carbon emissions are the highest in the world. Even if it didn’t succumb to debt, Dubai would fall to a water crisis or an energy crisis eventually. Not that investors have noticed. “I am confident that the leadership of Dubai and the UAE will overcome any short-term issues they face,” said the head of HSBC today, “and continue to lay the foundations for sustainable growth.”

Most importantly however, Dubai was built on slave labour. It’s hard to believe it’s possible in our modern world, but the magnificent buildings were built by Indians, Filipinos and Bangladeshis, many of whom paid considerable sums for the job, only to find on arriving that they will never earn enough to go home. With minuscule wages, dire living conditions and no way out, they are slaves in all but name. No doubt the Emirates will rally round and bail them out, but for that, Dubai doesn’t deserve to be saved.

But before we resort to gloating, we should remember that Dubai is simply the extreme end of what we’re all guilty of – huge luxury propped up on debt, unsustainable resource use and exploitative labour practices. Our way of life can’t go on either, and the sooner we realise that, the less painful it will be when the bubble bursts.

 

November 27, 2009

Rob Hopkins at TED

Posted by Jeremy under film, transition towns | Tags: , |
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I see the TED folks have uploaded Rob Hopkins’ talk from this year’s conference. It’s a great introduction to the problems of oil depletion and the need to tell a better story than the usual doom and gloom – the transition story. If you like it, you can go and tell Rob here.

 

November 26, 2009

Happy Birthday DICE

Posted by Jeremy under conservation | Tags: |
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This week I’ve been down in Canterbury visiting my brothers, and had the opportunity to drop in on the 20th anniversary of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology. DICE is 20 years old, and has now trained more conservationists than any other institution in the world. Among this year’s crop is my brother Paul, co-founder of Make Wealth History.

DICE was founded with a unique vision – a practical realisation that conservationists need to work in both natural and social sciences to be successful. This approach sets conservation in its full context, taking in development and community studies, law, and international trade, as well as the science. In the field, DICE’s work is characterised by an understanding that local people are stakeholders, and the best solutions are the ones that benefit both the environment and the community.

“DICE was started with a very simple idea”, said founder Ian Swingland, “and that was that I believed firmly that the questions and problems in the world concerning the environment, ecology, and behaviour, could only be resolved by a multi-disciplinary approach.” The success of that idea is proved in the institute’s hundreds of graduates at work in conservation, in environmental policy and treaties, and in a number of species that have been successfully saved over the years.

The institute celebrated with an evening of lectures looking back at past successes, and with the launch of a scholarships appeal. Many people who would like to train with DICE are unable to do so, and a new endowment could create 35 bursaries for students from strategic areas, including the Middle East, China and Eastern Europe.

Among the guest speakers was Edwin Sapohoro, visiting from Rwanda, where he has been working to re-train gorilla poachers into farmers. His innovative work earned him the IUCN Young Conservationist of the Year title in 2008. He has a great story, and you can read our interview with him here next week.

 

November 26, 2009

Soil and Soul, by Alastair McIntosh

Posted by Jeremy under activism, books, corporate responsibility | Tags: , |
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I picked this up over the summer at the Greenbelt festival, where Alastair McIntosh was speaking. I should have read it earlier really, as it’s book as deep and beautiful as the lochs described in its pages. A strange but compelling blend of politics and poetry, prophecy and protest.

McIntosh begins with a rich and detailed depiction of his childhood on the Isle of Lewis, with stories of hunting and fishing, local lairds and bards, Celtic legends and histories of both triumph and atrocity. Foremost among these are the clearances, which saw the Scottish highlands cleared of farmers and crofters and given over to a landowning nobility. Countless thousands moved to the cities or took passage to America, and hundreds of years later Scotland’s feudal system remained. 80% of the land was owned by just 900 families.

A second strand running through this opening section is the creeping force of globalisation and its impact on Hebridean culture. The Islands had a ‘vernacular economy’ based on reciprocity and sufficiency, and this was gradually replaced work and money. “We were classed as poor because nothing went through the cash economy” writes McIntosh, raising the question of what we value, what wealth really is. Instead of sharing and cooperation came wages and consumption, and with them a gradual erosion of identity, community, and responsibility. ‘Progress’ came to the islands, but much was lost in the process.

In spiritual terms, feudalism and globalisation are similarly idolatrous, placing profit before people – “that’s the problem with old-style imperialism and modern corporate globalisation: both serve money before love”. Not that McIntosh suggests a return to the past – rather, we need to ask “how and why and who and what do these things serve? Do they free the spirit and feed the hungry? Do they honour the diversity of life on Earth? Or do they, somewhere or or somebody or something, mean enslavement?”

Part two of the book explores responses to these powers through two case studies. The first is the Isle of Eigg Trust, a group who contested and finally bought back their island homeland from the international playboy lord, kicking off land reform in Scotland in the process. The second is the story of how Redland Aggregates was thwarted in its attempt to create the world’s largest quarry out of the Isle of Harris’ Mount Roineabhal. The public enquiry for the superquarry was the first to include theological arguments, and included the testimony of a native American chief on the sacredness of place and the duty of care for God’s earth. Both are amazing stories and remarkable victories, full of hope and humanity, and well worth the reading.

It’s worth mentioning that not everyone is going to get on with Soil and Soul. McIntosh can reference a Celtic faerie story, a Bible verse, a newspaper article and a psychology study all on the same page. I think that’s wonderful, but I’m reminded of a comment that I got back on one of my essays at university: that it was interesting, but I “should avoid the metaphysical flights of fancy”. That lecturer would miss the point of Soil and Soul entirely, because the message of the book is inseparable from the style in which it is written. It is only in the wellspring of tradition that grounds us in a place, in the metaphor of poetry, in love for each other, for the earth and for God, that we find effective responses to the cold calculation of corporate power.

 

November 25, 2009

Conservatives unveil their environmental agenda

Posted by Jeremy under business, climate change, environment, politics | Tags: |
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The Conservative party roll out a bunch of environmental ideas today, a taster of the greener side of their manifesto. Among them are plans to create green savings accounts and an investment bank, and make all government departments declare their emissions. Recycling policy would switch from stick to carrot, with people being paid to recycle rather than fined for not doing so. George Osborne, in one of a series of speeches on climate change this week, also announced that the Conservatives would back 10:10 should they come to power.

That’s an interesting one, since it’s the Lib Dems who put the 10:10 promise before parliament recently, but it’s welcome all the same. Since the election wouldn’t be until May, the aim would be to reduce carbon emissions across government within 12 months, rather than strictly within 2010.

David Cameron’s greening of the party continues. Whether it’s working or not, we don’t know. It’s impossible to say how deep it runs, beyond Cameron and the shadow front bench. A recent poll of the top ten Conservative blogs, for example, revealed that all ten of them were climate sceptics. That’s not particularly surprising. Generally speaking, environmental issues aren’t a major concern among Conservative politicians. There are some notable exceptions of course, but implementing limits and tighter controls is counter-intuitive to the Conservative mindset. As Chris Goodall theorises on his Carbon Commentary blog, “the sceptic case runs strongly with the grain of a fierce antagonism to big government and all its works.”

We’re going to hear a lot of environmental policy ideas in the next few months, from everyone. The environment is going to play a larger role in this coming election than any election previously, and there’s a real opportunity to usher in some new thinking. I’ll be watching this space.

 

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