Canadian tar sands

Everyone loves the Guardian for news interest and I love Guardian Environment and Sustainable Business! One item on the agenda is Canadian tar sands...

Fish fight

Hughie F-W is back with a vengeance and joins Gordon and Heston in the fight to save our fish stocks, with a series highlighting the plight of our unsustainable use of marine resources.

Awareness Raising

WHY do we raise awareness? The Transition message (Peak Oil + climate change + social injustice = a great and brilliant need to rethink our systems), whereas media messages are often profoundly contradictory and confusing.

HOW does engagement happen? Look at what people already know, what information already exists. They need to know about the issue and why it is important, then let them know what is possible and what they can do.

WHO are we trying to reach? Think about who is in your community (the diversity of cultures, races, ages, levels of wealth, languages, jobs, religions, lifestyles, values and motivations, political affiliation, how long they have lived there for) and what levels of access they have to internet and transport.

When communicating with someone about an issue, one must attempt to gauge how best they learn in order to target the style of engagement- whether they are verbal, visual, tactile, learn through being shown, likes facts and figures, etc. Some may want to be involved but do not want to know about the graphs and explanations of peak oil- they do not need to be convinced nor understand to take part.

Stages:
1. PRE-CONTEMPLATION: Is there a problem?
2. CONTEMPLATION: There is a problem, what needs doing?
3. PREPARATION: What will I do and how?
4. CHANGE: Keep going with this, try a different solution?

Some people never get past stage 1 but do not waste your time on these ‘brick wallers’. It is crucial to raise awareness with enjoyment (e.g. by hosting a fun community event) as if you do not enjoy the change, you will not change.

HOW MANY people do we need to tell? According to Malcolm Gladwell, there will be a ‘tipping point’. Every time there is change in society, there are doubters. The believers start underground, grow in numbers, then suddenly there is ‘tipping point’ and the movement grows. For example with women’s votes or anti-child labour, people thought ‘oh no, this cannot happen, our society will collapse’, but it did happen and works better.

The key messages for awareness raising are:
-you do not have to engage EVERYONE.
-remember that it is not always easy.
-make it fun!

Another set of (very) good tips for this type of thing are written by Chris Rose and are published on his ‘Campaign Strategy’ website.

An environmental mascot for Britain

The annual Earthwatch Debate was held at the Royal Geographic Society this year and comprised four presenters each pitching their idea for an environmental mascot for Britain, with the notion that audience members would vote via text for their favourite at the end.

Some presenters were more inspiring than others and I voted for the only female presenter, Dr Samantha Burgess, who is the Senior Research Manager for Oceans at EarthWatch and whom I learnt a lot from about cold coral. I did not know this as I had always thought of coral as being in warm, tropical waters, but in fact, deep sea coral reefs are more expansive than tropical: in UK waters we have over 1300 species of cold coral reefs, each of an age of 200-8000 years. They are spawning grounds for much marine life, a sink of carbon and carbonate (important in this era of anthropogenic global warming) and a source of novel compounds for the pharmaceutical industry. These reefs can tell us a lot about temperature, salinity, acidity and marine nutrients throughout history, but are unfortunately under threat with ocean acidification (increased with rising atmospheric carbon dioxide), oil and gas exploration, overfishing and bottom trawling, seabed mining and cable laying. Cold coral is a species well worthy of a vote to be environmental mascot for Britain, I thought.

In actual fact, it was the humble bumble who won. Dr George McGavin, BBC Lost Lands Presenter and Honorary Research Associate for the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, successfully persuaded the audience of around 400 that the Bumblebee captures the inimitable spirit of Britain whilst representing its invaluable natural heritage. Unfortunately I turned up late so missed his presentation; the lowdown I got from my friend was that 'he's from the TV'.

I knew little more about the second presenter, whose presentation I also missed, other than that he has the best moustache I have ever seen. If you would like to see this incredible feat of human facial hair growth, check out Dr Johannes Vogel, Keeper of Botany at London's Natural History Museum, who represented the bluebell and who is doing his bit for biodiversity on a daily basis by providing a habitat of optimum conditions for many species on his face.

Professor Stephen Hopper, Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew gave a pretty convincing and fairly comical pitch of the oak tree stating that it is 'Britiain's biological backbone', an 'excellent emblem of grandeur' and 'Eurasian in origin, but global in reach'. He made a good point that the Oak Tree provides a home for the Bumblebee, bluebell and song thrush (as well as for 800 insect species and 500 fungi) and he joked that it's also a great habitat for Winnie The Pooh and for us- The Royal Oak. If that's not enough, Sir Francis Drake defeated the Spanish Armada in an oak ship, oak barrells are used in whiskey production, oak timber maintains the structure of the Salisbury Cathedral and acorns provide food for jays and wood pigeons (and Californian native Americans). Apparently the mighty 'Oak Tree' also has the most hits on Google out of all the potential mascots.

A criticism from Prof Hopper of Tony Juniper's song thrush was 'well just type thrush into Google and...'! Juniper, environmental writer, campaigner and adviser, countered Prof Hopper's argument with 'yes but the things that people went out in their oak boats to look for were more important, like the SONG THRUSH for example!' The song thrush is not garish or colourful but is subtle; it is practical, stylish and smart and- how British is that?! The 'throstle' has been mentioned in Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Chaucer and it sings more than any other bird. An entertaining presentation that didn't quite make the cut, but Juniper has a new book out called Harmony, written with HRH the Prince of Wales and Ian Skelly.

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity and the Earthwatch Debate was an excellent chance to learn about and reflect upon the species that reside right here in the UK and remain important to our environment and culture.

Carbon VIOLENT

Sustainability, eco, the green movement and environmentalism; social environmental, corporate sustainability; humanity stewardship, earth citizenship; low carbon, no carbon, carbon neutral, carbon responsible, carbon retired. You don't have to have the most perfect and up to date lingo in order to take action and make a difference so stop worrying about what it's called and get on with it before I get carbon VIOENT!

Can The UK ever be Sustainable?

On Wednesday 1st December 2010 I attended the 15th lecture of the 21st Century Challenges series at the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington entitled ‘Can the UK Ever Be Sustainable?’ After an introductory speech from Rita Gardner, Director of RGS, who stated that geography lies at the heart of all these challenges, Jo Confino, The Guardian Executive Editor and Chairman of Guardian Sustainable Business chaired the discussion.

The panellists were three and represented business, political and individual responses to the sustainability issue, respectively: Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Shadow Leader of House of Commons and former Secretary of State for DEFRA; Sir Stuart Rose, Executive Chairman of Marks and Spencer; Andy Hobsbawm Founding Director of Do The Green Thing.

Sir Stuart Rose

First up was Sir Stuart Rose, who told us about what Marks and Spencer is doing at Plan A. I have blogged about this quite recently so will not go into the full detail. It was all fairly fresh in my mind, but I felt sorry for those trying to listen to this for the first time as he spoke very fast and it appeared as though he had done this speech a million times before, although he also spoke quickly during the discussion so perhaps his mind works at a very high speed in general!
He started off by saying that what we need is positive action from business as 63/100 of the world’s largest organisations are corporations, not countries. Getting to grips with this goes far beyond ‘CSR’ and Stuart believes that this decade will represent a paradigm shift in moving towards sustainability in business. The Patagonia (ethical fashion and outdoor wear) founder said ‘every time we do the right thing, we make money’ and Al Gore also said that sustainability can be profitable. This is part of a new wave of business thought. Stuart feels that they have only done about 10% of what they intend to do at M and S and in order to do this, “the one thing we’re going to have to do is we’re going to have to collaborate”.

Hilary Benn MP

Next up was Hilary Benn, who had a slower-paced, but more creative style to his presentation, illustrating his points with examples and acting out the stories with flailing limbs. Apologies for the subsequent disjointed description of his presentation but that was what it was like! He spoke of many of the sustainability challenges that we face today. He started by saying that we have shown an astonishing capacity to use the earth’s resources and if our ancestors were to walk into this high-tech and modern lecture theatre now, they would be amazed at what these resources can make. He used the cautionary tale of Easter Island as an example of how we can get the balance wrong- they used all of the trees on the island for logs to roll very large face statues onto the coast and then had to leave the island shortly after that due to the lack of trees for living requirements.

Apparently, 1 billion of us on the planet are over weight, whilst 1 billion of us are going to bed hungry and malnourished. This is just one of the fundamental injustices in the world. He also quoted Mark Twain to illustrate the shortage of land for food growth, who said ‘my advice is to buy land because they’ve stopped making it’.

Martin Luther King did not begin his speech ‘I had a nightmare...’; with all of these issues, Hilary has found that scaring people does not work, for example the first anti-HIV adverts in the 80s had great blocks of concrete slamming down saying ‘ignorance kills’, but did not actually give practical advice on how to protect oneself.

So what do we need to get out of this hole that we have dug for ourselves? The economics of climate change means that it is more expensive to do nothing than to do something. We already have the means and the minds to get out of this mess and all we need is sheer determination.
Jo Confino asked what exactly labour did to act against anthropogenic climate change as he felt that they didn’t do much at all, but Hilary came back saying that actually the Climate Change Act of 2008 was due to pretty profound leadership.

Andy Hobsbawm

Andy took a different approach altogether to offer potential solutions to the sustainability problem. He showed several videos of ‘Green Thing’, the green coloured, multi-limbed monster and mascot for his non-profit organisation, illustrating, in a fun and sometimes controversial way, why it is beneficial to live sustainably. He claims that creativity is a critical ingredient in the future of sustainability and ‘Do The Green Thing’ aims to turn green living from something one ‘ought to do’ to something one ‘wants to do’.

Ironically the creative industries of marketing and advertising are mostly trying to make us buy things, but they can also be used to promote and sharpen important issues, helping to engage people by giving them something they can relate to, which comes back to Hilary’s point of not making the issue a scary one.

It can often feel like the choice is between a (non-sustainable) rich, high-tech, modern life that is fast-paced where everyone is busy and therefore important and successful vs. The (sustainable) life of less, a life of without, where everything slows down and we all have to live in caves. Creativity can be used advantageously to tell the other side of this story- to help people connect with the climate change issue and make them want to act, realising that it is a positive thing and they will not have to give up everything they are used to. Just one example of this is the anti-nuclear symbol used in the 1970s, which became ubiquitous over badges, sunglasses, t-shirts and bumper stickers and helped spread knowledge about the issue.

Discussion

The discussion that ensued afterwards was interesting and sometimes heated. Hilary thanked Stuart for being the only retailer to lead on the plastic bag issue, whilst Stuart asked ‘well why didn’t the government put a levy on plastic bags? We could’ve transformed the problem over night!’ Andy spoke of there being a ‘dance’ between individuals and businesses waiting for the government to make regulations, the government looking to business to take action and to people for signs that they will support this with their voting. Stuart agreed that politicians need public encouragement too (who would vote for a party proposing petrol prices be increased four-fold?) and that we have a shared responsibility, but we do need to break this ‘dance’. Hilary concurred that we need to change and we need three main things: example, encouragement and incentive. Andy felt that it will take an extreme external event to shock people into change.

Overall it was a lively and thought-provoking evening, the presentations of which can now be watched on the RGS website.

We are addicted to oil...

...In a similar way to:

1. Work- moving onto the next better paid job is seen as the difference between feeling empowered or powerless.
2. Consumption- more food, clothes, travel, material objects is seen as the difference between emptiness and feeling satisfied.
3. Relationships- moving onto the next partner or marriage is seen as the difference between isolation and connection.

Addictive patterns have twin drivers- out of consciousness, the fix is viewed as outside but the problem lies within.