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The big green challenge

Published 01 December 2008

Community enterprises, with their roots in co-operatives and credit unions, are now emerging as powerful models to combat climate change. Ministers take note...

Community organisations have a role in fighting climate change

December is a landmark month for climate change action, triggering the start of Britain’s response to reducing carbon emissions.

This week, the newly formed Climate Change Committee is publishing recommendations for the first of three carbon budgets, five-yearly greenhouse gas reduction targets that will set the country on course to cut emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050. This is a huge challenge, and in order to achieve the targets, the Government will need to stimulate environmental innovation on a mass scale.

The Government’s first task will be to untangle the series of obstructions that exist in the practical delivery of renewable energy. For example, wind turbine producers are overwhelmed by demand, which is pushing up costs; major infrastructure projects are subject to expensive planning delays and there’s a serious shortage of skills. Government intervention at these key stress points needs to be a priority in order to realise the renewable energy targets.

But in addition, Government must engage the largest untapped resource in the country: community groups. Environmental change on a mass scale requires the involvement of the masses. Local communities, delivering their own renewable energy and fuel poverty solutions are some of the most powerful, but often overlooked, agents in the fight against climate change.

Many large, top-down infrastructure projects tend to isolate rather than engage these communities, who feel aggrieved about a lack of control over projects that will affect, but may not benefit them. There is also little incentive for them to come up with their own grassroots solutions. Whilst grants exist to raise climate change awareness, there are few available for delivering community-scale energy and service projects. New relationships between the Government, communities and energy services are required, and more flexible and responsive funding mechanisms are essential in encouraging the development of local climate change solutions.

The power of communities has been evident since the creation of co-operatives and building societies in the late 18th century. These models of innovation and social transformation, which have retained their mutuality, are some of the few institutions now left standing firm in the wake of the financial crisis. Community enterprises, with their roots in co-operatives and credit unions, are now emerging as powerful models for environmental innovation to combat climate change, overcome fuel poverty and take a key role in the future development of a sustainable green economy.

The success of NESTA’s Big Green Challenge shows what communities can achieve with the right support. After more than 350 submissions were received, 10 community groups are now in the final stages of the competition for a £1 million prize that will be awarded to the most successful climate change project.

Contenders include a group of local residents in Oxford who are creating a new type of mutual green renewable society to fund solar, water and wind projects that will provide power for 140 homes, and a Welsh initiative to restore decommissioned hydroelectric systems to reduce carbon emissions and cut household fuel bills.

A low-carbon future is within sight, but real climate change will only be achieved if the Government recognises the role of community-led action in propelling the UK towards a sustainable future.

Jonathan Kestenbaum is CEO of NESTA - National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts

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13 comments from readers

Carl Jones
01 December 2008 at 11:57

LOL, sorry about that.

Maybe you should read Jonathan Leake`s Sunday Times News Rerview "The fool`s gold of carbon trading".

Talk about head in the sand mentality.

Gideon Polya
01 December 2008 at 21:00

Excellent article. The good news about the Climate Emergency is that (subject to location, scale, fossil fuel prices in the recession etc) the market cost of the best renewable energy is now roughly the same as the market price of coal-based power which in turn is 4-5 times LESS than the "true cost" of coal burning-based power (taking environmental impacts and human morbidity and mortality into account) (see "HOPE – Best Renewables Now Cost Same as Coal Power. “One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26137/42/ ).

Thus the US Concentrated Thermal company Ausra states (2008): "“Ausra's innovations in collector design dramatically reduce the cost of solar thermal generation equipment and bring solar power to prices directly competitive with fossil fuel power. Using Ausra's current solar technologies, all U.S. electric power, day and night, can be generated using a land area smaller than 92 by 92 miles” (see: http://www.ausra.com/about/ ).

The science. technology and economics is clear but egregiously dishonest politics gets in the way. Unfortunately there is a Culture of Ignoring and a Culture of Lying in the Western Murdochracies that is driven by huge corporate vested interests which can simply politically trump the science, technology and economics.

This is no better seen than in climate criminal Australia, the world's number one coal exporter and which is a world leader in per capita greenhouse gas pollution. Thus while the new Labor Government was elected in November 2007 in part to act on global warming, Australia's “annual per capita Domestic plus Exported greenhouse gas emissions” in tonnes CO2-e per person per year totalled 53.5 (2007) but INCREASED 2% to 54.6 (2008) as compared to the 2005 OECD average of 14.0 and the World average of 6.6 tonnes CO2-e per person per year (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/a... ).

Carl Jones
01 December 2008 at 23:38

You will note the huge push by green cult and the reason for this is two fold. The crahing economy and our cooling climate...they are running out of time.LOL

Carl Jones
02 December 2008 at 17:07

Its only the 2nd of December and we`ve had 3 bouts of snow since October.LOL Global tempreatures have fallen over the last 12 months and wipedout all the "alledged" global warming based on the last 100 years....now where`s my patio heater?lol

Gideon Polya
02 December 2008 at 19:44

Readers of this thread should have little trouble choosing between incorrect assertions from an apparently uncredentialled global warming sceptic VERSUS the authoritative concerns about a climate emergency due to unrestrained anthropogenic global warming (man-made global warming) from eminent scientists, eminent bodies such as the UK Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, like National Academies of Science around the world, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Science (AAAS, the world's biggest general scientific organization and the publisher of the top scientific journal Science), the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) etc (for details see Yarra Valley Climate Action Group climate emergency fact sheets e.g. "CLIMATE EMERGENCY: What Top World Scientific Experts Say ": http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/c... and " CLIMATE EMERGENCY: What Outstanding Australian Scientists Say": http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/c... ).

Outstanding British writer George Monbiot in an article entitled “The Planet is now so vandalized that only total energy renewal can save us” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/25/climate-... ) analyzes recent stark findings published in the prestigious Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society by Drs Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows from the top UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (see "Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends”: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/journal_papers/fulltex... ). Monbiot summarizes: "Delivering a high chance of preventing two degrees of warming would mean cutting global emissions by more than 8% a year", that currently envisaged UK (Brown) and US (Obama) emissions cuts are 2% pa, Soviet collapse was associated with 5%.

Carl Jones
02 December 2008 at 20:21

Gideon; will you please deny, just for the record, that all the claimed global warming, 0.7 degrees rise, over the last 100 years, has been wiped out in the last 12 months 0.7 degree fall and that this fall was preceded by a 10 year period which saw no increase in global tempreatures??

The warmest US summer, was in the 1950`s!!lol

Gideon Polya
02 December 2008 at 22:18

The unsubstantiated, uncredentialled assertion of a 2007-08 "wiping out" of the post-1900 0.7 degree C temperature rise is utter nonsense - readers can see the shocking data of sustained temperature rise for themselves from the expert and prestigious US NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies GISS) :

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ .

Global mean temperature is affected by solar irradiance (currently coming out of a minimum in its 11 year cycle) as well as by man-made greenhouse gas levels and other factors. Seizing on average temperature at one spot in one year as evidence of a trend is utter nonsense and more so given the variability of the data year to year.

Readers should consider the following statement from the world's top climate scientists at GISS about recent warming: "The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the "El Niño of the century". The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle." (see "GISS Surface Temperature Analysis

Global Temperature Trends: 2007 Summation": http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/ ).

We can't all be top expert climate scientists like those at NASA's GISS at the cutting edge of climate research - no more than we can be top expert expert medical specialists. Sensible people (laypersons and indeed scientists in other disciplines) must take very seriously the climate change advice of top climate scientists at the cutting edge of research - just as we take very seriously the advice of top medical specialists about life-threatening medical situations.

Discussion on this thread should be about dealing with the Climate Emergency - not whether the earth is flat.

gnuneo
03 December 2008 at 02:24

whether or not GW is part of a cycle, or man-made, or partly each, or not happening at all is frankly as relevant as whether or not Hitler liked puppies.

continued burning of carbon IS resulting in a catastrophic environmental collapse across the board, and THAT is disputed by NO-ONE, environmental conspiracists, Al Gore, David Icke, and the most fundamentalist GAIAN out there all agree.

nor is the fact that we have now passed or are at 'peak oil' - this finite resource is running out, and running out faster every year.

Johann Kestenbaum is completely correct in everything he says, and most especially about the power of communities to effect change. We do not need central Govt to help - but by damn, they could sure as hell help us. Be a lot better use of their time than forcing through ID cards, wars, and arresting MPs for doing exactly what THEY have done since time immemorial.

the power for change rests in US, and if Govt will not listen perhaps its time we chose a Govt that WILL.

Carl Jones
03 December 2008 at 09:05

Gideon, I mentioned in my first comment, that Jonathan Leake in the Sunday Times doesn`t believe carbon trading will work.

I don`t have a problem with clean energy. It would help if the West would release suppressed energy technology. We are going to be forced to get hydrogen from the filling station...this being a mechanism of control, when the reality is that we could fill out tanks with filtered rain water and drive away...but this would give the people of the world far too much freedom. Water can be split under the bonnet and hydrogen burnt in the engine, the ONLY waste product is WATER!! LOL

We had this little push on home power generation, but this has fallen away, because the government REALLY does not want you to breakaway, or become less relient on the national grid.

Imagine every home, business and factory with its own water splitter, producing just enough hydrogen to meet you power needs....no storage, just burn and produce WASTE WATER. This isn`t science fiction, its REALITY!!

I will continue to mock the Greens, climate fear mongers and government puppets who promote the NWO energy construct, they aren`t serious about what they preach.

By keeping the world enslaved to depleting oil, the NWO will contiune its policy of more war and terror...

...wow betide anyone who designs a home boiler which which burns water, heats water and produces all the electricity you need...you can be FREE. :)

Nilsey105
03 December 2008 at 15:39

Instead of pumping money into lunatic projects such as Trident, Wars on foreign soils, ID cards, etc etc why wont this government show a lead to the rest of the world and take serious the challenge of research into fusion nuclear power.

gnuneo
03 December 2008 at 22:39

carl: i do believe you are referring to meier's technology, creating hydrogen in a process that creates more energy than it takes? I agree that that looks very interesting indeed, and for many years i had much hope for it, and was wondering what had happened to the research.

recently however i started to wonder about WHY such technology could be buried - have you ever wondered about the potential for this technology as a WMD? Any system that appears to produce more energy than it takes can quite easily be converted into a bomb - now imagine that such a bomb was dropped into an ocean.

is that why it is banned? I do not know. Nor do i know how much of the information available (the CH4 Horizon programme is the only source i have seen) is actual data and how much is disinformation. It is however rare for non-working technology to be slapped with a 'National Security' ban, that i am aware of.

so, i do not know. It would certainly be an extraordinary evolution if the technology did indeed work, and could be mass produced. And i wouldn't be surprised if our Oil-Elites wanted to bury such technology, until they could find a way to exploit it as profitably as oil has been.

btw, have you ever considered that many Greens actually *believe* in AGW, and are not "NWO constructs"? Not everyone who disagrees with you is a paid up member of the Illuminati.

Carl Jones
04 December 2008 at 00:39

gnuneo: Stanley Meyer..and I know about the court case. He did it, the Saudi`s offered him a billion to forget it, in the end he was taken out.

There are two companies working on this technology today. One in France and one in the US.

Your last paragraph, accepted. But we are in a debate....struggle for the survival of humanity. Peak oil is the greatest threat and this is why we have so many NWO constructs, they are decoys.

We have a truely significant confluence...peak oil, global warming, staggering population growth, declining water, declining food, the fall of the West and the rise of the East.....all of these aspects fall within a 15-20 year frame....this is biblical and with the designed financial connstruct, it is clear that we are building towards significant events.

I was doing this stuff 5-6-7 years ago. The greens are in with the NWO, or they KNOW DIP!!

I could go into Nicola Tesla...free energy and elctromagnetic weapons, the electric universe. FREE ENERGY is the greatest conspiracy in human history.

The Greens are old hat, the corporations have them by the balls...small balls...its like a WI coffee morning in Lewis.LOL

If all the Greens started talking about suppressed energy technology and filling the tank with water and they did this for a year or two, we might get somewhere.....yawn.

gnuneo
04 December 2008 at 20:32

we would get nowhere, because its only a small minority who have grasped just how manufactured 'common reality' is, and the majority would regard the Greens as comparable to the old 'Natural Law' Party, and vote accordingly.

as for the confluence of events - actually, there are significant trends you have not noted there, including memes spread through the MSM, the creation of a truly Global communications network, the challenging of religious interpretations across the board (including the ones that see this as somehow part of the insanity of Revelations) - extraordinary times to be alive, makes the MAD generations fears seem almost insignificant. Although as we are now back in them, thanks to the Bush Regime and its desire to control the World, perhaps not.

btw, have you heard about the lioness (in Kenya?) that adopts calves? Heh, just thought i'd mention it. :)

as for AGW - frankly, it is not as big a concern as the continued destruction of Global forests/oceans/land/rivers/air - if we continue on our path much longer, rising sea levels will be the absolute LEAST of our environmental problems, whether it is happening or not. (Whether it is man-made or not).

i agree that at least a part of the MSM focus on AGW is disinformation, to split the environmental movement, and public action. It is more important however to concentrate on continually reinforcing we have PROBLEMS TO SOLVE, than on arguing whether or not this specific event/process is happening. IMHO anyway.

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