Attention #Manchester Climate Steering Group – watch Kevin Anderson video on #whatistobedone

Posted on November 14, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Hope tonight’s meeting goes well.  Pity members of the public are excluded! #transparencyfail

Here is Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre on the subject of what can be done in Manchester in the next 18 months to 4 years.

Posted in Democratic deficit, Manchester Airport, Manchester City Council | Tagged | Leave a comment

Upcoming Event: Hackday in #Manchester on #climate calculator. #MadLab Thurs Nov 28th

Posted on November 13, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Madlab is awesome. Geeks are awesome. Getting to the bottom of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s “carbon calculator” would be awesome. #rearrangingdeccchairs
This day, it will be… awesome.

DECC 2050 Calculator Hackday

  • Thursday, November 28, 2013 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM

  • MadLab  36-40 Edge Street, Manchester (map)

  • Carbon Co-op, OpenEnergyMonitor and URBED are organising a Hackday in Manchester for the DECC 2050 Calculator and inviting programmers, policy makers, academics and interested parties to attend.

    DECC’s 2050 Calculator is a new tool to assist the general public and civic society in assessing how the UK can meet its 2050 carbon emission obligations whilst keeping the lights on.

    http://2050-calculator-tool.decc.gov.uk/

    The tool is open source with source code available here:
    http://github.com/decc/twenty-fifty

    After a DECC event held in September in Manchester (http://blog.decc.gov.uk/2013/09/17/the-british-energy-challenge-manchester-discussion/) to showcase the tool, a number of people expressed an interest in hacking the tool in order to test the ambitions of demand reduction and renewable generation.

    We are organising a one day HackDay at MadLab in Manchester to expand, develop and test the tool with these applications in mind.

    We are inviting programmers, policy makers and interested parties along. The day is a hacklab, unstructured without formal agenda.

    Please indicate if you would like to attend.

Join or login to comment.

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Video: Professor Kevin Anderson of #Manchester Tyndall on Typhoon Haiyan and direct #climate impacts in UK

Posted on November 13, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

See also this letter in Manchester Evening News yesterday.

And this article!

disasteraid

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Video: Prof Kevin Anderson of #Manchester Tyndall on the Radical Emissions Reduction Conference

Posted on November 12, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

See details of the conference below!

From here:

Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option. Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference.

While there is a wealth of research and experience in delivering incremental reductions in demand, there is little cogent analysis of non-marginal, step-change and systemic reductions – either from a research or from a practitioner perspective. This conference is intended to catalyse such a critical transition in the climate change agenda and provide an evidence-base for developing radical-mitigation strategies.

More specifically the two-day conference, hosted at the Royal Society (London), will consider how to deliver reductions in energy consumption of at least 8% per year (~60% across a decade). It will foster an up-beat and can-do mentality. Obstacles, barriers and hurdles need to be considered, as do practical attempts that have failed to deliver. But lessons need to be learned; translating failure into programmes of successful mitigation is paramount not just to the framing of this event, but more importantly in tackling the very real challenges of climate change.

Posted in academia, Energy, Upcoming Events, youtubes | 1 Comment

#Manchester Evening News publishes #climate letter about Typhoon Haiyan

Posted on November 12, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Woohoo!

menletternov122013

They cut two sentences from the last paragraph for space, which is fair enough!

“Meanwhile, the MEN can improve its coverage of these sorts of disasters by devoting one or two of the 15 paragraphs to the underlying context of the West’s carbon emissions.  And it would be great to see the MEN really covering the slowness with which Manchester is cutting its emissions and creating the “low carbon culture” mentioned in the Manchester Climate Change Action Plan (2009).  Perhaps the City Council’s new Executive Member for the Environment, Cllr Kate Chappell, could be interviewed? ”

MCFly says: How can we get a low carbon culture?  By having an engaged and responsible citizenry challenging the status quo.  How do we expand the number of active citizens?  By having a Council that genuinely consults (not rubber stamping, not after the fact) the population.  So please, sign this petition and then send it on to everyone you know who lives, works or studies in Manchester!  Ask the People of Manchester.

Posted in Democratic deficit, Letters to the MEN, Manchester City Council | 1 Comment

Letter to the #Manchester Evening News about Typhoon Haiyan

Posted on November 11, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Let’s see if they publish…

Thank you for your coverage of the catastrophic typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. (“Thousand flee super typhoon danger” MEN Nov 9th 2013, page 10).  It captured the terror and damage caused by this disaster very thoroughly.
Typhoons have of course, always happened. What’s new here is the sheer scale – the wind speeds and the width of the storm.
It’s comparable to the bush fires near Sydney last month. Bush fires happen, but never so early in the year, and never with such intensity.
No individual event can be ascribed to our carbon emissions, but these sorts of events are exactly in line with what climate scientists have been expecting.  It’s like we are loading the dice and then getting surprised when we throw double-sixes, and even thirteens.
The direct effects on Manchester of climate change might sound pleasant – warmer drier summers and warmer wetter winters. I’d urge readers to think also of the indirect consequences – of food prices rocketing, of disruption to transport and communications, and the trauma of seeing members of extended families suffering from climate disasters and the wars that will follow in their wake.  What can be done?  We can all cut our emissions by flying less, eating less meat and insulating our houses.
Meanwhile, the MEN can improve its coverage of these sorts of disasters by devoting one or two of the 15 paragraphs to the underlying context of the West’s carbon emissions.  And it would be great to see the MEN really covering the slowness with which Manchester is cutting its emissions and creating the “low carbon culture” mentioned in the Manchester Climate Change Action Plan (2009).  Perhaps the City Council’s new Executive Member for the Environment, Cllr Kate Chappell, could be interviewed?

Marc Hudson
editor of Manchester Climate Monthly

 

Update from the BBC (thanks to Dave Bishop for forwarding this to me):

Typhoon prompts climate fast
In a highly emotional intervention, the head of the Philippines team at talks in Warsaw will fast until progress is made.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/science-environment-24899647

Posted in Unsolicited advice | Tagged | 1 Comment

Video about “Fossil Free” divestment event in Birmingham

Posted on November 11, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

MCFly volunteer Claire Woolley has made her first video! She attended the Birmingham event in the “Fossil Free” tour put on by campaigning groups People and Planet, 350.org and Operation Noah.

“Drawing inspiration from the anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s that brought together students, churches and other investors, this tour is all about kickstarting an exciting new fossil fuel divestment movement here in the UK.

“British universities support the fossil fuel industry directly through their research, their endowment investments and their partnerships with some of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world like BP and Shell.”

Here’s the video she made (with help from her flatmate). A write-up to follow.
(The sound drops out a bit around the one minute mark, but stick with it, there’s more!!)

There will be more of these to come! 🙂

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Polar Bear Facepalm: Ay-up #Manchester, hold your concentration on the concentrations…

Posted on November 10, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Ahead of the Warsaw climate talks, remember that there’s a really dangerous curve ahead.  Text from bbc article.

polarbearc02concentrationsnov2013

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Polar Bear Facepalm: Fossil fool subsidies #speciesnottrying

Posted on November 9, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Dumb as a rock.*  Really.

polarbearfossilfuels

 

 

 

* And I know some rocks that would probably sue for libel over being compared to homo ‘sapiens’.  FFS.

Posted in Energy, Polar Bear Facepalm | Leave a comment

Good News Saturday: Carbon Literacy for Social Landlords in #Manchester (crosspost)

Posted on November 9, 2013 by manchesterclimatemonthly

So, if you have some good news about what is happening in Manchester around climate/environment, send it in!

This below is from the Carbon Literacy website…

The CL Project mainly grows through its ability to work with networks and today saw a milestone as a very significant network fully embraced the project. The social landlords of Greater Manchester employ thousands, and house hundreds of thousands of people, and the well-being of their residents is at the heart of their mission. We hoped that engaging them in a conversation about Carbon Lit might not be too hard – and were certainly not disappointed!

SRL @ RP's Breakfast compressed

September saw a breakfast meeting featuring Sir Richard Leese in his role as Chair of the Greater Manchester Low Carbon Hub, and attended by 20 landlords, represented either by their Chief Executives or Directors. That meeting mandated an event to discuss a collaborative response to Carbon Literacy and it was this planning event which took place this morning. A talented mix of environment , HR, estates and capital investment staff met at Kyocera’s new Technology Centre in Manchester city centre, jointly facilitated by ourselves and Robin Lawler, CEO of Northwards Housing. We’ll post another blog about the detail of the event soon, but in short the meeting determined just how much climate change will impact on social landlords’ key priorities, how having the people they work with being Carbon Literate would really help tackle this and how a collaborative approach can probably help .

During the meeting a key message came across; that social landlords are uniquely placed to work with residents to align Carbon Literacy with well-being (eg. through lower bills and healthier lifestyles) and to influence the many other organisations that they work with. Another key conclusion was that it is entirely reasonable for Carbon Literacy to become a requirement in tenders to supply – as one organisation put it – Carbon Literate social landlords will prefer to work with other Carbon Literate organisations – and it’s an easy way to make sure that the supplier’s environmental pledges actually mean something in the way that they operate. So watch this space….

[photo by CLP Project Worker Micaela Rossi]

Posted in Good News Saturday, Manchester City Council | Tagged , , | 2 Comments