Upcoming event: “What will it take to keep global warming within safe limits?” #Manchester 23 January

Posted on January 10, 2019 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Registration (necessary) via this site.

 

Description

Global warming is a serious threat to all of us and even more to those who are younger. To stay within minimally safe limits (1.5 or 2 degrees C) there is only a certain amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that can be emitted. This is known as a carbon budget. For Greater Manchester it is 113 Megatonnes of CO2 equivalent (for 2 degrees). For the city of Manchester it is 15 Megatonnes. At current rates of emissions, Manchester would use up its share in between 4 and 10 years.

We’ll be looking at a recent article in Nature Climate Change that explores the possible pathways to net zero emissions. While most of the scenarios from the International Committee on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest overshooting the budget and then sucking CO2 back out of the atmosphere (using technology that has yet to be demonstrated at sufficient scale), this article suggests that “alternatives including lifestyle changes, agricultural intensification and lab-grown meat, as well as an even more rapid adoption of renewables and energy efficiency. Some of these have tended to be excluded from the conversation, because they are hard for scientists to model.”

Booking is necessary: on signing up we’ll send you links to the reading for the discussion which include the scientific article and a more accessible summary. We also ask that if, having booked, you find that you can’t come, or maybe this isn’t for you, then you let us know so you don’t hog one of the limited places.

 

Wed, January 23, 2019
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM GMT
at
Manchester Metropolitan University
Sandra Burslem Building, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Room G 0.7
Lower Ormond Street
Manchester
M15 6BH

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Upcoming event: The role of arts and culture in bringing #climate change to the ‘here and now’ #Manchester Thurs 24 Jan

Posted on January 9, 2019 by manchesterclimatemonthly

2019 role of arts tyndall

The role of arts and culture in bringing climate change to the ‘here and now’

Dr Sarah Mander, Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester

Thursday 24th January (room C21, Pariser Building, Sackville Street) at 1.00pm.

Climate change is widely acknowledged as a pressing and complex societal challenge, requiring solutions that are as much social, economic and political as they are technical. For many people, climate change is intangible and abstract, the causes are complex, and its impacts occur elsewhere or far in the past or future. For people, the complexity of climate change can make it too large of a topic to engage with, or too difficult to see its relevance to their local community, yet much needed action on climate change will not happen without this psychological distance being overcome.

In this presentation, I reflect on the role that initiatives rooted in arts and culture can have as a means to bring climate change to the ‘here and now’, thereby helping to make the various aspects of climate change understandable and relatable and perhaps tangible. Drawing on examples of innovative cross-disciplinary approaches to climate change engagement undertaken in the UK, I explore how values, senses and emotions can enable communicators of environmental change to tell new stories and inspire action.

 

Speaker bio

Sarah Mander is a Senior Research Fellow at the Tyndall Centre for Climate, University of Manchester. Her work is interdisciplinary, focusing on integrating stakeholder and public perspectives with technical and modelling assessments in relation to carbon budgets and mitigation pathways, and low carbon energy technology. Committed to public engagement across all aspects of her research, Sarah explores innovative approaches to engagement which provide opportunities to reach diverse audiences in new ways.

The seminar will take place in room C21, in the Pariser Building on Sackville Street– number 12 on the map here http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/maps/interactive-map/?id=9

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Hope, false hope, stupid hope and #climatechange: From Paris to Extinction (Rebellion)

Posted on January 8, 2019 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Here’s the tl:dr – The Paris Agreement and Extinction Rebellion are two sides (or symptoms) of the same coin, i.e. the suspension of critical faculties by people who know better but are in desperate search of reasons to be hopeful about our grim meathook future….

Back in 2015 I wrote a piece about the Paris Agreement called Why the hype over Paris and #COP21? Politics, Psychology and Money.  I predicted that within two or three years the whole thing would begin to run into the sand. It was not the most risky oracling that I ever did.

I said that there were three reasons people who ought to have known better were hyping the wretched thing….

 

The rest of this is available on my other site.

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For #climate concerned parents/carers in #Manchester – meeting this Saturday, 12th January…

Posted on January 8, 2019 by manchesterclimatemonthly

risingup

 

For parents/carers who would like family friendly ways to take action – meetings that you can bring your children to at times that work, a range of actions which are specifically designed for children and young people, to meet other parents who take their children to protests.

We’ve got one proposal for action in with Shell Out, we’ve got two more actions in the process of planning.
This Saturday (12th) we’re meeting for a very informal meet, introduce kids to each other, chat about ideas, how we might want to be involved, whatever. 2pm at Chorlton Water Park. Meet by the duck platform. Everyone welcome, invite friends, come alone, with the kids… whatever.

For more on the group – see here

 

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Two upcoming #climate meetings in #Manchester – 4th & 7th January 2019

Posted on January 1, 2019 by manchesterclimatemonthly

There are two upcoming meetings for people concerned about climate change.

The first is this Friday, 4th January at 12 noon. It’s about the “Fridays for the Future” protests/gatherings that have been happening outside the Central Library.

Image may contain: 1 person, drawing and text

we will be meeting to review the #FFF protests and make any changes we think are necessary.  We will meet in a room kindly made available to us at Manchester Art Gallery – meet in  the main entrance at 12 noon. All interested will be welcome.  F/b event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2505258362823855/?ti=cl

The second happens next Monday, 7 January, from 5.30pm at the Sandbar, 120 Grosvenor St.  It is the next open meeting of Extinction Rebellion.

Welcome to the fortnightly Extinction Rebellion Manchester meetings! Open to everyone.

At these meetings we will be hearing updates from the sub-groups, upcoming actions, as well as leaving space for friendly and open discussion about issues that matter to us.

If you’re not already in a sub-group and would like to be, or if you have a particular topic of conversation you’d like to bring up at the next meeting, please email xrmanchester@gmail.com

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#Manchester Councillors trained in carbon “literacy” since August? Zero.

Posted on December 21, 2018 by manchesterclimatemonthly

About five years ago activists (okay, me and a couple of other people) got the Executive Member for the Environment of Manchester City Council to set a target that all 96 councillors would quickly do a day’s worth of “carbon literacy” training.

Of course, after making the promise, very very little happened – that’s just the way Manchester City Council works – a toxic brew of cynicism, indifference and staggering incompetence.  Intermittently, we’ve kept tabs on the promises made.  And the promises are always about training “about to happen”.

The last time I asked was August. So I asked again, using the Freedom of Information Act (this is time consuming for the Council, and costly. I wish I didn’t have to do it that way, but bitter experience has taught me that unless they are forced to, they tend not to release any information, especially if it embarrasses them. More about this in the new year…)  So this FOIA has just come back:

Me to them: “You told me that 52 members of the 96 member council had completed their training. How many of the council’s 96 elected representatives have completed both aspects of their carbon literacy training as 3 December 2018. Please supply the names of any new “completed” councillors, and any who were on that list but are no longer councillors.”

Them to me: At present 52 elected members have completed their carbon literacy training. No training sessions have been run since August 2018.

And this

Me to them: You told me that Sara Todd was the only member of Strategic Management Team to have completed their carbon literacy training. The other members you listed were Joanne Roney; Carol Culley; Carolyn Kus; Paul Marshall; Eddie Smith; Fiona Ledden.. Could you please provide, in a table the current make up of the SMT, and their current carbon literacy status including specific dates where they completed one (or both, if the stars are so aligned) elements of their carbon literacy training.

smt carbon lit 2018

 

Six years after Council “leader” Richard Leese launched Carbon Literacy, we have this-

Me to them: What is the total number of staff presently employed by the council?
Them to me: As of November 2018 there were 7,252 members of staff (headcount) which equates to 6,200 full time equivalents.
Me to them: How many of them are carbon literate?
Them to me: The Council currently has 612 staff who are carbon literate.

This is how competent they are. This is how seriously they take the existential threat of climate change.

To all you hand-wringing activists, and “these things take time” councillors out there… Merry Christmas.

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Rant: “Deeds not words”? My fat arse… #Manchester #climate farces continue

Posted on December 14, 2018 by manchesterclimatemonthly

As I cycled up towards the Central Library I could see the road blocked off because of protesters brandishing placards.  For a quarter of a second I thought “great, at last, the climate revolution is upon us.”  It was, of course, a bunch of people there to commemorate the unveiling of a statue to the one of the more Conservative and war-mongery of the suffragettes.   Amid the cops (there, presumably, to make sure that nobody from Extinction Rebellion er, rebelled) there were thousands with their sashes that said “Deeds not words”.

Ah, once the rebels are safely dead (fifty years minimum), then they can be commemorated, such is the condescension of posterity.  In America now you’ll hear Republicans wax lyrical about Martin Luther King. At the time, they would have wanted him lynched.  It’s very convenient, this condescension of history: people who would never go within a million miles of dissent, let alone active resistance themselves, can bask in the dimly reflected glory while enjoying the benefits of others’ sacrifice.  And walk right past people trying to do social change now, without batting an eyelid.  Four hundred miles from Darwin and all that…

In the library cafe I saw an horrifically neo-liberal and incompetent former City Council official, who’d been at the event.  Thank goodness grotesquely mediocre women can now go as far as grotesquely mediocre men. That’s progress, isn’t it? Then, out in St Peter’s Square, with Police “Liaison” Officers and police horses strolling around minding their own everybody else’s business, a councillor who I explained the latest undemocratic farce that the Council is perpetrating waves away concerns by saying “look, new trams” and “these things take time”.  I kid you not.

“Deeds not words.” Yeah, right.  What has this council actually served up on climate change? Other than ever more words, in more glossy booklets, more unaccountable quangos.  And its core promises around elections, around annual stakeholder conferences, around transparency, are all broken. And people who call themselves activists, who think that they have some stunning political analysis, or understand how social change is made, well, they accept it all, never say boo to a goose. And then wring their hands a little once ten years have passed about how the council might not have the “capacity” to act.  Because… well, you’d have to ask them I guess.  If you could be bothered.  It’s many things, but activism it ain’t.

 

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The danger of “Activist Vuvuzela”. Interview on #climate, #ExtinctionRebellion and much else

Posted on December 14, 2018 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Calum is a 40 year old husband, father to two boys who lives in Stockport.  He kindly agreed to answer questions put to him by email.  The answers are thoughtful, provocative and useful.  Comments welcome, but nowt ad hominem please!

1. In an email you described yourself as “someone with no experience of activism or protest (other than 38 Degrees stuff, mithering the snot out of my MP and signing many petitions”.  Two questions from this
a) what do your friends and acquaintances think of this activity – do they regard it as a strange hobby, ignore it, something else?
The 38 Degrees campaigning is mostly ignored, with a few being appreciative of issues they regard as close to home in one way or another.
b) what’s your take on the difference between those forms of activity and – say – going on a protest march, or attending a meeting.  Do you have a sense of hierarchy between the two, as if the latter is somehow more ‘real’, more ‘authentic’?
What matters is results. That’s why people campaign about things – they are trying to bring about some form of change (or prevent it). 38 Degrees (to take an example) does not set out to change the world – it focuses on what might be called “achievable goals”, eg allowing certain chronic conditions to be treated with “medical” marijuana. Ultimately, it was a campaign to change one politician’s mind about the topic. Conversely, they also get involved in trying to influence very “consumer visible” brands like Walkers crisps to make their packets recyclable. Worthy, but ultimately not “world changing”.
Even bigger topics like getting the UK government to stick by promises of funding for the NHS in the face of Brexit basically come down to getting people to influence an MP to vote a particular way, once. But they do get some results, sometimes.
Contrast this with the kinds of issues people are marching about at the moment -eg the anti-Brexit march that attracted a significant turnout in London – hard to call a specific outcome, but you could probably argue that it galvanised the “Remain” contingent at a time when this mattered, and that the discussion of second referenda, etc etc is now happening as an indirect result. I’d say it definitely had more impact than a letter writing campaign or similar in moving public (and political) opinion.
Now consider marches and civil disobedience as we see from XR just now. It takes more commitment on a personal level to turn up to physical event, particularly if either is physically distant, or if you have other responsibilities. So in that they require greater personal commitment (particularly for those involved in XR or anti-fracking campaigns and willing to be arrested etc) – there is a level of hierarchy there, yes.
HOWEVER – where I might draw the distinction between eg 38 Degrees and XR, is that 38 Degrees tackle much more focused, specific problems, where declaring “victory” is relatively straightforward, and the stakes are (relatively) low.
In the case of climate breakdown, the stakes could not be higher, but the “how” could not be less obvious. Similar actions have yielded minimal results in the past. Notwithstanding actual ratification of laws and treaties by multiple governments around the world, we are still basically proceeding as if there is no problem (and that’s not even considering that we will hit peak oil and peak gas before long – even on its own terms, FF powered society is living on borrowed time).  The thing is, how do you up the stakes from here? Where are the metaphorical testicles by which you can grab the problem and squeeze? What levers can be pulled, and what cracks could be opened?
2. How have your views/concerns about climate change shifted over time?  When were you first aware of it? Has the recent events (hot summer, IPCC 1.5 report) shifted things/

I first learned about the idea of climate change (then usually referred to as Global Warming, or AGW) in 2004 when I stumbled on on line discussions about Peak Oil – in those days the fear was more that the end of cheap energy would bring down industrial civilisation imminently and we would all be sent back to the Victorian era  / Iron Age / choose your preferred historical parallel. As it became apparent that Peak Oil was a thing, but that it was simply prompting the pursuit of dirtier forms of energy (see: Tar Sands) my awareness swung back to “how far will we take this?” I think I really started to become worried after Copenhagen, but somewhere in my mind was the idea that all the governments of the world couldn’t simply ignore a problem as big as this.  However, I became more and more aware of the disquiet among climate scientists, and that despite warm words from politicians, the big policy announcements and radical changes I was somehow expecting simply weren’t happening. During this time I met my wife, got married and we had our first son in 2013. Not long after he was born, I discovered Guy McPherson’s “Nature Bats Last” site, which was more than my ‘new father’ psyche could handle and to be honest I blocked the issue out for a year or so, although it lingered in the back of my mind, prodding me that I could not and should not ignore it.
Our second son was born in 2015, the same year as I lost my father. (I’d discussed with my wife that we are living in uncertain times and it was actually this, indirectly that prompted our decision to have a second – we did not want the first to grow up an only child and be burdened with two aged parents to care for – we knew that pension provision for our generation would be quite different from what our parents have experienced, for one thing. I am one of three children, my wife is an only child; the experience of having siblings as life allies also played a part here).
After the Paris meeting there was huge fanfare, but the message outside of the mainstream media was that this was a deal that didn’t do enough, and in any event wasn’t likely to produce real results, particularly given the US political situation. I was also becoming more and more painfully aware that our problems are not limited to CO2 emissions; I’d been aware of the global fisheries collapse for some time, but then the reality hit – it was birds, and forests, and insects, and well, everything.
I’ve had an allotment garden for six years and although it’s not very productive (mostly due to the limited amount of time I have to tend it), it is very instructive on how basic human endeavours like growing food can fail when there is no rain for months at a time. So an abiding sense of unease that things were Not Right (more so than usual) was affirmed by the IPCC 1.5 report – I knew that the uncertain future I was concerned about was much closer than I had feared.
3. You mentioned you have children – what have you told them, so far? What sorts of conversations are you expecting to have with them, and how are you preparing for those (if you are).

They are three and five years old, so their ability to understand is limited. The psychological and neurological evidence is that fear and trauma early in life simply damage people’s ability to cope with stress later on. Given the future that faces them, for now, I concentrate on simple things – appreciating wildlife wherever we can see it, the value of keeping our local environment clean and tidy (took them litter picking the other weekend which taught them how much waste the local McDonald’s generates), of conserving all resources (food, energy, water, soap, clothing) – principles which will hopefully lay the right foundations (in as much as anything can be “right” given what we face).
As time goes on, and most likely the news worsens, I have resolved to tell them as much as I can, in an age-appropriate way. My concern is that at some point, given that I am generally honest about things to a fault, is that I will have to spell out how bad things are / could get, and that there is no realistic chance they will improve in the long run. My feeling it is ultimately better that they understand the world around them, rather than have the world view that everything is OK, only for that to be shattered either by news from elsewhere, or events in our own lives. Honestly though – I do not know how to tell my own children that their parents and grandparents generation ****ed up their future, and their world
4. What would it take – what would groups like Extinction Rebellion have to do – to make you think that being an “activist” (see question 1b above!) would be a good/necessary/obligatory thing?
I want to know a bit about what “winning” looks like. Demanding a zero carbon Britain in seven years time is a fine and noble goal, but how do we get there? Why do they think that the campaigns they are staging will eventually force anyone to listen? If we had a completely willing government with a sizeable majority (ha), what policies would be enacted first?
From here https://peacenews.info/node/9145/editorial-what-do-we-need-do-make-social-change:
“Matthew Bolton writes that the first principle of making change is that ‘you only get the justice that you have the power to make happen’, the justice that you have ‘the power to compel’. The point of campaigning is to make a difference. It’s not to live in an activist bubble where we can comfort ourselves that we have the right ideas and everyone else has the wrong ideas. “
Who could they ally with to achieve this? Mass letter writing to MPs from 38 degrees? Crowd sourcing local ideas? Asking experts (whoever experts are) for skunkworks ideas ie what will have the most impact the quickest? Working with artists such as the one recently featured on MCM to try go gain some public engagement via a different route?  My fear is that XR may turn out to be something of an ‘activism vuvuzela’ – at first interesting, difficult to ignore, but ultimately will people just get bored of them and want them to go away – notwithstanding the utterly compelling nature of the predicament we are in, many people are already struggling to keep their heads above water. For them, collapse is already their reality. What hope can they be offered – a sense of worth, of being valued, listened to?
5. Anything else you’d like to say
All of the previous answers notwithstanding, I find myself increasingly afraid that humanity will bequeath the current and next generations not only a degraded world, but a lack of hope that anything can ever be better, that there is any point to trying. I hope to find the courage in myself to do the best I can, for as long as I can, for my family, my community, and our planet.
(Sounds trite as I read it back, but there it is).

 

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Home responds to questions (without really answering) #Manchester #climate

Posted on December 13, 2018 by manchesterclimatemonthly

The arts organisation Home has responded to questions put to it, without clarifying if they intend to have a ‘no-fossil fuels’ policy that would be in keeping with their vaunted “Carbon Literacy” status.

Having posted this story, MCFly then sent this:

Dear Mr Barnett,

statement for publication requested:
last night I attended a screening of “Sorry to Bother You” at Home. One of the adverts declared that Home’s staff are carbon literate and that Home takes its environmental obligations seriously.  (or words to that effect).
This was followed, about a minute later, by an long advert for… Emirates Airlines.
So, I have the following questions
a) have there been ANY discussions within Home’s decision-makers about refusing to accept advertising from fossil-fuel intensive industries (oil companies, airlines)?
b) if so, what was the outcome of the discussion.
c) if not, are such discussions planned for the near future?
Thanks so much!

Here’s the reply, received a few minutes ago

Hi Marc

Thank you for your email.

This is our response to your questions:

“We meet regularly to discuss from which organisations we accept advertising. There are organisations whose adverts we would not be comfortable screening, and therefore don’t. Advertising in our cinemas provides us with income without which we would not be able to screen the range of films we do.”

Thank you…

Mike

 

MCFly says:  While Home gets points for a quick response (unlike, say, the Labour members of the Neighbourhoods and Environment “Scrutiny” Committee), it is a response, not a reply.   It’s bland boilerplate, designed to close down a conversation.

But it can’t help but reveal that “carbon literacy” isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit, and that outfits like Home will continue to preen about their environmental credentials while taking the fossil fuel shilling, until the waters close over our heads.

People get well-trained and well-paid to deliver this sort of thing, which reveals nothing at all about the future plans (or LACK of future plans) of the organisation.  The final paragraph of the story linked to above applies….

 

 

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Home may be where the heart is. But spine? Not so much… #Manchester #climate

Posted on December 13, 2018 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Went to see Sorry to Bother You (highly recommended) at Home last night.

There were the usual advertisements.  One, with a green background, proudly said that Home had made sure all its staff had undertaken Carbon Literacy “training”, and that (therefore) everyone really Cared about the environment and stuff.

Literally a minute later, there was a long, elaborate advert for… Emirates Airlines.

I mean, it’s almost as if Carbon Literacy is a meaningless tickbox exercise that enables organisations to greenwash and then continue exactly as they were before/is convenient to them.   I know, I know, crazy talk.  I mean, look at the many magnificent and transformative successes of carbon literacy.  Who could forget that time that a former Executive Member for the Environment became an MP.  And did the Carbon Literacy training and got the certificate.  Then, when the vote about whether to expand Heathrow came along, this person – no names (okay, Jeff Smith) – voted… for expansion.

It would not surprise me in the least if the clowns at MOSI who decided it would be a good idea to let themselves be used by Shell to pump out pro-fossil fuel propaganda have undertaken carbon “literacy” training too.

In ten years time, when the shit is really hitting the fan, people will be saying that they were always hardcore, and had always made brave and principled decisions on the climate emergency, doing a Neil Young every single day.  We will have more on our plates to worry about than those lies and self-delusions, but the truth, now… well, we could see it, if we had the courage.

But courage, like common sense and a sense of urgency, is in very limited supply, and absent entirely in Manchester’s political and cultural “elite”.

 

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