#Manchester City Council delivers ZERO carbon literacy training since June 2016, despite election promises

Posted on January 31, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Manchester City Council made only two, failed, attempts to organise carbon literacy training for its own councillors in the second half of 2016. This is despite a firm pre-council-elections promise that they would ‘roll out training.”

labour nonsense-page001

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Council has revealed that NO training was completed, and only two sessions were planned. Both were cancelled, one on only 24 hours notice.

This is just how Manchester City Council rolls, unless it comes under intense and prolonged pressure (and even then, all you get is vague promises, which aren’t kept).. There is, given the status of Friends of the Earth and Green Party, and the joke that is the “Stakeholder” “Steering” “Group”, no prospect of change to that.

So it goes.

 

 

FoIA answers (questions in bold, answers in plain text.)

c) The dates of all carbon literacy training sessions for Councillors that have taken place since June 1st 2016, including the names of the attendees at each session.

No training sessions have taken place since 1st June 2016.

d) The dates of carbon literacy training that was scheduled but then cancelled, the reasons sessions were cancelled and the amount of notice given to those people who had expressed an interest in attending.

Carbon Literacy training sessions for Members were arranged for 12th and 26th July 2016. Members were invited to attend the session via email on 1st July 2016. The session on the 12th was cancelled as only one member attended the session. The session on the 26th was cancelled 24hrs before it was scheduled to take place as there were less than three members able to attend after one member cancelled. Due to the peer learning element of the training a minimum of three participants is required at each session. If sessions have less than three participants the trainer advises that they are unable to take place.

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Upcoming Event: Fossil Free Greater #Manchester Film showing,Tues 7th Feb

Posted on January 25, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Sign up here –

feb-7Join us for a free film screening of the acclaimed environmental documentary Do The Math.

The film, produced by climate campaigners 350.org, highlights the impact the growing fossil fuel divestment movement is having in tackling climate change.

Do The Math chronicles “America’s leading environmentalist” Bill McKibben in a David-vs-Goliath battle to fight the fossil fuel industry and change the terrifying math of the climate crisis. Bill McKibben is going after Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Gas directly – energizing a movement like the ones that overturned the great immoral institutions of the past century – such as Apartheid in South Africa.

Putting his body on the line to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline and leading universities and institutions to divest in the corporations destroying our livelihoods, McKibben is uniting the growing global majority that view the climate crisis as the most important moral issue of the day. You can view the trailer here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zfinOCgRQ0.

The film lasts 42 minutes and will be followed by a short discussion and Q&A with local fossil fuel divestment campaigners from Fossil Free Greater Manchester.

 

Posted in Campaign Update, Upcoming Events | 1 Comment

#Manchester City Council tops the UK league! In PR staff… How many are carbon literate? #FOIA

Posted on January 24, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly
Manchester City Council has 77 PR, communications and marketing positions.  That is the most of any council in the country.  So, I sent this Freedom of Information Act request five minutes ago.
Dear Sir/Madam,

I just read in that Manchester City Council has 77 comms staff
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/local-councils-now-employ-least-3400-comms-staff-more-double-total-central-government/

I would like to know

a)  What the total wages bill for them was in the financial year 2015-16?

b)  How many of these 77 staff have completed carbon literacy training?

c) Is there any tailored package of carbon literacy specifically for comms staff?

d) Has there been any analysis conducted on the efficacy of the carbon literacy (tailored or not) for MCC’s comms staff. If so, I would like a copy. If not, is any planned?
In 20 working days they will formally respond to this FOIA. They might even provide some answers.  Watch this space.
It took me five minutes to write.  Maybe if the people at some of the so-called ‘established’ green groups in this city  would  stop being lapdogs and/or irrelevant, and encourage/train their members in the basics of how to actually take a stand rather than just go to boring soul-crushing meetings and on stupid rallies, we might begin to get somewhere.    Or not.
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Brilliant Australian commentator on #climate (yes, a second one!)

Posted on January 20, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly

From here:

“there was a shitty boring battle for the future of the earth and the free market won.” – well, what a bunch of neoliberal ideologues wanted us to believe was  a ‘free’ ‘market’, but let’s not quibble with Brenda the Civil Disobedience Penguin, cos she has nailed it…

brenda-the-civil-disobedience-penguin

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Upcoming: Climate Justice & Economic Growth #Manchester, 30-1 January

Posted on January 20, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly

ESRC Seminar: Climate Justice and Economic Growth

Venue: E2 Renold Building, University of Manchester

30-31 January, 2017

It’s free, but you gotta register – you do that here.

Maybe some of the clowns who blocked Manchester City Council doing a proper consideration of this five years ago would like to come along?  #pigswillfly.

Provisional Programme


This workshop tackles a cluster of questions concerning economic growth and  climate justice. Is the prevention of climate catastrophe incompatible with economic growth? Does climate justice within and across generations require moving beyond economic growth? Or is economic growth, at least in developing countries, a requirement of climate justice? How can meeting the basic needs of all in a global economy be ensured in a the context of climate change? What role should physical and political feasibility constraints play in determining responses to climate change?   Are economic instruments such as emissions trading compatible with climate justice? Are there limits to the goods that are required for a good life? Should there be the limits on the acquisition of wealth? The workshop seeks to bring together economists, philosophers and practitioners to tackle these pressing questions.

 

 

Monday January 30

10.00 – 12.30 Growth and climate change

Professor Kevin Anderson (University of Manchester) Climate change and growth

Professor Diane Coyle (University of Manchester) Climate change and GDP

Discussant Professor Mathew Paterson  (University of Manchester)

 

13.30-17.00 Well-being, growth and climate justice

Professor Max Koch (Lund University)  Climate Change, Sustainable Welfare and the State

Discussant: Dr. Daniel Bailey (University of Sheffield)

Professor Ian Gough (London School of Economics) Needs, justice and climate change

Discussant: Elena Hofferberth (University of Leeds)

Dr. Julia Steinberger (University of Leeds) What is necessary to live well?

Discussant: Dr. Gareth Dale (Brunel University)

 

17.30-19.00

Professor Mark Sagoff (George Mason University): In defence of ecomodernism (by video link)

Discussant: Dr. Rupert Read (University of East Anglia)

 

 

 

Tuesday January 31

9.00-12.30 Green growth or degrowth?

Professor Michael Jacobs (University College London) In defence of green growth

Professor Giorgos Kallis  (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) In defence of degrowth

Dr.Eugen Pissarskoi (Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Berlin) Degrowth, Green Growth, and A-Growth: an Argumentation Analysis

Discussant: Dr. Robert Watt (University of Manchester)

 

13.30-15.00 Growth, climate and global justice

Professor Chuks Okereke (University of Reading) Green Economy and Climate Justice

Ndubuisi Edeh (Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Berlin) Economics and Ethics of Climate Change: How Much Does It Matter?

Discussant Professor Bina Agarwal (University of Manchester)

 

15.30-17.00

Professor Ellie Perkins (York University, Canada) Degrowth, Commons and Climate Justice: Ecofeminist and Indigenous Political Traditions (by video link)

 

 

Venue:   The Renold Building in Manchester University is close to Piccadilly Station, Manchester.  You will find it as building 8 on this map:

http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=6507

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Event Report: Changing Institutions and these children that you spit on…

Posted on January 19, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Anything blog about an event with change in the title twice (“Changing Institutions in a Changing Climate”) needs to start with this;

Audley Genus is a professor of innovation and technology management at Kingston Business School, Kingston University.  He straddles the boundaries between academia and activism (which can be time-consuming and frustrating – neither fish nor fowl etc). You can see his publications list here.

Today in Manchester he talked about theories of society, energy use, trying to change energy use, and studying it all. Bullet points of what was said (or rather what I jotted down) and [square brackets for asides, of graded s(n)arkiness]

[Yes, this is another blog post about the grandest societal challenge. The one we have been resolutely pretending to solve for 25 years now. The reality principle is beginning to impinge. So it goes.]

He gave a brief intro of himself – PhD on North Sea gas and energy/technology policy, then a shift towards nuclear power and most lately on renewables, technology appraisal and ”community engagement” – including Transition towns projects [do NOT start me talking about them].

He took us through (quickly – we were at the Tyndall Centre) the basics of increasing carbon dioxide emissions [an enormous increase since 1950 – Great Acceleration and all that]

Talked about ‘policy resilience’ [as distinct from policies which would increase our resilience] and all the fine word commitments from Rio Earth Summit 1992 onwards.

He pointed to the limits (theoretical and practical) of ‘top-down policy making.

His central claim [Or rather, the one that leapt out at me because I agree with it whole-heartedly] is that there is an invisibility to energy ‘demand’ and assumed ‘need’ – [i.e. you can never question the 24/7 always now, always just-in-time economy. To speak of rationing, or even a slow-down in the speed-up, is to seem a “luddite”]

He moved on to neo-institutional theory and the stability bias of those theories [they explain better why things stay the same than why they (sometimes) change]

He brought in his own work on discourses and the importance of discursive battles/storylines, legitimising strategies, though this is distinct from the Discursive Institutionalism of Prof Vivien Schmidt et al. For a debate between her and an Aussie called Stephen Bell, see here  and here)
Role of critical discourse analysis for thinking about all this-
government plus which other actors are speaking (go beyond pure focus on state/bureaucracies) [As per advocacy coalition framework!]
think about how language is mobilised to defend and attack positions, and the relationship between language, power and institutions. (Imagine Gramsci and de Saussure had a love affair and no contraception…}

Discourse around participant-observation academics, but also the way that the motivations/legitimising discourse around this or that discourse (battles between activists, social entrepreneurs and local authorities about whether the project is “about” energy saving, regeneration, fuel poverty whatever. [And- crucially – this shifts over time, in the wider context of what is hot for funding bodies, what words are needed in the titles of grant applications THIS year as opposed to three years ago. Donald Schon, Beyond the Stable State, was good on this. The book was written in what, 1972?]

The role of “institutional entrepreneurs” – people and organisations who try to shift/destroy/renew the underlying assumptions (cognitive, emotional, regulatory) of what keeps things keeping on – is crucial to challenge the ‘stickiness’ of our (high-carbon) habits of living.

He said some stuff about an ongoing project in three EU countries (I think it was three) about energy usage, consumer norms etc.

Questions were mostly good (the first one went on forEVER – there really ought to be a klaxon to shut middle-aged men up). Couple of articles were suggested by participants –

Seyfang, G. Park, J. and Smith, A. 2013. A thousand flowers blooming? An examination of community energy in the UK. Energy Policy, Volume 61, , Pages 977–989.

Abi Ghanem, D., Mander, S., & Gough, C. (2016). I think we need to get a better generator”: Household resilience to disruption to power supply during storm events. Energy Policy, 92, 171–180. DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.02.003. Publication link: dfed6e95-6c12-41f1-8872-421d9ad3499a

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Council long-listed for green energy award!! Er, #Nottingham Council…also Carbon Coop!

Posted on January 18, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Manchester’s Carbon Co-op has been long-listed for the presitgous Ashden Awards.

According to the website – “The Awards celebrate global sustainable energy leaders and this year’s longlist ranges from a Malaysian architectural practice specialising in passive design to a UK designer of smart thermostats aimed at social housing…”

Carbon Co-op’s Jonathan Atkinson said on social media that he was “delighted Carbon Co-op have been included in the Ashden Awards long list 2017, it’s a real honour. The shortlist is announced in March.”

Meanwhile Nottingham City Council is also on the long-list.  As for Manchester City Council?  Totally uninterested in environmental matters, except as a marketing strategy.  And even when they were interested back in 2009 or so, they were useless at it.  So it goes.

Posted in Energy, Manchester City Council | Tagged | 2 Comments

Futile letter trying to shame #Manchester City Council into #climate action

Posted on January 17, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly

This letter got published in the Manchester Evening News on Saturday 14th  January.
Why futile?  Because a) without a groundswell of people who are willing and able to apply sustained and diverse pressure, any bureaucracy will just shrug and say ‘meh’. And there is no groundswell in Manchester. The organisations are lapdogs and irrelevancies of varying degrees of comicality

b) Manchester City Council has no shame. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

So it goes. Futile.

The Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee is made up of 17 councillors (16 Labour, 1 Lib Dem). It is supposed to keep tabs on whether Manchester City Council is keeping its promises on climate change.  Almost three weeks ago I wrote to each member separately, asking nine questions. These covered the councillor’s own carbon literacy status, that of the other councillors in their ward, and their ward co-ordinators.  Also I asked whether a report – promised for January 2015 about the lessons the council could learn and teach from delivering carbon literacy would ever in fact be produced. And I asked about whether the councillors felt that the ‘stakeholder steering group’ – funded with over 100 thousand pounds in council cash should be allowed to meet in private, cancel elections and cancel the annual stakeholder conference.
I even attended the NESC meeting on 3 January to ask these questions in person.
I have had precisely zero replies.
Meanwhile, the Executive Member for the Environment proclaims the importance of leadership on climate change and carbon literacy, but adamantly refuses to set a target date by which all councillors will have completed their carbon literacy training.
If the issues were not so serious, the failure would be hilarious
men-letter-14-january

 

Posted in Manchester City Council, Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Upcoming event; “Rising Up” in #Manchester Sun 15th January

Posted on January 14, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly

risingupThis is kinda short notice, but there is a meeting for another new group – “Rising Up”, tomorrow, (Sunday) 15th January at the Yard Theatre in Hulme 41 Old Birley St, Manchester M15 5RF, United Kingdom, M15 5RF

The meeting is from 4pm to 6pm and the blurb on their website says –

Our Statement of Necessity

We are initiating and promoting campaigns of civil disobedience in the UK, which may include the breaking of laws. Our movement is explicitly nonviolent and we intend no harm to any person. We believe this is necessary as a means to respond to scientifically attested ecological threats and to challenge gross social injustices; as has happened many times in the past such as with the suffragettes, the civil rights movement in the USA, the Indian Independence movement, and the Rights to Roam in the UK. We stand on the shoulders of those movements. We stand within these traditions and learn from them.
For many of us these actions are motivated by spiritual beliefs as Pagans, Quakers, Buddhists, Jews and so on. We are called to act in service of a higher authority, a higher purpose or on behalf of the Mother Earth.

Through our action we seek to bring about
– A functioning democracy based on informed consent. We do not believe we have a functioning democracy in the UK. It has been captured by corporate and private interests and the media is owned by wealthy billionaires who use their power to systematically undermine informed public debate.
– Transformation of the political system, society and economy to ones which maximise well-being and minimizes harm. The existing political and economic system is set to destroy civilisation and much if not all life on earth if allowed to continue. This is most apparent in our society’s inability to cut the carbon emissions which are creating catastrophic  climate change, and through its reckless destruction of bio-diversity.
-A society of genuine equality without poverty and privilege. At present UK is becomes ever more grossly unequal due economic arrangements which vastly favour the wealthy elites.

No particular individual or group is responsible for this state of affairs. The problem is the whole system. It is out of control to the extent that it necessitates nonviolent civil disobedience as a means to prevent disaster and create the sane and equitable society we all desire and require for ourselves and future generations.

 

MCFly says:  Interesting.  This group seems to have called a meeting on very short notice.  They didn’t contact Manchester Friends of the Earth to advertise it in weekly digest that goes out to about 1000 people.  They seem not to have sent it out very widely at all.  So who is supposed to be participating in this participatory process??  Doesn’t mean that everything will go tits up, but, well…

They call themselves a social movement, which is perhaps a wee premature, and in any case, they’d only be a social movement organisation within a social movement.  Perhaps I am being too pendantic…

Anyways, it will be interesting to see if this

a) has a plan for systematic capacity building and the exchange of skills and knowledge, and

b) lasts any longer than “Reclaim the Power” that was going to be all-singing all-dancing and bring about the glorious eco-revolution like NOW.  And then held a meeting with three punters… and no organisers.  Haven’t heard much from them since…

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Upcoming event: Carbon Coop Social, Sat 28 January

Posted on January 14, 2017 by manchesterclimatemonthly
divider

Saturday, 28 January 2017 from10:30 to 13:00 (GMT)

Ziferblat Edge Street
23 Edge Street
M4 1HW Manchester
United Kingdom

Carbon Co-op Social MEET – DISCUSS – SHARE

At this Saturday morning social we will be discussing future Greater Manchester housing policy, developing the new ‘Carbon Co-op buddy’ program, and socialising!

This January Carbon Co-op decided to respond to the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework consultation. We felt that the consultation was important to engage with as the framework will set out a strategy for the development of the city region’s physical infrastructure over the next 20 years.

We will also be making a start on the Carbon Co-op buddy program. The programme will involve matchmaking members who are experienced and want to share their knowledge and skills, and those looking for support.

We will make efforts to create a family friendly atmosphere. There will be a children’s corner in the room with kids activities. The venue also has a large ‘sitting room‘ with a number of games etc… in which parents and children can go if more space is needed.

And of course there will be food and refreshments available.

Venue information

  • The venue is wheelchair accessible.
  • Bike parking outside
  • Nearest train station is Victoria or Piccadilly.
  • Nearest tram is Shudehill
  • Numerous buses nearby from Shudehill
  • Nearest car part is Cable Street. 2 mins walk and £5 for the day.

Share this event on Facebook and Twitter

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