Political possibilities

My response to the view, expressed in an online debate here, that there will only ever be two political parties (ie either Labour or Tory) running the country: Given the huge and interwoven economic, social and environmental problems the country and the world has, new political thinking is now more needed than ever. New political movements, like the Green Movement, do come along and new parties do get into government at a range of levels. Liberals have a share in govt now and they currently run Bristol City Council and other councils - and Liberals have been in govt in the past, albeit a long time ago.The labour movement developed over the last 100 yrs, so there is no reason why other movements and parties cant do the same or better. 

The Green Party addresses the real world where other parties wish 'for exponential economic growth and endless population growth on a finite planet with dwindling resources' (see online comments here). Greens are making political progress - they have their first MP in Caroline Lucas in addition to Green members of the Scottish Parliament, they are now runnning the council in Brighton and Hove, have two MEPs (Jean Lambert in London and Keith Taylor in the South East), and have two councillors in Bristol (Gus Hoyt in Ashley and Tess Green in Southville) in addition to hundreds more on other councils around the country

Eco-Bristol?

Bristol will continue with its 'green' plans even though it suffered a Green Capital loss (see story here). One commenter on the story (YourLakeshore)  said "...it is great news that Bristol came 2nd in the whole of Europe - particularly as it had tough competition and Bristol has made it to the final twice. It also presents Bristol as being the green city of the UK..."

If Bristol is the green city of the UK why then is its ecological footprint only 17th best out of 60 in the country (see ranking and figures here)? Why is Bristol's ecological footprint set to rise with new road building, loss of green spaces, increase in population...? Doesn't there need to be a committment to cut this footprint significantly if Bristol is to be credible in its green claims? It is after all 2.9 times bigger than a sustainable level!

Also, its not really about being in competition with every other city in the 'whole of Europe' but only about competing against those who entered - and on criteria still a very long way from genuinely sustainable cities.

Sustainable Societies

Here's an interesting story about a Royal Society report which states that tackling over-consumption in rich countries and high population growth in the poorest are key to building sustainable societies. I'm very glad to hear this from an authoritative organisation but it is something I have been advocating for 30 years! Many others have been doing the same. Examples of my blog posts on this here.

I note that this Royal Society report says we need to go 'beyond GDP' as a measure of progress. This is also something I, along with others, have been advocating for 30 years (and in fact was the subject the dissertation I researched and wrote for my MSc in 1998/99). See examples here. 

Planet, people, problem

Bit of discussion on population between me and rocketbob here following some letter about countryside protection from development. Here's my most substantial contribution:

Yes rocketbob population is a very sensitive issue in many ways, as you say for religion and racism, to name just two. All the more reason for wide-ranging, inclusive debate before any changes are decided on. It wont be easy. I would propose we aim for optimum population by reason, information, education and any changes we can establish a reasonable consensus on. This has the advantage of breaking the taboo on this debate and being less controversial but the disadvantage of perhaps not being enough to achieve meaningful change fast enough. Its better than no action at all and allowing problems to build such that we are forced into draconian action by events. The point is on a finite planet and in a finite city resources available are limited and so there are limits to population size and growth rate whether we like to acknowledge them, as you do, or not.

Dont take my word for it. In Sir David Attenborough’s view, there is no major problem facing our planet that would not be easier to solve if there were fewer people and no problem that does not become harder — and ultimately impossible to solve — with ever more. We must find agreed ways to achieve optimum population in cities, countries and around the globe and especially those with already high populations, those with intense impacts and those with very rapidly growing population and impact intensity. See: http://populationmatters.org/

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*We [Bristol] have a population of about 441,300 - the largest city in the South West.

*Bristol's population is expected to reach 559,600 people by 2028

*http://www.bristol.gov.uk/node/4169

*World population reached an estimated 7, 000, 000, 000 ie 7 billion last month.

*http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515

*2 extra people every second, that is 200,000 each day or nearly 80,000,000 per year is human population growth on this planet - all needing food, water, warmth, shelter and aspiring to have good choices and a decent life.

Savage for Mayor? Uncivilised?

The book - High in Hope - and all the surrounding hype sounds like John Savage's (and through him Business West's) bid the become the Elected Mayor of Bristol! Has he ruled out this possibility??

The project says '...by 2050 the area’s [Bristol's] population will have massively increased, perhaps by as much as 500,000, meaning 300,000 jobs will need to be created and a further 200,000 homes built.'

Dont they have any grasp of the unsustainability of this? Given the unsustainability isn't it reasonable to try now to shape the future we want? Better to at least make an effort rather than simply going along with 'crystal ball gazing predict and provide' as if its an inevitability we can do absolutely nothing about.

More here:
http://www.bristol247.com/2011/12/08/lets-end-curse-of-poverty-in-bristol-by-2050/

http://www.bristol247.com/2010/07/05/bristol-group-call-for-new-debate-on-elected-mayor/

http://bristolmayor.org/about/

Seven billion of us

Human population is currently 6.989 billion. It will reach 7 billion next month. You can see the statistics in real time here http://www.worldometers.info/ .

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday singled out sustainable development as the top issue facing the planet with the world's seven billionth person expected to be born next month.
Key to this was climate change, and he said time was running out with the population set to explode this century.
"Next month, the seven billionth citizen of our world will be born," the UN secretary general said during a speech at Sydney University.
"For that child, and for all of us, we must keep working to fight poverty, create decent jobs, and provide a dignified life while preserving the planet that sustains us.
"That is why the sustainable development agenda is the agenda for the 21st century.
"Above all, that means connecting the dots between challenges such as climate change and water scarcity, energy shortages, global health issues, food insecurity and the empowerment of the world's women."

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/sustainable-development-worlds-top-issue-un-chief-2351721.html

Foresight Report: Urgent action needed on global hunger

A UK government-commissioned study into food security has called for urgent action to avert global hunger.

The Foresight Report on Food and Farming Futures says the current system is unsustainable and will fail to end hunger unless radically redesigned.

It is the first study across a range of disciplines deemed to have put such fears on a firm analytical footing.
The report is the culmination of a two-year study, involving 400 experts from 35 countries.

According to the government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington [pictured], the study provides compelling evidence for governments to act now...

BBC News - Report: Urgent action needed to avert global hunger

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch: H for 'human': The missing climate link?

Governments reliance on technical solutions alone to cut carbon pollution causing climate change is doomed to failure. Technical progress tends to be straight line whereas environmental impacts are growing on an accelerating upward curve (geometrically, exponentially) - one thus cant keep pace with the other. Social, economic, political, behavioural and technical changes are needed in a coherent combination to cut carbon emssions to a level we can sustain. This includes: not thinking that issues can be summed up by a simple equation; tackling multiple causes through joined up thinking; and changing the attitude to wealth that currently dominates in particular.

As many commentators have pointed out down the years, virtually all the hopes expressed by governments in terms of reducing carbon emissions ultimately hang on technology.

It stems from the famous IPAT equation:
Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology

...sometimes expressed as...

Impact = Population x GDP/capita x Impact/GDP

BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch: H for 'human': The missing climate link?

Food and clothes prices: much more than narrow economics

For me there has never been any such thing as cheap food and clothes because someone or something, somewhere is paying the costs or suffering the consequences of 'low' prices such as in our supermarkets...joined up, systems, thinking shows this. However, even those who have formerly had other perspectives are increasingly saying that the era of 'cheap' food and clothes is over (see the link to the Daily Express article and Primark comments below).

Fascinating interview on Radio 4 today about this (see link below). World demand for meat is up and so is demand for wheat and other grains to feed the animals, land that could or did grow food is being taken for energy crops or other purposes, human population is rising, climate change is cutting yields in key locations - factors like these are increasing demand whilst also lowering supply and that means the dominant overall trend in food prices over time is definitely upwards. Adopting greener lifestyles would over time moderate the upward prices trend.

BBC News - Today - 'Upward long-term food cost trend'

The rising cotton and food prices are driving fears that our weekly shopping could soon become more expensive.

Natalie Berg from the research group Planet Retail examines whether consumers would have to bear the brunt or whether companies would be able to absorb any price rise.

See also:

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/199383

Biodiversity: threats to

There's only so much of our planet to go around and so as the human population has accelerated in growth and as human consumption has increased - and intensified per person especially in the rich world - so biodiversity has declined. Its estimated that there are 1.4 to 1.7 million living species that we have named and described and that there may be as many as 10 or even 100 million species in total - and we are responsible for hundreds of extinctions, more likely thousands if you count in species we did not even know existed.
*
We hunt species directly - for food or medicine or sport - cutting numbers and sometimes wiping out, as with the dodo, or nearly wiping out species, as with the blue whale. We take large areas of land, wiping out habitats and ecosystems eg by deforestation, wetland drainage...to create farmland, mine resources, build roads, airports, towns and cities...We dig and drill into the ground and under the sea to extract resources, like coal, oil and gas, that have taken millions of years to form. We consume the resources we've extracted and pour waste and pollution into the air, oceans and onto land.
*
We grow our economies as fast as we can - that's how we measure our progress, by the increase in gross domestic product (GDP). GDP treats loss of biodiversity and loss of ecosystems and the services provided as a benefit not a cost eg the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the Exxon Valdez disaster or all the other oil spills are counted not as a cost but as a benefit - yet we are in truth impoverished by it.
*
I've previously posted on the gross deficiencies of GDP as an indicator here and on the need for a new kind of economics here. See here for the wiki entry on why GDP is very bad as an indicator of general welfare and wellbeing.

Refugee protection

Greens want a sustainable society. A crucial aspect of sustainability is fairness: within our society; from generation to generation; locally and globally. Greens are opposed to discrimination on grounds of: age; ethnic group; gender; sexuality; class; nationality...Progess in our society is measured not only by wealth but by our capacity to act in a humanitarian way.

My committment: There is no place for racism and xenophobia in modern British politics. Nor is democratic debate advanced by the denigration of the most vulnerable in our country, including children and asylum seekers who do not enjoy the right to participate in elections. I promise to remember the importance of refugee protection, even in free and wide-ranging debates about immigration policy. I will never play fast and loose with the proud tradition of a nation that must always offer succour to those in genuine fear of persecution.

See: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/

http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/

Significant stats (6): Earth's population is 80 million higher every year

2 extra people every second, that is 200,000 each day or nearly 80,000,000 per year is human population growth on this planet - all needing food, water, warmth, shelter and aspiring to have good choices and a decent life. There are nearly seven billion people on Earth already. This cant be sustained and we should be doing something about it, which is why I am a supporter of the Optimum Population Trust and keen to encourage debate on this issue. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/mfsspp.html

Significant stats (2): UK population reached 61.4 million in 2008

...having grown 408,000 in the previous year at a rate of 0.7%. More than two million people have been added to the UK population in the last seven years, and our numbers have increased by more than a fifth since 1950 - in less than a lifetime, in one of the most densely populated countries in the world. At a recent growth rate of 0.6% a year, population would reach 100 million before the end of this century, passing 200 million soon after 2200. The most recent projections exceeded the previous four: on 23 October 2007 2006-based population projections released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed expected population growth of nearly 17 million (more than two Londons) to 77.2 million in 2050, and on 19 November 2008 migration figures for 2007 revealed a near record net inward flow of 237,000 people, pushing up population growth to a staggering 434,554. Although a third* of the public believe population growth to be the most serious threat to the future wellbeing of Britain, no political party has a clear policy to reverse it. Act now. Call for an population policy - stabilisation and gradual decrease by 2050. See Fertility, Migration, OPT Policies, OPT Population policy projections and Briefings and Submissions for population policy alternatives.

(The above from the Optimum Population Trust).

More on the issue:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/baby-boom-drives-british-population-to-record-high-1778384.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6098326/Baby-boom-sees-UK-population-pass-61-million.html

Stop the Pope speaking out against condoms: petition

Received the message below today from Jean. I've signed the petition and hope many others will too.

Did you see the Pope's anti-condom speech in Africa? He said condoms could risk increasing the spread of AIDS! This goes against all the research and is a massive set back to years of prevention and education projects on a continent with 22 million men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS. I have just signed this petition which will be delivered to the Vatican asking the Pope to stop speaking out against condoms. A massive global outcry could influence any further statements he makes...just click on the link to add your name to this urgent petition; together, our voices could save lives:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition/98.php?cl_taf_sign=dc63c4204bb886e4d4f31f3ac41b53b4

Thank you!

Further information:

The official position of the UN and the World Health Organization on condoms and AIDS prevention: http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2009/20090319_preventionposition.asp
The Pope's statement opposing condoms
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7951839.stm

European governments criticise Pope Benedict for his statement http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7950671.stm

Condoms 'aggravate' AIDS scourge, Pope says: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=1399781

CNN Report on the Pope’s anti-condom position:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxqvVmgEbg&feature=related

Vatican backtracking on condom statement: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5934912.ece

Growth of the Catholic Church in Africa, see:
http://www.zenit.org/article−18894?l=english
and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29777984/

South African Bishop supporting condom use:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29777984/

UNAIDS Report on the AIDS epidemic: http://www.unaids.org/en/CountryResponses/Regions/default.asp

Greenbelt, housing, roads, population...

Contributed to the online debate about this report, which begins, 'More than 100 protesters held a demonstration in the centre of Bristol to fight plans to build thousands of new homes on the green belt surrounding the city. Members of a number of groups set up by residents in areas threatened with the loss of protected land gathered on Harbourside to voice their protests. From Dundry, Whitchurch and Long Ashton to Shortwood, Siston and Warmley, they travelled to the Architecture Centre, where recently unveiled plans for a new town of 10,000 homes south of Long Ashton have gone on display...' to answer charges of NIMBYISM.

*Anon/David - You are not presenting any genuine argument here at all. You are just labelling, name calling and accusing. Its cheap and easy to use the term NIMBY (not in my back yard).

Huge loss of green space to housing (and associated roads...) adds to climate change, makes us more prone to flooding, destroys wildlife habitat, removes attractive landscape and reduces the area available for our leisure and recreation....and more! It makes meeting many vital social and especially environmental targets that much harder.

Campaigners achieved a great turnout at this protest and are putting fair arguments about why we have green belt, which is supposed to be protected, in the first place!!

______________________________________________________

*I agree very strongly with Sarah about proposing to build more houses on proteced green spaces when there are significant numbers of empty houses - I believe there are 7000 in Bristol alone!

We are also a very long way from exhausting the brown field sites within cities. Classifying land as green belt is meaningless if we are just going to build over it as planned...

I do appreciate the contribution of Peter from Kingsdown however, as it raises a key issue - that of population growth (click to see enlarged graph of UK population growth). We would have the pressure for house building eased considerably and would find many social and environmental targets easier to meet if we could prevent large population growth and preferably reduce it a little from where we are today.

Sustainable Development Commission Chairman Jonathon Porritt has recently called for people to voluntarily have a maximum of two children (and in his latest blog post favours a policy of immigration numbers that equal emigration numbers ie no net increase). If you look at the undeniable arithmetic his view makes good sense.

_______________________________________________________

We should be doing much more to get sex education right, not least because of our sky high teenage pregnancy rate and the rate of various sexually transmitted diseases! Population considerations should form a part of this process.

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/index.html

Bristol City Council: adopt and enact a noise strategy

You may be aware that I've previously expressed concern over the lack of focus on noise pollution in the environment and called for a noise strategy similar to London's to be adopted in Bristol. Many just dont realise the damaging health and wellbeing impacts of noise. A short while ago I contributed to the current Bristol City Council consultation on noise and I will now send in the list of more specific suggestions below:

*Reduce noise through better planning and design, ackowledging that growth in Bristol’s population, housing, air travel and traffic presents great challenges

*Seek to make the most of redevelopment and refurbishment eg through high density, mixed-use developments with quiet outdoor, green spaces

*Establish a Bristol award scheme to promote excllence in relation to design and noise

*Encourage quieter transport eg walking, cycling, electric vehicles

*Build noise reduction into day-to-day traffic management and integrating noise considerations across all council policies – cutting speeds, reducing congestion, reducing stop-start driving where appropriate, smoothing traffic flow, allocating street space better

*Protect existing quieter spaces eg open, green spaces

*Create quieter spaces like: open, green spaces; home zones; 20mph areas; pedestrianised areas

*Seek funding for developing targeted traffic noise reduction projects and for experimentation with fuel cell buses, hybrid-electric buses

*Extend support for the encouragement of smoother and thus quieter, safer, cleaner and cheaper driving eg via driver training

*Maximise the use of noise-reducing surfaces across all roads where they would be effective, primarily faster roads, along with less disruptive and better reinstated streetworks

*Where impacts are highest, protect wider areas from road and other noise using appropriate noise barriers (if/where the issue cannot be immediately tackled at its source) and investigate the integration of photovoltaic power generation into barriers

*Seek the cessation of night flying across the city via lobbying

*Lobby for a national noise strategy which was promised years ago and has not been delivered
and request that councils be given a remit to tackle traffic noise, as is the case in many EU countries.

More information on noise: Defra Bristol City Council

Population: a vital part of the sustainability picture

Excellent post over on Jonathon Porritt's blog about population, originally done for Greenpeace Business but refused because they felt it was too controversial. Below is a brief extract from it. Its well worth a read. The figures, analysis and argument are striking and compelling.

The governments of many of the poorest countries in the world are crying out for financial support for family planning, but are not getting it. The lives of countless millions of women are devastated by their inability to manage their own fertility, and hundreds of thousands die every year because of illegal abortions or complications from unwanted pregnancies. But their voices go largely unheard. On top of all that, every single one of the environmental problems we face today is exacerbated by population growth, and the already massive challenge of achieving an 80% cut in greenhouse gases by 2050 is rendered completely fantastical by the prospective arrival of another 2.5 billion people over the next 40 years.

Being food secure, energy secure, and water secure...is very much harder the higher human population is and the faster it grows. Sex and relationships education the world over has never been more important.

Imposed mass housebuilding makes no sense

Very striking front page image and story in todays Bristol Evening Post. This centrally imposed mass house building move (36,500 inside Bristol's boundary and tens of thousands more around the city) makes no sense at all from a sustainability point of view. Even if the houses themselves were all zero carbon, the land take, resources used in construction, and all the consequent impacts of population increase (forecast to be 30% higher by 2030 in and around Bristol) will significantly raise the local footprint.

Best science and economics tells us we need to be significantly lowering our social and environmental impacts but massive population increase, massive land take for housing and infrastructure and all the pressures on transport, job availability and so on, make this even more difficult than it already was.

Count carbon correctly councillor !!

This post is about the importance, in these days of beginning to count our carbon and measure our footprints, of being accurate and seeing the figures in their proper perspective (something I spend time talking to my environmental technology students about). This is vital if we are to properly assess progress, or lack of it, towards achieving vital emissions reduction targets.

Give Lib Dem Cllr Neil Harrison what is due to him. He has worked persistently on getting the 'Merton rule' on a minimum % of renewable energy in new housing developments, adopted by Bristol City Council and deserves congratulations ('New Bristol homes have to be eco-friendly', Bristol Evening Post, 18 June). Greens have already welcomed his work (see Green Cllr Charlie Bolton's blog).

I must take issue with his comments on the figures in the local press however. He correctly says that Bristol has a target of 60% carbon emissions cuts by 2050 and then says,

'Taking this step [ie 20% renewable energy in all new housing that Cllr Harrison has fought for] will make that achievable and take us closer to becoming a green capital'.

It may take us a bit closer to becoming a green capital as its a step in the right direction but there is no way that taking the step of having 20% renewable energy in all new housing can on its own achieve an overall 60% carbon emissions cut across Bristol by 2050 - anyone can see that the figures just dont add up.

I thought this considerable inaccuracy could be down to reporting quality. However, its seems more likely that Cllr Harrison is either not seeing the figures in their proper context or is blowing his own trumpet too loudly, or both (lets face it, it wouldn't be the first time a Lib Dem has talked up their environmental achievements in Bristol). He says,

'This approach will make a massive dent in the city's carbon footprint in years to come'.

Any effect on the city footprint is very unlikely to be massive since this approach only applies to new housing, a small proportion of total housing, and in any case housing is only one contributor to our total carbon footprint albeit a fairly significant one. [Authors note 22/6/08 - average footprint per household may well go down a bit but total footprint will rise because of the new housebuilding itself. Office for National Statistics projections show Bristol's population soaring by over 30% , from 410,500 in 2006 to 542,800 by 2031, which will affect all plans, targets and work of the council markedly if/when/as it comes about - See 'Huge rise in Bristol's population is looming', Bristol Evening Post, 14 June]

I'm also wondering how the government 'ambition' of all new homes being zero carbon by 2016 is to be achieved in practice. Building firms are already warning about the impact of this on the number of houses that can be built. I strongly agree with the ambition but in 2008 Cllr Harrison has had to work very hard over several months to get the council to agree to just 20% renewable energy in new build housing - there seems to be far too little drive here if the zero carbon ambition is to be achieved.

Vote green for: boosting the local economy; a stable, secure and healthier life; communities that can be sustained; fresh politics!

Copy of my letter below (published in today's Bristol Evening Post), as sent recently, urging voters to reject tired old politics and vote Green. Its a very big day for the Green Party with voting taking place across the country tomorrow (see http://votegreenparty.org.uk/ and http://sianformayor.org.uk/). Greens are on the up - with over 700 candidates standing, a major national newspaper (The Observer) calling for voters to support Sian Berry for London Mayor, and high hopes for continued and even stronger performance in places like Stroud, London, Norwich and elsewhere - so watch this space later this week for comments on results.

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It should be no surpise that food prices are rising, causing many problems here and around the globe, especially for those already extremely poor of course. The problem is that in practice countries have done nothing to create economies that can be sustainable, economically and environmentally. World population has more than doubled since 1950, stimulating demand.


Consumption in countries like the UK and USA is sky high, whilst consumption is very rapidly rising in places like China, India and elsewhere, resulting in fuel use which has more than quadrupled since 1950. More demand for fuel means higher prices.


We have speculation in the wheat market by 'investors' (gamblers). Growing world meat consumption and the use of land to grow plants for biofuels and bioplastics instead of food, in the deeply mistaken belief that it is a green action, has pushed food prices up by stimulating demand.


More people, more fuel use, more resource consumption, more land taken for farming, emissions and efficiencies due to rising meat consumption and the rise in transport intensive lifestyles has resulted in climate change. In turn droughts and floods from climate change have lowered food supplies in key places, putting upward pressure on food prices.


Yet despite what seems to me to be a viscious circle the big political parties continue to promote the same old economic expansionism, high and growing consumption and increasing global trade. In contrast it is economic localisation that we need here and around the world. A stable, secure and affordable economy would result from this approach, creating a conserver society. Our health and general wellbeing and that of our environment would also be much better in such a society and it could be sustained on into the future and around the globe. Voters should thus reject the same old politics, advocating the same old economics from the same people and parties.

More on economic localisation here.