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2020 Vision Competition
The Competition
This is a competition open to all folks in USA and Canada. Simple. Give us your 2020 Vision in 135 characters or less on twitter. Don’t forget to add the hashtag #2020V so Planet Positive will pick their favourite!
The Prize
We have teamed up with the folks at ALLMODERN for an exciting opportunity to win beautifully designed eco products; tranSglass Lidded Carafe or a Double Vase (winner gets to choose whichever one they prefer). With its recycled origins and sleek, fluid design, tranSglass conveys a positive attitude towards the environment, affirmed as an Artecnica Design With Conscience project. Combining old-world craftsmanship and sophisticated design, each tranSglass vessel is a unique, one-of-a-kind piece. tranSglass is included in the permanent collection of MoMA New York. All Modern offers a fantastic selection of contemporary furniture, home accessories and lighting from eco-friendly brands like Emeco, DwellStudio, Greenington, Knoll and more!
About Our Campaign
2020 Vision is a communications campaign which providing people with a clear view of how their lives will be better by 2020 in a greener, low carbon world. We will equip individuals with a reduction guideline that will enable them to reduce their emissions by over 42% by 2020.
It is specifically designed to provide a vision of our low carbon lives that we can achieve by 2020. We will also invite environmental leaders, scientists, businesses and NGO’s to provide their vision. We have already filmed the visions of over 40 individuals that play a role in the business, politics or science of Climate Change such as Lord Nicolas Stern, Joan Ruddcok – DECC, Jeremy Leggett – Founder of Solar Century, Caroline Lucas – MEP Green Party, Chris Rapley – Head the Science Museum, Zac Goldsmith – Chairman of The Ecologist, Richard Brown – CEO Eurostar, Lord Turner, and awaiting the visions from Vice President of the Maldives (to be sent to us) and Jonathan Porritt – Forum for the Future. We will upload these videos and other vision onto our website where all people will be able to upload their 2020 vision by means of video, pictures, artwork or written word (via youtube, flickr )
Guy B
Cliamate Bill Passes
Climate Bill Passes Congress
Today The US House of Representatives has passed a climate change bill aimed at reducing the country’s emissions.
The legislation will put curbs on pollution and apply market principles to attempts to tackle global warming.
It was passed by a narrow margin of 219 votes to 212. President Barack Obama said the vote represented “enormous progress”.
But the bill still has to be passed by the US Senate before it can become law, and it faces another tough fight.
“Today the House of Representatives took historic action with the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act,” Mr Obama said after the vote. “It’s a bold and necessary step that holds the promise of creating new industries and millions of new jobs, decreasing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.”
Details of the bill are as follows
· To cut emissions by 17% below the level in 2005 by 2020, then by 83% by 2050 · Imposes national limits and requires polluters to acquire emissions permits · Permits are either free (85%) or bought at auction (15%) · Permits can be traded, allowing major polluters to offset surplus emissions
I have worked in the USA for over 8 years and believe me when I say, this is an historic day and Congress needs to be congratulated. However, this brings America to the place where it should have been over 5 year ago and as the bill still has to pass through the Senate and given the resistance that is still ot there, it is clear that there is still much work to do!
Guy Battle
Nobel Laureates Save The World
The participants of the St James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium agreed on a Memorandum, which urges “governments at all levels, as well as the scientific community, to join with business and civil society to seize hold of this historic opportunity to transform our carbon-intensive economies into sustainable and equitable systems.”
(IDW) For three days more than twenty Nobel Laureates have debated the dimensions of climate change and the current global sustainability crisis with some of the world’s leading climate scientists, politicians and business leaders. The participants also discussed strategies to meet these challenges. With the symposium’s patron, The Prince of Wales, present, the St James’s Palace Memorandum was signed in London today. The US secretary of energy and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu was one of the keynote speakers at the symposium. “After the cold war, mutually insured disarmament was the logic of good global governance. Facing the global climate challenge, mutually insured emissions reductions should become the logic”, says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), who initiated the Global Sustainability Symposia series. As stated in the Memorandum, in a spirit of trust, “every country must act on the firm assumption that all others will also act”. The participants of the symposium call for a global deal on climate change “that matches the scale and urgency of the human, ecological and economic crises facing the world today”. Climate impacts such as droughts, sea level rise and flooding could lead to mass migration and conflict. “Political leaders could not possibly ask for a more robust, evidence-based call for action,” the signatories state in the Memorandum. They identified as key requirements an effective and just global agreement on climate change, low-carbon energy infrastructure and tropical forest protection, conservation and restoration. I am particularly encouraged by the Symposium’s call for a Low carbon Infrstructure to decarbonise our society. This is not a passive solution , but rather a solution that activley REMOVES carbon…at last!. In a leading article in the Times, Chu says ‘Under Mr. Obama, America is embracing a leadership role in addressing the world’s energy and climate change problems. At home, we are committed to reducing our carbon emissions by more than 80 per cent by 2050, and a key committee in the US Congress passed a Bill last week to do just that. Abroad, the United States has pledged’
The good news this time is that the US secretary of Energy was on the inside of the circle and therefore at the very heart of the debate. I am looking forward to seeing some real action.
GB
Symposium Statement (pdf)
Science Alone is Not enough!
An exciting new theme is beginning to emerge in our post expenses scandal world (UK). David Cameron announced today a number of wide sweeping proposals for giving us, the people more power. This is on top of what I perceive as a growing demand for greater community involvement in the fight against climate change. Tariq Tahir writes in The Guardian 19th May 2009 about the need to engage society more proactively in the process and about the need for research monies to be put into the social side of research. In a nut shell he is saying that it is all very well developing new technologies, but if no one can or wants to use them , then what’s the point. Prof Paul Wellings, chairman elect of the 1994 research committee says argues that it is not enough to simply rely on science and technology to come up with the answers we need. Looking at individuals’ behaviour and getting them to change is as important as new technology. Sarah Curtis at Durham University goes on to say that ‘ I would argue that what’s important to people and how they tackle problems is not just down to individual characteristics but also to the social circumstances they are in’. She goes onto to call for a national debate between technical and social scientists. Diane Berry at Reading University echoes this argument saying that ‘ success in markets, which many people might assume to be dominated by technological advances, depends just as much on factors such as design, economics, branding and consumer understanding. Similarly, effectively tackling some of the most significant health and environmental challenges will depend just as much on changing people’s behaviour as on advances in medicine, physics or chemistry’. For me, these comments go to the heart of where the debate and action now needs to take place – Within Our Communities. Let the debate begin and David, give us the power to act!
Planet Positive Orgiva!
Orgiva is a sleepy town in southern Spain. I count it as home turf and this is a proposal to make the first town in the world to go Planet Positive. For those of you who are interested you can down load it planet-positive-orgiva Happy reading. If it does not come through, then email me at guy@planet-positive.com Enjoy what remains of the day! GuyB
American Politics (& what the hell is BP doing)
I remain bemused and frustrated by US politics. How come your public representatives can openly get paid by and support ‘vested interest’ even though it may not be in the best public interest. I know that we are going through our own problems over here in the UK, but the issue at stake is Obama’s Climate Bill. The bill is aimed at giving the USA a cap and trade system. Obama has the majority in both houses and it should be a matter of course (with a few republican defections) getting the bill passed. And yet there are a number of democrats who still may scupper the deal. The reason why?- well they are paid by the oil industry to lobby against the bill! Climate change is our biggest challenge, without the US there will be little chance of a climate deal, the evidence is all around us and yet there is still resistance. More importantly these people seem as though they can be bought for short term personal gain! I list their names and the money they are being paid to turn against the bill (All names and numbers thanks to the Guardian 13th May 2009 pp 15) · John Dingell, Michigan - $457,100 · Rick Boucher, Virginia - $359,151 · Charles Melancon, Louisiana - $199,600 · Jim Matheson, Utah – $160,197 · Gene Green(!), Texas - $142,449 · Mike Ross, Arkansas - $119,743 · Mike Doyle, Pennsylvania – $110,250 · Charlie Gonzalez, Texas - $98,250 · John Barrow, Georgia – $93,743 · GK Butterfield, North Carolina, $51,050 · Baron Hill, Indiana - $46,100 · Betty Sue Sutton, Ohio - $16,600 If you know them or have access to them, please tell them they need to support the bill as it represents the only way forward, for a better and safer world with more jobs and new opportunities. Finally, I note from the article that BP is supporting the new anti-climate PR campaign . This is BULLSHIT. How could they pretend to be so green and environmental then do this. BP, I once admired you as a leader in your field. I now know that you are full of horseshit and we can’t trust you! GuyB May 14th 2009
Why Work?
According to Tom Hodgkinson, author of ‘How to be free’ we should be thank ful if we are ‘lucky enough’ to lose our jobs. Less stress, less boss and more free time to do what we want- you will even save money due to less travel and less going out with your boring colleagues! Personally, I would be reduced to a quivering ball of stressed out jelly if I lost all my income overnight and so I am not sure I totally agree with his laid back thoughts. However, he does have a good point about taking redundancy as an opportunity to redefine what your life is all about and if you really are fed up of working for a big corporate, then why not reduce your costs and work for yourself and take the time to disover life outside of the 9-5. Mmm….I will give it a go this weekend, but then back on the grind mill and out to Abu Dhabi on Monday for some more dirty lucca to keep the family fed for the rest of the week!! Happy Weekend GuyB
Anaconda Wave Power
An eeerie looking new wave power solution I heard about on the radio today. It works by using oncoming wave motion to excite another ‘bulge wave’ within a rubber tube that in turn drives a turbine producing electricity. Each one can produce up to 1MW power ( sufficient for 1000 homes). Looks fantastic in the photo, but 5 years from full time operation as they now have to build and test a full prototype. Congratulations to The Carbon Trust who has supported it financially to date, but they are on the hunt for more funding…. This is just the sort of innovative research that UK Govt should be investing into rather than dumping more money into the redevelopment of Trident or even so called ‘Clean Coal’. Anyone got any other innovative ideas? Guy Battle
The Earth Has Rights Too
Fascinating article yesterday in The Guardian (04.05.09 -Wild side of the law) describing a new paper by Begonia Filgueria and Ian Mason published by the UK Environmental Law Association. The paper describes proposals for a new law that would give The Earth rights in the same way that The UN Charter Human Rights gives people rights. In essence this would mean that in law speak, businesses would have a duty of care towards the earth and its eco-systems and that if this duty of care was seen to be broken, then recompense could be sought or action prevented. This would lead to the development of The World Charter for Nature that would enshrine our human duties and responsibilities towards the planet. Imagine this; In any court of law, where the earth was being substantially impacted then the Earth would have the right to be represented by a lawyer who would fight for compensation and its rights to exist in peace! Most importantly, the authors argue, such a document would stop us talking about the earth as if it was a resource to be used ( and pillaged) but to treat it as an entity that has its own rights. “Earth Jurisprudence is the cutting edge idea whose time has come. This report is an essential guide to its possibilities for fulfilling the vision of human nature and harmony through practical law.” - Satish Kumar, environmentalist, ecologist and educator I love it! Guy Battle
The Trouble with Climate Change
The trouble with the climate change message is that it is soooo negative…!! I know that you all know that the picture is bleak (especially if you read my last blog) and that the result of inaction is dire indeed. The trouble is that this picture of doom and gloom is not getting through and just seems to make most people switch off - The Result, Nothing ever changes! And so here at Planet Positive we have decided to turn things on its head and have started the 2020 Vision Campaign. 2020 vision focusses on the positive and describes just how better life will be IF we change and take action; A Goal Worth Fighting For! To build this vision we have been visiting scientists, celebrities, polticians and people in an effort get their 2020 Planet Positive vision recorded. So far we have Lord Stern, Caroline Lucas ( Green Party), Zac Goldsmith (Ecologist) and few others. But we need more. Any ideas?
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