Tuesday 2 December 2014

Whither peak oil?


One of the central ideas that has inspired the Transition movement is the idea that oil will eventually reach a price where it is unaffordable to carry on using it in the way that we are used to. Some time soon, we will reach "peak oil", where the cost of producing oil by whatever means it is available will rise to overtake the commercial benefit of selling it. It has long been assumed that this would be a steady climb, with some wobbles as the market started to adjust to it.

Some customers will realise that they can manage fine without oil, and will simply stop buying it, which will then make it very slightly cheaper for the remaining customers who are more committed. Eventually, the only cases where oil is used will be where it is completely indispensable, and no replacement is available.

This is only one of the considerations for Transition, but a major one. When oil ceases to be cheaply available, there will be less car journeys, less international freight, less plastics and fertilisers, it will really challenge everyone to live more locally and sustainably, quite quickly. Stronger community, stronger local trade and diversity, and simple, wholesome food and water supplies will be fundamentally necessary.

But what we are currently seeing is cheaper oil, and a surprising decision by the main oil-producing countries to maintain production at current levels, which seems set to send prices lower, rather than higher.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/30/falling-oil-prices-gives-west-chance-refashion-policies

This is seen by some commentators as an attempt to counter the US strategy of widespread fracking, and to make these businesses unprofitable, at the cost of losing out on profits themselves. The concept of peak oil is known to those in the industry, and the members of OPEC may be thinking that they can force the US Shale producers to come up against the pain of peak oil earlier than they do.

If oil prices are high, it gives them an incentive to dig up the really difficult reserves, while low prices are more likely to make it unprofitable. The economic costs involved in hydraulic fracturing are extremely high, to say nothing of the enormous human costs of polluted aquifers, poisoned livestock and displaced communities.

One good piece of news is that the Bank of England is now seriously looking into the financial risks that fossil fuels pose for insurance, in terms of the principle that most fossil fuels available are actually "unburnable". While they would produce energy as desired, it would be insane to use of all of them up because of the effect it would have on the climate.

http://politicalcleanup.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/significant-move-from-the-bank-of-englands-governor-as-un-climate-meeting-opens-in-lima/

The outcome of the talks in Lima will help to determine how quickly the really big financial institutions get out of the oil game, when they also come to see that it is "combustible but not burnable!"

Sunday 30 November 2014

Building Biodiversity Gardens at ARU.

This year Transition Cambridge Nature Group are supporting a biodiversity gardens project at Anglia Ruskin University.  The university has seen an opportunity to provide homes for wildlife in their largely unused student accommodation gardens and the Nature Group are supporting the development of these gardens by providing a human labour force.

Saturday 29th November a group of us gathered at Collier Road, to transform 8 turfed and patio covered gardens in to biodiverse havens for flowers, insects, birds and hedgehogs.

We started by digging up the turf, to create bare ground that could then be sprinkled with wildflower seed. Seeds courtesy of the Grow Wild project.

 

 Then we rolled and piled the turf to create dry banks, which will provide the very important bare and dry soil that many insects need for burrowing and breeding.


Then we piled up some logs in the corner of each garden, to create the increasingly loved log pile which provides a home for all sorts of detritus eating invertebrates, like woodlice, and also an opportunity for fungi to thrive.


Finally Geoff, Housing Management Officer at ARU, who is running the project, dug some hedgehog tunnels under the fence between the gardens, to give hedgehogs the opportunity to move easily between gardens. Yey for Hedgehogs, and YEY for Geoff.

Nine of us, managed to biodiversify eight gardens in about 3 hours.  Brilliant work.  And such a simple couple of transformations to make, any of us could do this in our own garden to make a little corner for wildlife.

There will be more gardens to dig in the spring and in the new year we plan to have some workshops to show people how to build wildlife houses.  If you would like to get involved or keep up to date about any events on this theme, then send me your email address and I will add you to our 'Biodiversity Garden' mailing list.

Hope to see you at the garden days.

jadelaurencawthray [at] hotmail.com

Monday 24 November 2014

Wildlife Wanderings - Bramblefields LNR 22/11/14

Despite the threat of rain our monthly wander was a wonderful success, with 12 of us gathering at Bramblefields Local Nature Reserve, hoping to spot the arrival of redwings and fieldfares.  Both are types of thrush that make a winter migration from Scandanavia down to us here in the South East, in search of food to keep them going through the winter.

Whilst we saw a fair few blackbirds and wood pigeons and a couple of spritely squirrels, we didn't manage to see any of the migratory thrushes.  But we did have a fungal extravaganza.

Photo Credit: Oscar Gillespie

Whilst at first we only came across a typical brown jobby, of a mushroom, that we didnt manage to illuminate with a name using the field guide.

Photo Credit: Oscar Gillespie

Then one of our party managed to get her eye in and suddenly we found alsorts of fantastic mushrooms and slimemoulds.  Another couple of the troupe helped us to attach some names to the specimens. We found Sulphur tuft and these amazing Candlesnuff fungus (below) coming up out of the ground and out of rotting twigs.

Candlesnuff fungus - Photo Credit: Graihagh Jackson

We found some growing on the climbing frames, which we observed with gruesome curiosity through a hand lens and then we found, to my GREAT excitement, a pair of earthstar fungus.  Something I had regularly recognised in field guides but never seen in the flesh.


Earthstar (possible collared) - Photo Credit: Graihagh Jackson
But there were more grotesque sights to be found as we stumbled upon, what we could only describe as Giant's snot (not a name that centuries of naturalists had put in the field guide).  This gelatinous goo was some kind of slime mould or fungal body, but we are not quite sure what.  If you know what it is, please do get in touch.

[Giant's snot] - Photo Credit: Graihagh Jackson

And for the grand finale, a treacherous end succumb this bird, when a Sparrowhawk captured it, brought it to the ground and plucked off its feathers.  A ring of feathers like this (below) is a distinguishable sign of a Sparrowhawk kill.  We discussed whether this was wood pigeon, a more common prey for the Sparrowhawk, or some kind of partridge or pheasant, due to some of the feathers being more like that of a fowl bird.

Sparrowhawk feeding evidence - Photo Credit: Graihagh Jackson.


All in all a rather gory, yet fascinating, ramble through Bramblefields nature reserve.

Jade


Wildlife wanderings is a friendly and informal gathering of local people who would like to get to know their green spaces better. We meet once a month at a local nature reserve, park or urban wildlife site and share our knowledge as we investigate signs of wildlife and the changing seasons.  All are welcome.  Simply keep an eye on the Transition events page and the newsletter for up and coming events.

Big Thank You to Oscar Gillespie and Graihagh Jackson ( www.graihaghjackson.com) for the photos.



Sunday 16 November 2014

A transition interview with: Patrick O'Donohoe

The media blog is planning to publish an interview with a local Transitioner every fortnight, to help draw attention to the rich diversity of groups and events, via the incredible people that make them happen. The project starts today with Patrick O'Donohoe from the energy group.


1. Who are you, and what group are you representing?
My name is Patrick O'Donohoe, and I have been part of the TC energy group for several years. I am a software engineer, working for a company in the LED lighting industry - something I think is a major stepping stone to a lower energy future.

2. What have you enjoyed, and what have you learned, during the last year, as part of working with this group?
I think enjoyment and learning are closely related; it's been great to expand my knowledge by interacting with like minded people. We have a lot of practical expertise within the group, which was very useful when it came to reducing my own carbon footprint, especially by making my own house more economical.

I am also grateful for the opportunity to help inform the wider population at our various public events; sometimes it can be frustrating in the face of general apathy, but there are also many people who want to use less energy and just lack the knowledge.  It's very gratifying to be able to give those people information that will help achieve their aims.

3. What are you looking forward to for the next year?
Unfortunately I will miss our Low Energy Lighting forum in November, but we are planning to continue the series of events through the next year. Topics are not finalised yet, but are likely to include heating controls, and financing for eco-retrofit on houses.

4. What question should I have asked you?
I think you should have asked why I became interested in the Transition movement. There are many well intentioned people who vaguely talk about saving the environment, but don't have much clue where to begin; for instance I have seen people thoughtlessly open a window rather than turn the heating down, or boil a kettle full of water then throw most of it away. This is not a question of stupidity, just one of habit; we need to break these bad habits by raising awareness of what "energy" actually means, and Transition is largely about getting this message across. Over the last few decades society has absorbed various good ideas like safe driving and anti-racism, to the extent that they are no longer really "ideas" - we don't ponder these things, we just get on and live them. Surely, we can give the same profile to an idea like energy economy.

Saturday 1 November 2014

Young people and climate change - report by COIN

I've seen some research today by COIN, a small NGO in Oxford, looking at young people's attitudes to climate change. This seems worth sharing, and may be an interesting discussion point. Is it consistent with your own experience?

Today COIN releases ‘Young Voices’, a major new report looking at young people’s attitudes to climate change. Supported by the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics, it is the first study to ask young people themselves how to engage their peers more effectively, and to propose and test new climate change narratives specifically designed to engage 18-25 year olds. Commenting on the study, Dr Adam Corner, COIN’s Research Director, said: “Our research suggests that many young people care deeply and passionately about climate change. However, there has been a collective failure to talk to young people about climate change in a way that inspires them. Too many assumptions have been made by communicators, which haven’t been tested. Working directly with young people we have been able to trial a series of narratives about climate change, providing valuable insights for anyone interested in improving communication about climate change with this group.”

The findings revealed that many current climate engagement strategies may be failing to reach young people. Some of the key findings and recommendations from the report include: For young people, climate change is fundamentally about the ‘here and now’ – describing the effect it will have on future generations, as campaigners and scientists often do, undermines the urgency of the problem. Young people want to hear how climate change relates to (and will affect) those aspects of their everyday lives that they are passionate about - but communicators must take care not to ‘trivialise’ the issue by failing to link the ‘personal’ to the ‘political’. Fighting organised scepticism is mostly seen as a waste of energy by young people – scepticism is relatively uncommon among the young and talking ‘solutions not science’ is a much better approach. Young people often find it hard to talk about climate change with their peers - there was a fear that talking about climate change would set them apart as ‘preachy’ or ‘un-cool’.

There is widespread doubt that there is a ‘concerned majority’ among the general public who support action on climate change - communicating a ‘social consensus’ on climate action may be just as important as the scientific consensus. Young people have very little faith in mainstream politicians – so it makes more sense to ask young people to challenge (not support) politicians on climate policies. Campaign messages should clearly set out what needs to be done – who, when, where and what young people can do to make a difference – and which policy prescriptions support this. Climate jargon is unfamiliar and off-putting – phrases like ‘managing climate risks’, ‘decarbonisation’ and ‘2 degrees’ are seen as hollow and vague. People want to hear about specific policies and how these relate to protecting the things people love and are passionate about. ‘Young Voices’ uses COIN’s unique ‘Narrative Workshops’ method, which explores study participants' values, aspirations and views on climate change before formulating different ‘narratives’ for testing (short pieces of written text that use different language to describe climate change and climate policies). This allows careful attention to be paid to the words and phrases that people respond positively to, and provides a vehicle for building on the core values that underpin public engagement with climate change.

COIN, The Old Music Hall, 106 - 108 Cowley Road,
Oxford, OX4 1JE
United Kingdom

Sunday 26 October 2014

Wildlife Wanderings in Clare Wood on 25th October 2014

By Jade Cawthray (posted by Anna on Jade's behalf)

Wildlife wanderings is a simple project to encourage Cambridge residents to get to know their green spaces that little bit better.  Once a month we meet at a different nature reserve, wildlife site or green space and take a wander together to see what plants and animals are living there.


We were granted the most beautiful autumn day on Saturday, and 14 of us gathered together, along with two children, to walk along Hobson’s Conduit and into Clare Wood. These, along with Bentley Road Paddocks and Empty Common allotments and community garden, make up a wildlife corridor to connect the south Cambridgeshire countryside with the urban ecosystem of the city.  This corridor is being carefully managed and monitored by the council the local wildlife trust and a couple of local businesses to improve it for our wild city neighbours. 

Whilst management of the area hopes to encourage water voles to set up residence and improve the hunting habitat for bats which are known to roost in the area, there are already tawny owls, kingfishers, common toads and grass snakes around the site.

With this being an autumn wandering we were keeping our eye out for fungi, and managed to find a few.  

We decided this was turkey tail Trametes versicolor a common woodland fungi found on rotting stumps and fallen trunks.



We also discovered that it is relatively tricky to match a fungi in the field with fungi in a guide, but we had a good try.


We found this clustered in a group around a decaying tree stump, and we believe it to be the glistening inkcap, Coprinus micaceus, which is described as having egg shaped caps that appear to be pleated, the under side of the gills turning inky black with age and the brittle stem pale in contrast to the cap.

Maybe one of the most surprising things we found in the field connecting our walk to Long Road, was three, yes three, four-leaved clovers.  I couldn’t quite believe it, I had never seen one, never mind three all sat together, and they were big leaves as well.



Here’s the evidence, three four-leaved clovers.  You have to see it to believe it.

As we got closer to Long Road, we divided, with some of our party venturing beyond Long Road with the thought of a good pint over in Grantchester on their minds, whilst the rest of us turned back towards the city, and enjoyed late afternoon sunlight, yellowy orange, beaming through the trees.

A wonderful walk, with wonderful company and some fab fungi.


If you fancy coming along to one of our Wildlife Wanderings our next venture will be at 2.30pm on Saturday 22nd November – location to be confirmed (it will be announced on the Transition Cambridge web-site).

Monday 20 October 2014

Annual General Meeting tonight!

The Transition AGM is tonight, starting at 7.30 at the Friends Meeting House, Jesus Lane, CB5 8BA. This is the biggest meeting of the year for the movement, we'll hear from each of the Transition groups about what they've been up to in the previous year. Our own media group will be reporting about the skillshares that Toni has supported, and this blog here.

It would be really great to know who is reading this, and what you'd like to hear more about. We're hoping to start doing some short interviews to get more regular and interesting content, but are there any topics or local issues that you would really enjoy seeing some research and thinking about?

Hope to see some of you at the AGM.
Best wishes,
Oscar

Monday 13 October 2014

Restart party is a success!

Cambridge's first Restart Party took place at the Cambridge Computer Museum on the 30th September

The Restart Project is a social enterprise that helps people learn to repair their own electronics in community events called Restart Parties and in workplaces.

Would anyone turn up? Would we have enough repairers? Would people be grumpy if they had to wait for their phone/laptop/other electric device to be examined? Would people even find their way there OK? What if . . . You get the idea, I'm one of life's worriers, and if you are too, you'll recognise the mixed feeling of anticipation and anxiety that I experienced as I walked into the Cambridge Computer Museum to set up the welcome area for Cambridge's first Restart Party.

Of course, my worries were needless. Most of the repairers/restarters were all set up before I got there, 23 people turned up with faulty items and hardly had to wait at all to get their items examined, Janet Gunter (Restart Project Founder) came up from London to join in, Stuart Leithes from Anglia TV arrived to film the event and Jason Fitzpatrick from the museum got stuck in with some of the repairs. In short, the first Cambridge Restart Party was a great success.





There are some amazingly talented people in our community with specialised tools, knowledge and skills who are keen to share all these with those of us whose skills lie in other areas. Watching them made me think of an operating theatre, with phones, laptops, loudspeakers prone on a table, their internal organs exposed to the surgical probings of precision tools, eager interns watching, listening, learning and then having a go themselves.

My lasting impression of the evening won't be that X faults were diagnosed, Y items were repaired and Z advice was given. What I'll remember is the atmosphere in the museum . . . busy, co-operative, friendly and fun. People arrived not really knowing what to expect, but left happy and gave us great feedback.

The most asked question was "When's the next one?" We're not sure yet, but keep an eye on the (wonderful all new) Transition Cambridge website for details, or check out the Cambridge Repairers, Menders and Fixers Meetup group.

(Posted by Oscar on behalf of Kate Boursnell)

Sunday 28 September 2014

People's Climate March

On Sept 21st an estimated 600,000 people across the world marched and demonstrated to demand action on climate change. The march in New York was the largest - 400,000 people (!!!) Hats off to Avaaz and 350.org for this immense organisational achievement. If anybody previously had doubted that the public weren't concerned about climate change (and if anyone in power felt they could continue to get away with smothering initiatives to tackle it) they can just look at the pictures here.

The Peoples Climate March in London
In London 40,000 people marched against climate change. As one of the marchers, I felt moved by how unifying the movement to tackle climate change is proving to be, and how unlikely friendships were formed. Climate change has previously had a reputation for causing massive fear, rift and division - as you'd expect from a issue which demands fast, bold state intervention and international negotiation. Were no evidence of this fear required, consider the billions poured by big business into misinformation campaigns, such as those emanating from the Heartland Institute. Corporate lobbyists have been furiously getting to work on what they (rightly) perceive to be a threat to short-term profits: killing legislation that would limit carbon emissions. The mainstream media have been equally quick to promote misinformation, giving disproportionate airtime to climate sceptics.

In London, New York, Rio, Melbourne and around the world, myriad different groups of people held hands to face a common threat. Senior figures from IKEA and Unilever, the actors Leonardo di Caprio and Emma Thompson, Ban Ki-Moon, citizens from Aleppo in Syria, indigenous peoples, people or all faiths and none, all were prepared to lay differences aside and join together in peaceful demonstration.
The Green Heart was a unifying symbol -
fighting climate change is about one's love
for the world, not fear or hatred.

The London Climate March was preceded by a demonstration organised by the Quakers, DANCE and BP or not BP?. A normal day at the British Museum morphed into a theatrical protest, with protesters dressed as oil-covered pelicans and turtles, followed by an 11-minute meditation for the 11 workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon spill (see here for a video of the action).



There was also a multi-faith vigil organised by Our Voices in the Gardens by Temple Tube station. Buddhists, Muslims, Bahai, Jews, Christians, Hindus and humanists all ate lunch together and listened to a prayer written by Desmond Tutu specially for the occasion.

Buddhists Oscar and Manjurava at the Multi-faith vigil

After quite a lot of hanging around, the march finally kicked off, with imaginative placards a-plenty...





I'd like to end with an apology - it seems people have been finding the Transition blog a little arts/spirituality heavy... All those who are into things a little more hands-on - please do get in touch if you want to write a blog post or have us promote your events. We're here for you!

Sunday 14 September 2014

Why don’t we repair things more often?

It is often said that we live in a throw away society. When things break, even if in quite a minor way, we usually replace them rather than mending them. You have a shirt with a frayed cuff, or a pair of trousers with a stuck zip. Maybe someone sat on your book reader and cracked the screen, or your toaster is stuck and doesn’t spring up any more. All of these things are usually easy to repair but we usually don’t bother, because (we think) getting a new one is going to be cheaper in the long run, or less hassle, or because we quite want a new one anyway. But quite apart from the tremendous waste, these things are often not true. Repair can be cheaper, and less hassle, and a new one may not be any better than the old one.

Sunday 3 August 2014

Transition and the Day of Global Climate Action


On September 23rd, in New York, the UN Climate Change Summit 2014 will convene. Ban Ki-Moon (Secretary General of the UN) is calling the Summit as a means of building momentum for the global climate negotiations in Paris in 2015 (COP21). The heads of all UN Member States, as well as finance, business, civil society and local leaders from public and private sectors are expected to attend.

This summit is a great opportunity for citizens of the world who are concerned about climate change to step up and make a noise - at home, in the workplace, but particularly on the streets and in public places. This raises interesting questions for Transitioners - the motto of Transition being 'think party, not a protest'!

I'd argue that it is well within the remit of Transition to raise awareness of climate change - and the joy inherent in resilient living - out there, in public, on the streets.


There is to be a day of Global Climate Action (a working title, 'official' title tba) to coincide with the UN Climate Change Summit 2014. That day is Saturday September 21st. The international campaigning organisation Avaaz has sent out a rallying email to invite concerned citizens to demonstrate in the streets on the day - the essential idea being to march to a government office and hand in a petition for 100% Clean Renewable Energy. This action is one that can unite citizens across the globe, for there is no place where this demand isn't relevant, and where the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry aren't clutching at their dirty, carbon-heavy assets. 350,000 people world-wide have already committed to march!!


The meme for the Day of Global Climate Action is a green heart - representing what we love...

However, in the spirit of Transition, I would call for a musical offering from Cambridge Transitioners on that day. As a composer, I feel that the joy, emotional authenticity and resilience that music and the arts bring us is central to Transition. I hope to write songs for a group of us to sing - I hope other people will too - I hope people will bring instruments (if even just their voices) and simply show the best of most beautiful side of humanity, in the face of our collective blindness and darker side.

Do contact me - dunctonhoney@googlemail.com - if you are at all interested in a musical offering on that day... whether you play Violin Grade 1, the Tin Whistle, the Taize Chant or the Pair of Spoons... 

More info about the day to follow.




Saturday 26 July 2014

The sound of a transitioning world


I have heard a few songs in recent months which have made me think about what the ordinary "man on the street" thinks about the issues which threaten to change our world in a difficult way in years to come. I can't think of a form of media which is more pervasive (and persuasive) than popular music, and it seems a key battleground in the war of climate information vs disinformation. So this is a music review, transition style!

Thrift Shop - Macklemore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=QK8mJJJvaes&feature=kp

Be aware that the lyrics are quite strong. This is a light-hearted hip hop track, which ponders the benefits of shopping in charity shops, and basically recycling perfectly good clothes. In a culture where it's quite normal to pay large sums of money for designer shirts and trainers, this is a really vital outburst of good sense and courage.

It makes fun of the ridiculous fashions which have come and gone in previous decades, and is saying in a modern way: "Personality is more important than designer labels, if you're a decent and likeable person then you can wear whatever you want. If you think that members of the opposite sex will be sincerely impressed by what you wear, then you're deluded."

The neurotic need to buy more things, to gain a measure of status and worth, is one of the biggest problems with the modern capitalist society and we should be grateful for such a well-judged send-up of it.

I could also have mentioned Will.i.am and his song SOS (Mother Nature).

Water Song - Carrie Tree
https://soundcloud.com/carrie-tree/water-song

This is by a young folk singer-songwriter from Brighton, who is clearly aware of the frightening issues that threaten the freshwater and seawater that sustains life on this planet. I think this song is simply beautiful, and seems like a great way to get an important message onto radio stations and in public places.

"Who'd tell our children, what on earth would they say? No you can't drink the water in this world."

Glory to Gaia/I read the news- Cambridge DANCE chapter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ny3sLMQQVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CH4kOaB9wY

The surprise now is that this features a performance by two of the Transition Media team, Kate and Oscar, albeit in a different role. The DANCE project (Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement) mandates local activism in a way that draws attention to environmental issues, taking advantage of local opportunities to get exposure.

Glory to Gaia is a piece by June Boyce-Tillman, which Kate heard at a Great Turning concert at Winchester Cathedral. It normally has 7 different parts, but Kate was able to arrange a version which worked pretty well with only 3 distinct parts!

I read the news is actually written by Kate, and was originally used for the Creative Communities project run by Cambridge Carbon Footprint.

Music is a universal way of communicating, and it's sure that music will continue to have a role in helping people to wake up and make the necessary changes in the world.

Thursday 10 July 2014

Fun at the Big Weekend

Liz and Anna on our stall at the Big Weekend on Saturday

July is a busy time for fairs and one of the biggest is the Big Weekend on Parker’s Piece. People come to wander around and have fun doing an extraordinary range of things – from sliding down a helter skelter to having a lesson in unarmed combat. There are lots of stalls too: this year our pitch was opposite the Wildlife Trusts and next to a food stall selling delicious garlicky potatoes in cream, prawns and other aromatic things. As well as the smells you get a lot of noise: the music blaring out from the main stage ranges from rock to rap, jazz or reggae. And the people are as varied as the music – elderly couples, students, other couples, families with children from age zero up – but everyone is in a good mood and not in much of a hurry – so easy to engage in chat about sustainability and what to do about it.

Thursday 19 June 2014

Thermal Comfort in Older Houses

The Transition Energy Group forum on ‘Thermal Comfort in Older Houses’ went very well on Tuesday – a good turnout, with lots of new faces, excellent speakers and a very switched-on audience. As well as people with questions about their own houses we had a fair sprinkling of building professionals including several architects, a plaster/renderer and building managers – with lots of experience to share. Justin Smith from Cambridge City Council gave us the latest news about the grants available from the Cambridgeshire Solid Wall Insulation Fund (CSWIF) and the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund (GDHIF). Both of these are very new, launched only this month. They are quite similar in some respects – I have written a comparison here on our Green Deal FAQ page.
Jim Ross of Cambridge Architectural Research
explaining about window performance ratings
From my personal viewpoint, here are some messages I picked up that I thought were particularly interesting or important. You might also like to download some of the presentations.

Wednesday 18 June 2014

EcoDharma Buns

It's raining outside this morning - soft, feathery. The sort of rain that comes to mind when I read the Gaelic blessing - one of the oldest in Christian heritage

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be ever at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
And the rain fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand

Across the Anglican Church, the Quakers, the Catholic Church - a broad sweep of Christian denominations worldwide - followers of Jesus are paying attention to the grotesque injustice of the effects of climate change on the poor, and are recognising the need to protect the natural world. And, as in the Celtic blessing, recognising how interknit we are with the soil in which our food grows.

It's not only Christians that are feeling a strong calling to incorporate climate change into their religious worldview. On Sunday 15th June at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, EcoDharma buns came into being - a discussion and shared practice group of Buddhists who are concerned about the state of the world. It did not involve buns, but a fair amount of chocolate, cake and flapjack were consumed... The day was organised and facilitated by Oscar Gillespie, with an opening talk by Yogaratna, and delicious vegan quiche provided by Vimalabandhu. In his talk, Yogaratna stressed the need for an integrated practice. Engagement with world issues - on a political and economic level - low-carbon living, ethical procurement and consuming, activism - these are not add-ons, but as much of the spiritual practice as one's daily meditation.

For me it was very heartening to discover how much reflection and contemplation has been going on surrounding these issues already. Oscar provided a whole glut of material from across the Buddhist tradition - mostly from living teachers who exemplify their beliefs in how they live. Although it can always seem like we're never doing enough in the face of a problem of this scale - huge numbers of people, from all across the world, care. In fact, they profoundly care, and deeply reflect. While the current economic and political systems attempt to smother activism with consumerism, when those systems break apart - as they will - who will guide us? We will look to the prophets, the visionaries - and those who got on with what they had to do.

Thursday 15 May 2014

Climate Change and the Arts: Mary Oliver

After a long silence on this subject, I'm returning to my musings on climate change and the arts. Something that's been preoccupying me is the feeling of belonging, or lack of belonging. Where is the home of the human? Often environmentalists can feel guilty simply for living - that they cannot live without causing some sort of harm. This might be living on a low income, and having to buy Aldi's cheapest, unorganic or air-freighted food (in its plastic packaging), or having to buy cheap clothes, or travel. We feel we shouldn't have children. We feel we part of a species that's got out of control, like wasps, rabbits or cane toads. Such thoughts are not great for one's sense of self worth.

Are guilt and fear good reasons to be an environmentalist? It's good to be honest about these things - the fear one feels. But for a movement to grow, to embrace all, it must have love at its centre. Humans are animals - just like other animals, we need a home, and a place to belong. How can one celebrate life, while being ashamed and apologetic about one's own life, with all its imperfection and the inevitable harm it causes?

This poem by Mary Oliver is a meditation on guilt, belonging, humans and our place in the natural world. For me it helps reforge the links between the human animal and other animals (and non-animal life).



Wild Geese 

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.




Friday 2 May 2014

Why ‘Thermal comfort in older houses’?

The energy group have chosen ‘thermal comfort in older houses’ as the topic for their next forum on 17th June. How come? Seeing as we did solid wall insulation only a year ago in June last year? Back in February we agreed this one would be on solar energy for water heating and the renewable heat incentive. The RHI for homes was expected imminently (and has now been announced - see our finance page).

We changed our minds because of the news that Cambridgeshire has won £5.7 million from the government’s Green Deal Communities fund. The bulk of this cash will be used to subsidise insulation of hard to treat homes including in conservation areas through the Action on Energy scheme (http://www.actiononenergy.net/). This is a wonderful opportunity that we must make the most of. For most people the insulation still won’t be free but there will be up to £6,000 support available per home. The money is supposed to be spent within one year so there is going to be a lot of pressure on Action on Energy to work quickly – we want to do what we can to make sure it is spent wisely.

‘Hard to treat’ is the term DECC uses for houses with solid walls, narrow cavities, steel frame construction and some other categories. They are called ‘hard to treat’ for good reason, especially our lovely old homes with traditional features like bay windows, decorative tiles and plaster on the outside and other special features on the inside. Whether we live in a conservation area or not, we love our homes the way they are so we want to be careful about how we improve them.

 The worst scenario would be if insulation led to damp – there was a presentation given at Ecobuild this year about external insulation leading to all sorts of problem due to poor workmanship and sloppy design. We don’t expect anything like that to happen here. South Cambridgeshire has a good track record with insulation for council tenants and work done under the Green Deal is guaranteed for 25 years. However, especially if you are contemplating work done by other suppliers it is sensible to be aware of the risks. At our last meeting we were discussing damp in general and heard about several examples where it seemed there was more condensation after insulation was installed. There was one case where both loft and cavity wall insulation were installed but because of the shape of the house some areas were missed out – and those were the areas where mould developed. In this case it should be easy enough to fix but it would have been even easier if the installer had predicted the problem and put in extra insulation at the start.

This is why we have chosen to explore insulation and other options in more detail and we are delighted to have found expert speakers - Jason Dorks from Natural Building Technologies and Jim Ross from Cambridge Architectural Research - who have many years experience of retrofit in older homes, including listed buildings. Our aim is to give people who might be considering insulation an idea of what to expect and what choices they will need to make. Some may decide not to go for wall insulation at all, preferring to concentrate on windows or managing draughts and ventilation. No two homes are the same and what is right for one won’t be right for another. Also we will have two group members as householders with recent experience. Patrick has just got to the end of a big building project on his home and Peter will be in the process of getting work done by Action on Energy. It is going to be a very interesting evening.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Woohoo for Wonky Veg!

Last Sunday was Cambridge's third Liberated Feast. [when I wrote that last sentence, it was indeed last Sunday. It is now three or so weeks ago...] If you haven't heard of Liberated Feasts yet, they are the brainchild of Jennie Debenham, and they are a celebration of food that supermarkets think we won't buy. This may be the banana that's not the same uniform size and shape of its brothers and sisters down the aisle, or else the rather over-enthusiastic thigh-width leek. At the Third Liberated Feast, the food that was served was a combination of food rejected by supermarkets and food donated by local farmers.

The Feast was held at St Paul's Centre on Hills Road, 7.30pm. We were all seated on long, Hogwarts-style tables, and serenaded by a variety of musicians. While food was somewhat long in arriving (with a handful of sweating volunteers ladling soup and hurrying in and out of the kitchen), getting to know my Feast-neighbours passed the time very nicely. I would estimate a hundred or so Feasters, most of whom were unknown to me. I was opposite Jessica, who works for the University press office, and Alistair, who works for the Red Cross.

The starter was a pale, parsnipy soup. Chatting to Liz Serocold and Bev Sedley, we couldn't quite work out what all the different flavours were - the combination was a treat. Following the soup, the main course was a fascinating mezze of sprouting broccoli, Baba Ghanouj, Unidentified-Greenish-Dip, kale crisps and other tasty tidbits. The desert was fruit crumble or chocolatey-biscuit thing. All courses were delicious and well worth the wait. The fact that this food would otherwise have been squashed beneath plastic in a hole in the ground somewhere as methane-oozing goo made one particularly appreciate it.

Many thanks to Jennie and all volunteers for liberating that feast for us!


Saturday 12 April 2014

Creative Communities

Last weekend I was helping to organise the Creative Communities event, a Cambridge Carbon Footprint event led by Amy Ross and supported by Kate Honey and a few other fantastic people from a range of inter-faith backgrounds. The idea of the event was to get people from different religions to get together, and talk about how our beliefs affect our engagement with issues around the environment.

The idea is that all of us have something in common - a belief in something greater than us, which could be a way to find the inspiration and resources to make the necessary changes if we are to live consistently with what needs to be done to prevent further climate disasters. Inter-faith work can be delicate though, it's easy to find the differences before you find the commonality, and find yourselves moving further apart.

Aware of that, the event focussed on unity and used games, music and prayer to promote it. We played a match-and-chat game first of all, finding one other person with the same numbered ticket as us, and finding out more about their interest in the environment. We had some beautiful singing sessions, led by Kate, including one lovely tune that she had composed for the event. And also, a lovely pair of songs by a Baha'i gentleman called Peter.

One really remarkable thing about the day was that there were lots of children, and the event really seemed to meet their need for play and colour, thanks to the forward thinking of Portia and Jessa. They ran around and played happily throughout, reminding all of us that caring for the planet is also caring for the futures of the next generation of people.

Sunday 30 March 2014

Climate Change and the Arts: The Great Turning

Hello all! After a long break (necessitated by looming composition deadline) I am back to blog about climate change/Transition/finding solutions to pressing world issues and the arts.

Winchester Cathedral nave
Last Thursday, I took the train down to Winchester, because that evening was the world premiere of The Great Turning, a massive musical work for a choir of 120+ and orchestra, composed by June Boyce-Tillman. The Great Turning is based on Stories of the Great Turning, edited by Peter Reason and Melanie Newman: a collection of stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help a planet in peril.

The contributors to 'Stories of the Great Turning' include a former businessman, brought to a personal crisis by the sudden death of his wife and seeking a new direction in life; a PhD student turned whale-saving activist; a Frome-based poet who organised a Funeral for Extinct Species ceremony;  a married couple who install an innovative hydroelectric scheme at their property in Wales; a woman who launches a project to help disadvantaged young people grow vegetables in skips by King's Cross station; and a young woman who makes beautiful lingerie out of old clothes, amongst many others.

While the achievements of the contributors were not always flashy (nor always obviously 'achievements' or 'successes'), what was most heartening was that they changed the direction of the contributors' lives from life-draining to life-sustaining - a personal transformation we can see occurring planet-wide amongst individuals and communities.

Back to the music, and to Winchester Cathedral. June Boyce-Tillman is one of those fantastic contemporary composers you've never heard of (rather like all contemporary composers. New composition didn't stop with Vaughan Williams, by the way). Her specialism is in writing music that can be performed by everyone: children and singers who couldn't read music were all present in the 120+ singers who performed The Great Turning. Unlike much contemporary music, Boyce-Tillman's musical language is lyrical and accessible, while retaining emotional depth and sincerity.

The Great Turning was written for eight children's choirs, six community choirs and the Southern Sinfonia ( a professional orchestra). The work was structured in five sections, borrowing from the philosophy of one Joanna Macy: Act Your Age, Gratitude, Encountering the Darkness, Dare to Dream and Join Hands Across the World. The words were also written by Boyce-Tillman, who often lifted passages straight from the book and reworded them.

At around 8.20pm the sound of a gong resonated through the cathedral, followed by sombre, awe-inspiring chords in the heavy brass. What happened next had an extraordinary sonic effect: the children all processed down the nave,  beating together two pebbles. The sound of all the pebbles merged together into a hissing sound that swept along the cathedral, echoing into the all the recesses and up to the distant roof. As the children reached the quire, all voices were raised: 'Come, Gaian beings, we form parts of the earth. In honouring and sharing we bring new life to birth...'

The musical scope of the piece is too epic to sum up in a blog post. A high point for me was the distinctly pagan 'Glory be to Gaia', which owed much to renaissance liturgical music. There were also catchy sing-alongs for the children, such as 'Growth, *boom* growth *bang* economic growth *crash* more and more and more and more and more....' which I was humming all the way home. Probably the most succinct description of that particular economic ideology I've yet heard...

See here for Vala Publishers, the super co-operative who published Stories of the Great Turning!





Sunday 23 February 2014

Follow the van

I was recently privileged to cater for the Food for a Greener Future conference, and got to hear some great talks in the afternoon after lunch. The most interesting part for me was the workshop right at the end, where Jacky Sutton-Adam and Duncan Catchpole discussed the Transition Food Hub and invited everyone in the audience to say something about what the concept meant to them.

This was a chance to get a consensus about what Cambridge needs, how to address perceived issues with food and community, and potentially begin a new profit-making spinoff from the Transition community. The appetite in the room was clearly for a space where sustainable food could be sold - and where people could come together. There was some murmurs about including educational activities, selling CamBake bread, and a definite preference for a venue somewhere central with a shopfront that could provide a visible site.

Potential visibility is a massive benefit that I would love to see the Hub project explore, and I'm going to restate my suggestion for a mobile hub after a little bit of research.

The challenge of a static site is that property rental costs are so high in Cambridge, that it seems hard to imagine even a temporary makeshift site being affordable. And as with the Cafe Project and Cambridge Carbon Footprint, being evicted by the landlord would be quite a setback after working really hard to get people turning up. Perhaps there is a way to find a permanent home for a sustainable local food enterprise, I would love to see this, but I am afraid that it might be too well-hidden to get the custom it deserves.

I'd like to seriously think about having a Transition food truck, fitted out to run off solar energy and cooking oil, and weaving a route through business parks, community kitchens and schools. The benefit of this approach would be that the vehicle acts as both marketing and point-of-sale, popping up in the city and the villages making people think "What's that beautiful, positive, hopeful thing doing here?".

Transition doesn't have the resources to advertise heavily in the press or the busy places, but the word of mouth and social networks have a limited extent. In fact there were some legitimate concerns at the conference that the attendees were white, middle-class, middle-aged and upwards, and the message wasn't getting out beyond that very small group. A hub bus would be able to both sell to and engage with diverse groups, and learn a great deal about what is really in demand in the wider populace. Organic food is seen as expensive, vegetarian food is seen as bland, these ideas can be challenged more effectively by lunches than by lectures.

A bus or a van would also be flexible enough to respond to opportunities - travelling to festivals and invitations, while learning which areas generate enough revenue to maintain running costs. It would be able to resell on behalf of community bakeries, chefs and farms if the terms were good, perhaps even working with Outspoken couriers to fulfil deliveries for each other.

Spare room could either be used for storing additional food, seats for outdoor occasions, or projector equipment for showing Transition related films. The van might even be kitted out as a mobile library for some situations.

Financially, most of the cost would come in terms of set-up, rather than in terms of monthly expenditure. This seems more suited to the type of money that could be raised from a council or developer grant, or from investment - a predictable cost that can be budgeted, and a liquid asset.

Perhaps the team who take this on could focus on generating turnover to begin with, turning up at large office buildings with delicious food to buy, and proving the concept of the hub bus so that the outreach and education activities can be gradually brought online while keeping the balance sheet healthy. Opportunities to reduce food waste and to create community will reveal themselves every day, and a digital presence can also take shape.

The next step would be to contact green businesses who have tried similar things, The Big Lemon and Buddhafields Cafe for two examples, to seek out more advice about costs and processes. I will offer to do that myself if there is a enough interest in the idea.

The Big Lemon is a public transport company in Brighton which uses cooking oil for fuel
http://www.thebiglemon.com/aboutUs/FAQs/default.asp

A detailed breakdown of setup costs for a Food Truck in New York, in dollars.
http://upended.net/post/25574021175/foodtruckstartupcosts



Wednesday 19 February 2014

Community Energy Trumps Gales and Romance

Valentines Day this year brought no let-up in the storms so I was really pleased to see about 40 people come to the Transition Cambridge Energy Group forum on Community Energy – many of them even came by bicycle.  The program featured three local schemes in various stages of completion: Mike Brettle talked about the Gamlingay Wind Turbine project, installed in May last year, Andy Rankin described the Reach Solar Farm project, now waiting for planning permission, and Stuart Dyer gave us an update on the Cambridge Community Energy company, which hasn’t definitely got a site yet but we are sure enough to go ahead and register the co-op. Also Paul Rewrie of PR Accountants described some tax breaks available to renewable energy investors. Cambridge is rather a slow starter compared to Oxford, with several installations already completed, but people commented to me how exciting it is that things are happening here too at last.

There didn’t seem to be much controversy about whether or not community energy generating schemes are a good idea. There were questions about the financial side: Can I use my pension fund to invest? (Answer yes but you won’t get all the tax breaks you do normally) and: Will you only allow local investors? (For Reach it seems that local will definitely include Cambridge).

Also there were concerns about the equipment: Which bit of a wind turbine usually fails after 20-25 years? (answer none, they may last much longer, but they are often upgraded before then anyway).

Mike made some very interesting recommendations about how to get support from local residents – their planning application got twice as many positive comments as negative ones which is amazing for a wind turbine project. The CCE scheme probably won’t need planning permission but Reach is in planning now and we are keeping our fingers crossed.

You can download some of the slides from the presentations on the CCE website here and on the Reach website here. Also both websites let you signup for a newsletter and if you are interested in helping to get CCE going let me know or use the email address on the website contact page.

Saturday 8 February 2014

The Work that Reconnects


It was a happy day for me when a mentor of mine recommended the book Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone (see link below). Subtitled 'How to face the mess we're in without going crazy', the book is a practical guide to what is variously known as 'despair and empowerment work', and 'the work that reconnects'. The Work that Reconnects is trailblazing in its emphasis on personal transformation in this time of crisis.

In particular, the Work that Reconnects is the antidote to the frozen, numb sort of feeling that can arise when one is aware of the huge crises facing our planet, and suppresses the rage and grief that this knowledge can bring up. This suppression is quite understandable - these emotions are can be inconvenient to manage while one is attempting the stressful juggling act of 21st-century living. The rage and grief can be awkward in social settings, and one can feel the threat of being swallowed up by emotions and responsibilities unmanageable by a single, concerned individual.

It is this numbness that Joanna Macy argues is the dam in the river of interconnectedness that weaves each individual into the web of life (to mix my metaphors). It is our interconnectedness that causes us pain when rainforests are slashed and burned, when reefs are bleached, when broken Syrian families flee to refugee camps.

To quote Macy, interconnectedness is no picnic. But it is a life saver.

On February 2nd, Transition Cambridge hosted a Work that Reconnects workshop in Newnham Croft Primary School, near Paradise Nature Reserve. It was a very special and enlivening day with an eclectic range of participants (would estimate 12-15 of us; I wasn't counting). The workshop had five facilitators, from the veteran to the first-timer: Anna McIvor, Bev Sedley, Liz Serocold, Nicholas Wilkinson and Kate Honey. 

The day was modelled around the spiral of the Work that Reconnects: Gratitude, Honouring Our Pain for the World, Seeing with New Eyes and Going Forth. One exercise we participated in was completing open sentences in pairs (one scribe and one mindful listener). The sentences included 'If you knew you could not fail, what would you do for the healing of the world?' Another exercise was the Mirror Walk: one partner leads the other, who has their eyes closed, through a garden. They guide their partner to a beautiful object, which the parter explores by touch before opening their eyes. My favourite exercise was when we were all asked to mentally voice our most burning question. As we internalized this question, we wandered through Paradise Nature Reserve, and let the sights, sounds and smells of nature offer us their timeless wisdom.

May all beings be well!


Joanna Macy: 'The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world - we've already been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millenia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other...'

http://www.activehope.info
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Active-Hope-without-Going-Crazy/dp/1577319729

Thursday 6 February 2014

Climate Change and the Arts - Gary Snyder

For me this poem encapsulates the ambiguity of the times we live in. No one alive today can predict what the world will be like in the 22nd century (imagine someone from the 19th century trying to predict the events of the 20th!) This is an area where intuition and emotional response can tell us as much as the intellect.
May we all learn to... well, I won't spoil the last three lines of the poem.


FOR THE CHILDREN
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.
In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
--Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder (b. May 1930) was an American Beat poet,  Zen practitioner, environmentalist and
general free spirit. Google him. 

Thursday 23 January 2014

Climate Change and the Arts


I’m writing this series of posts about climate change and the arts because I believe that the current ecological, social and economic crises facing us (of which climate change is arguably the greatest) require radical internal transformation – transformation in the heart, mind and perception, as well as in our civilization.

Climate change is a big, scary issue. It is particularly scary because so much of its implications are unknown. The more we find out about it, the worse its implications seem to be. Whether it’s methane bubbling up through the permafrost; the jewel of biodiversity – the Amazon rainforest – shriveling to savannah; the boreal forests of North America being eaten alive by beetles; it would seem that our natural life support systems are falling apart quickly and brutally. 

But scarier even than that is the ‘business as usual’ mentality that those in power have succumbed to – whether it’s the European Commission setting a pathetic, industry-appeasing target to cut emissions, or countries sabotaging international agreements to please business lobbyists.  Where is the transformation, and the change of direction?

I would argue that the greater the crisis seems to be, the more potential there is for truly great, transformative art. Art that knows the foibles of human nature – how hard we try, how we cock up, how violent and selfish and how deeply enlightened and compassionate humans can be. There is plenty of debate going on about art and morality – for example, how a great composer like Wagner can be anti-Semitic. But great art can escape its maker. When a crisis and huge suffering seems inescapable, when there’s nowhere to hide but a dying planet, when all you can do is question ‘can we come through this? Are we capable?’ there is a space for the arts, and for spirituality. We can become a force for love and beauty, greater than ourselves. The planet speaks (or sings?) through us.

I will focus on composers, bands and poets, and discuss a work of poetry/music/film/art that I’ve found has helped me. I hope it helps you too. Watch this space for further updates!