We’re proud to be a media partner of the London based ‘HUB Eco Series’ which is an environmental debate series based in London, UK. On this page you will find the upcoming events and blogs about the events.
Envisioning “The World We Made” in 2050 – Jonathon Porritt at the HUB Eco Series
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Photo credit: The HUB Eco Series |
Friederike is a Projects Manager at Project Dirt.
The HUB Eco Series – The World We Made: Visions of a Sustainable Future
Climate Blood Sport
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HUB Eco Series: Scrutinising how to engage sceptics |
Last Thursday I was invited to Chair a great session at the HUB, Islington in London, UK, as part of their HUB Eco Series of environmental dialogues, discussions and debates. Entitled ‘Weapons Down! Tackling scepticism; How can we most effectively communicate climate change?’ the event sought to take the rambunctious and righteous rage out of the climate debate and seek more empathic, nuanced ways of engaging sceptics. It was an intriguing evening…
- The ‘Pig-headed’ or those of unshakeable conviction – i.e. those whom when asked the question ‘What evidence would you need to make you change your mind?’ have no answer i.e. their minds are made up. (Interestingly this question could also be used on climate activists!)
- The ‘Make-believers’ or ‘Fantasists’ who rely on heresy, pseudo-science or outright wackery to bolster their case.
- The ‘Naturalists’ who maintain the Earth is in a ‘warm period’.
- The ‘Economists’ who argue that business priorities come first, that the cost of action is too high, and whom discount the risks.
- The ‘Guilty’ i.e. those for whom the cognitive dissonance of high carbon lifestyles and the reality of climate change is too much, so they disregard climate change. Exemplified by the slightly self-conscious binge-flyers in the room.
- The ‘Powerless’ and ‘Insignificant’ who believe they can’t make a difference.
- The ‘So What?’, ‘Techno-fixers’ and ‘Singularitarians’ who believe we’ll find a way through, innovate and cyborg our way out of this mess.
- The ‘Lawson-esque’ ridiculers and innuendo insinuators who dismiss climate concern with a snide remark, or a sarcastic sneer.
- The ‘Western/Developed World Conspiracy Theorists’ in India who believe climate change is a ruse to arrest their development.
- The ‘Chindians’ or ‘Populists’ who deride action in the face of Chinese and Indian carbon emissions or identify population growth as the real problem.
- The ‘Apocalypse Myth-ers’ who think climate change, like nuclear Armageddon, is our generation’s cultural Doomsday myth.
- The ‘Realists’ who believe that if climate change was REALLY, really important then we’d already be doing something about it, right?
- The ‘Cultists’…does exactly what is says on the tin. It’s a cult!
- The ‘Contradictorians’ who feel the mix of conflicting and incoherent scientific stories proves the uncertainty.
SO WHY ARE WE FAILING TO SOLVE CLIMATE CHANGE?
These are the questions that authors Duncan Clark and Mike Berners-Lee attempt to answer in their new book ‘The Burning Question’, and we are delighted that Duncan Clark will be joining us for a discussion at our upcoming HUB Eco Series event at HUB Islington on the 25th of June: The Burning Question: Why are we failing to tackle climate change?
The issue is complex and the authors explore and evaluate everything from behaviour change to economic growth and fossil fuel investments, in which the world’s richest countries are gambling with the livelihoods of billions of people. Bill McKibben, activist and founder of 350.org, suggests in his Foreword to the book (also featured in a recent Rolling Stone Magazine article) that the climate problem can be narrowed down to three significant numbers: two degrees, the number agreed on by 191 of the world’s countries, that we must limit warming to, to have a chance of avoiding runaway climate change; 575 gigatons, the amount of carbon we can continue to pour into the atmosphere to stay below two degrees of warming; and finally the last and most terrifying number of all, 2795 gigatons, the amount of proven fossil fuel reserves which are now being traded on international markets and of which we can only burn a fifth, if we are to stay below two degrees.
Event review: A brighter, cleaner, community owned energy future IS possible
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The Panel. Photo: Simon Scarfe. |
Tuesday 29th of January saw the launch of the HUB Eco Series, an event series hosted by HUB Islington in London, with the intention of creating positive debate around the key national and international environmental issues of our time. The Eco Series is a collaborative initiative between myself and green campaigner Kirstie Wielandt.
Tuesday’s launch event was devoted to the subject of community energy, and featured a distinguished speaker panel consisting of Agamemnon Otero, Founder of Repowering South London and Co-Director of Brixton Energy, Howard Johns, Founder of Ovesco and Southern Solar, Clare Hierons, CEO of Carbon Leapfrog and Nigel Farren, Founder of Energise Barnet.
The HUB Islington venue, on the fourth floor of an atmospheric converted Victorian warehouse behind Angel Islington tube station, was packed to the rafters with 70 guests from across the HUB’s London networks, local transition town groups, industry experts and environmental activists.
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Agamemnon Otero & Howard Johns. Photo Simon Scarfe. |
Howard Johns of Southern Solar (also Brixton Energy’s installer), highlighted that Germany has over 600 energy co-ops (over 50% of Germany’s renewable energy is community owned) compared to only 23 such initiatives in the UK. He said that, in terms of required capital it was far easier to get a solar project of the ground and reiterated that community energy initiatives were absolutely central to creating the energy revolution we so badly need.
Clare Hierons of Carbon Leapfrog, praised the success of all panelists and posed the question whether there were simply more people interested in energy co-ops in Germany or whether there was some UK ‘blockage’ of sorts. She feels we need to reach out beyond our established green networks and engage more people in discussions around the issue. She appealed to anyone who is interested in even exploring the concept, to contact Carbon Leapfrog so they could jointly explore how many of them can actually we make happen.
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Clare Hierons & Nigel Farren. Photo: Simon Scarfe. |
Nigel Farren of Energise Barnet, who also sits on the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) community energy board, explained how he set up Energise Barnet as he felt his local council was not doing enough to improve energy efficiency. He believes a community energy group or co-op needs to be run with a business mentality as all kinds of skilled people will need to be involved. He feels that a major challenge is that initiatives are often started by volunteers who will actually need to work on the project as full time staff in the long term, and that its important to bear this in mind right from the start.
After the discussion, people mobilised and mingled in local groups to discuss how to enable local energy group start ups; we greatly look forward to hearing what comes of these initiatives. The evening’s discussions reiterated that decentralised energy is a key to a more open and competitive energy market, wrestling some of the power away from the ‘Big Six’, and that there is a hunger and growing need for a rapid deployment of community energy in the UK. Pioneering projects such as Brixton Energy have lead the way and shown what is possible; the more community energy initiatives that sprout up, the easier it will be for other newcomers to follow.
We’re thrilled with the launch of The Hub Eco Series; Tuesday’s event showed that there is a strong passion for tackling the variety of environmental issues we are facing and we look forward to the next event in due course.