The Living Planet Report
Challenges Us to Beat the Eco Credit Crunch
The ecological credit crunch is a global challenge. The Living Planet Report 2008 tells us that more than three quarters of the world’s people live in nations that are ecological debtors – their national consumption has outstripped their country’s biocapacity. The report details the scale of the challenge but also the means to reverse this level of ecological debt. Living Planet outlines how we can put ourselves on a more sustainable path engaging global strategies that WWF is now spearheading.
Twenty Ingenious Ideas: Saving the World
The Guardian media group teamed up with the Manchester International Festival to invite a presentation of ingenious ideas, emanating from universities, think tanks, front rooms and sheds across the planet, for tackling the problem of climate change. Twenty of arguably the most inspiring have been brought together in the Manchester Report. Why Manchester? As the world’s first great industrial city, it was arguably the birthplace of man-made global warming. To underscore the project’s connection to the city’s carbon hungry past, the presentations were held in Manchester Town Hall, Alfred Waterhouse’s neo-gothic cathedral to manufacturing and mercantilism.
Green Oil by 2020: The Algae Biofuels Challenge
The Carbon Trust has launched the Algae Biofuels Challenge to promote research into commercialising the use of algae as the raw material for oil. Oil produced from algae could replace fossil fuel-based oil by 2020 if this funding initiative is successful.
The project aims to develop second generation biofuels which do not use food crops as a raw material. In the first phase funding will be provided to bidders to research which microalgae to use, maximising algae oil content and solar conversion efficiency and cultivation methods. The second stage will be the construction of an open pond test and demonstration plant. Phase 1 opened on 23rd October 2008 with a call for proposals.
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Green New Deal
The Green New Deal proposes an action plan to power a renewables revolution, create thousands of green-collar jobs and rein in the distorting power of the finance sector while making more low-cost capital available for pressing priorities. Drawing inspiration from the tone of President Roosevelt’s comprehensive response to the Great Depression, this plan proposes a modernised version.
Published by nef (New Economics Foundation) on behalf of the Green New Deal Group, this report shows that the global economy is facing a ‘triple crunch’. This triple crunch is a combination of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, accelerating climate change and soaring energy prices underpinned by encroaching peak oil. For the Green New Deal Group, it is increasingly clear that these three overlapping events threaten to develop into a perfect storm, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression, with potentially devastating consequences.
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Zero Carbon Britain
Zero Carbon Britain details how Britain can eliminate emissions from fossil fuels in 20 years and break our dependence on imported energy. Published by the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), Zero Carbon Britain has been researched and written collaboratively through a series of academic think tanks and consultations.
In the report, the authors look at the policy framework that can drive this rapid shift by the year 2027 and explore the technologies and lifestyle changes we can expect to see in the next two decades if these policies are followed. The authors are confident that we can maintain high levels of well-being while staying within a strict carbon budget, eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels and providing access to energy for everyone.
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10:10 – You Can Do It
10:10 is an ambitious project to unite every sector of British society behind one simple idea: that by working together Britain can achieve a 10% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions in 2010. This project is the brainchild of Franny Armstrong, director of the film The Age of Stupid and Team Stupid. The film premier in London on 15th March 2009 was one of the greenest ever with a sustainably-made ‘green’ carpet, stars arriving in solar-powered, low CO2 or electric cars or bikes, the projector powered by batteries charged from solar panels, the tent lit by gas from London landfill sites and heated with stoves using ‘eco-logs’ made from recycled free London newspapers.
See also the Not Stupid campaign linked to action in the run up to the UN climate change summit in December.
