Climate Squad
Climate squad is a community of 16-25 year olds who are doing their bit for climate change by cutting carbon, DIY style.
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Please visit our new blog site…
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Guest Blog: Go green & mean it.
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Guest Blog: By Rose Orlik
It’s January 27th 2011, and most energy-saving tips are well known to those of us with ears or a television. Turn off lights, reuse plastic bags, take the bike and ditch the car. Check. But how much are we really doing to save the planet, and are we ever willing to let it disrupt our fun?
In June, the Committee on Climate Change warned Britain is nowhere near goals to cut carbon output. We, alongside other European nations, have promised to reduce CO2 emissions by 34 per cent of 1990′s levels within the next ten years.
And we are seriously shy of this target. In the past year, greenhouse gases fell by 8.6 per cent, with high-profile green initiatives like London’s Strata tower – with its prominent roof turbines – paraded as the future of eco-friendly Britain.
But the truth is, most of the drop in CO2 belching was due to the economic slowdown, with lower travel, manufacturing and consumption all inspired primarily by the need to save a few pennies.
So that brings us back to our original point. Are any of our save-the-planet platitudes working, or is real change going to take something more?
By the tone of this article, you may have guessed the answer to that question. But what to do? And how to convey the message that turning down the heating three degrees is just the first of many steps, rather than a cue to sit back and say you’ve done your bit?
A recent article in the Guardian suggested “soap-dodging” is increasingly popular, with obvious environmental benefits derived from using less water and energy.
All well and good, but the piece signs off with: “While being environmentally friendly is good, smelling like a bin is not”. Very funny, Kira Cochrane, but what about the wider implications of your message? The suggestion that it would be absurd to diverge from the absolute norm in pursuit of green goals is highly damaging, and one that speaks of a wider problem facing the planet. Many people, organisations and societies are afraid to stray too far into the uncharted waters of true ecological reform, and current efforts are just bandages on a festering wound.
So with all that in mind, here are some suggestions for taking your personal current efforts one step further…
Food shopping: Everyone knows you should buy local, but do you really, truly buy local? Put down the avocado, step away from the kiwis, and choose good old British apples, rather than Australia’s finest Granny Smiths.
Energy around the house: Cut down on your cups of tea – sip fewer hot drinks and more of the cold stuff, that way you’ll use less energy.
Take fewer showers – be a devil. If you know you’re likely to get sweaty, grab a t-shirt and change into different threads afterwards. That way, only one item of clothing takes the stinky hit, and you have less washing overall, as well as feeling cleaner at the end of the day.
Travel: Are you still using your car to get to work? Go on, own up. Because if you are, I judge you, and so does Captain Planet. Unless you live out of reach of public transport or a car share – or have to carry your own weight in stationary to the office every morning – there is almost certainly a greener way to get to work, even if it means getting up a little earlier or cycling to the train station.
I’m not advocating you dash off to the nearest caravan and forsake any kind of fuel, because, let’s be honest, I’m not going to. Complete renunciation of non-renewable materials – or minimal use of those we can replace – is a difficult goal, one that wouldn’t fit well with most people’s day-to-day life.
It doesn’t all have to be about switching lights off. Campaigning or getting in touch with your MP is one of the most important things you can do to effect change. After all, the actions of many individuals add up, but lobbying government and business for improved social responsibility has the potential for equally significant impact.
Green solutions like insulation or local produce can cost extra, and lifestyle changes may be uncomfortable at first; but they really are the only way profound change is going to happen, and we should all stop telling ourselves otherwise.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_179190
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/climate-change-carbon-emissions-targets
http://www.stratalondon.com/about-strata-se1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/oct/12/climate-change-local-action
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Corporate Hippies
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You’re such a hippy’ is probably the most common response that I receive when I make reference to anything associated with being environmental. There is of course nothing wrong with being a hippy, but why do people feel the need brand environmentalists as hippies?
Nowadays environmental concern is pretty mainstream but it hasn’t always been. In the 1960’s hippies championed the environmental movement and they had some real successes. One victory was the creation of the 1967 Air Quality act that provided $428 million to help fight air pollution. But the hippies greatest legacy is the founding of Greenpeace. Greenpeace has helped to do some amazing things including halting destructive logging practices in Canada and banning the use of driftnets by European fishing fleets. But its success in some ways can be seen as a hindrance to the environmental movement.
The average hippyAn environmentalist to your ‘average person’ is a hippy and an average person is not a hippy. Therefore your average person has an excuse to not use their common sense and treat the planet with respect! But it’s not all doom and gloom things are on the up. The ‘environmentalist’ is getting a makeover in the form of a little gem called ‘corporate responsibility’.
Corporate responsibility has become really trendy especially post-recession as a way to show that a company ‘cares’. It is certainly not a perfect system but it is going some way to making environmental practices common practice. This may be through recycling or by reducing air travel. Companies (especially the big ones e.g. Wal-Mart) have more power and wealth than some countries and generate a lot of pollution. By moving sustainability into this field we’ve really got a chance to make a big difference.
If you like me fit into the ‘youth’ category there are various things that we can do. We are all entering or about to enter the workforce and it is up to us to:
- To tell our employers what we think about un-environmental practices
- Tell employers that you won’t work for why
- Make sure our employers practice what they preach
- Work from the inside and develop their sustainability practices
Remind them that they have the incentive of that shiny gold star called corporate responsibility and there is no reason they’ll say no.
Good luck!
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What are Faith Groups Doing?
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I come from a Christian background, grew up and live in a diverse multi-faith neighbourhood and have recently been involved in some interfaith activities, so when it came to Climate Change I naturally got thinking: What are faith groups doing?
Before the National Climate March in December I went to the National Climate Service, where Dr. Edward Echlin spoke about how Christians can act for community, people and the environment. My parent’s church has been actively looking at their environmental impact and I recently saw this interesting display at a Quaker meeting house in Bristol.
Display at the Redland Quaker Meeting house in Bristol.A friend of mine is a minister of a church in Manchester and he told me about Faiths4Change which provides support and training for all faith communities in the North West to become more sustainable, reducing their environmental impact.
“World religions share common ground in their values & commitments to caring for the earth and communities”
Sometimes understanding climate change, what to do and why it matters can be difficult. It can be a bit easier for some people to understand climate change through their faith tradition and there are some great projects doing just that.
The Big Green Jewish Website, addresses environmental issues and raises awareness in the British Jewish community; The Bhumi Project advises Hindu Temples on how to be more sustainable and individual Hindus on living compassionately with care for the environment; EcoSikh connects Sikh values and beliefs to environmental issues and the Christian Ecology Link and Operation Noah work with Christians providing resources for campaigning, education, worship and living.
The youth Muslim movement MADE in Europe campaigns and provides information and resources for young Muslims to campaign and act on climate change.
Two very well known faith-based charities Christian Aid and Islamic Relief work in humanitarian aid, for social justice and against poverty. Climate change will obviously have an impact on these issues and both see it as important.
Christian Aid works with poor communities helping them with adapting to the effects of climate change and is very active in campaigning. They run a large campaign for Climate Justice, looking at the way global climate change is trapping more people in poverty.
Islamic Relief UK helps with disaster relief including the Pakistan Floods and addresses Islamic issues around money and debt in relation to climate change. In 2009 they encouraged Muslims to act and campaign in relation to COP15.
“Allah’s creation is our problem! It’s not for someone else to fix or for others to worry about – we are all individually responsible for our actions”
So if you have some cool carbon cutting projects or ideas for 2011, your local faith groups might be interested in getting involved too. They might even have resources or other things you could make use of.
And if you or family and friends are involved in a faith community check out some of the resources to help you to explain why you are doing all these carbon cutting things!
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VAT Busting
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As you may know all ready, quite a lot of people are complaining about money issues.
Complaining about student fee’s, tax dodgers and now VAT rises…
At 12.00am 1st January 2011 pretty much everyone in the land shouted out Happy New Year!
However 5 days in and already – VAT has increased by 20% !!!!!!!!!!
As you can guess, with this being a carbon orientated blog – I can go on and on about how driving you car less, saves money on the VAT and on carbon etc. etc..
However there is another important point to Vat, and that’s food.
- Vegetables do not attract VAT unless they are ‘ornamental’, such as a cabbage ‘grown for its appearance rather than consumption’.
Thus turning veggie, seems quite an acceptable method of saving money (and carbon)
Also
- Famously, no VAT is paid on Jaffa Cakes, but only after a long court battle with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which included showing the judge a 12-inch Jaffa Cake to prove it is a cake (no VAT), not a biscuit (VAT).
CAKES!!!
What a perfect combo of low cost, low carbon food. – Veg and Cakes
Some of you, may now be thinking.
‘I cannot bake and I cannot cook any veg stuff’
Well take a minute and think of all those high street shops and supermarkets, with cake aisles and vegetable sandwiches, veggie ready meals and raw carrots.
Of course, this isn’t a precise science and maybe a full diet of cakes and veg isn’t entirely healthy.
But if your money is low and you are hungry well…
Read more on VAT:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=520758&in_page_id=2#ixzz1AAZYE24x
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The Great Green Advent Calendar
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By Anna Lewis
We have now opened 15 of the green advent doors – (gosh doesn’t time fly!) and we only have 10 doors to go until the big day. Whether you’re hoping for an aesthetically white, an active green or even a darn good mixture of both, the advent calendar can provide hours of festive fun each day!
Every day since the countdown began, my first activity, when I get into work is to open the next door on my e-advent calendar. By reminding me of how close we are to the holidays it not only boosts my mood but provides me with a productive activity for the day ahead.
The first, in case people are unaware, was “turning appliances off standby”. I had great fun roaming my dad’s house (who lets just say has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to carbon saving). I ended up switching off anything or perhaps it would be more accurate to say everything in the house. I did the same at my boyfriends and even my best friend’s mum’s house later in the evening. Explaining my actions to my friends mum and a few of her friends wasn’t the easiest part of the evening but the thought of the carbon saving of course made it all worth while…..
Now the idea of the living Christmas tree sounds like a great one. I will undoubtedly try to find one but seeing as I don’t normally buy my tree until only a few days before Christmas I’ve got a bit more time for research!
Pumping it up at home with my brother’s car, now that was an experience. I will have to scare you with detail that my brother had failed to pump up his car tyres in over 6 months. Just think of the carbon saving pumping it up made!
A wet Christmas??? Probably knowing the UK – but yes I did my bit as I do every day, I had a shower instead of a bath. Now I just need to work on my timings! My up-cycle for the next day coincided very nicely with one of my favourite jumper dresses shrinking in the wash. Apart from the ecological benefit there was no way I could ever throw this away. My solution: A Snood!
Fun not stuff- well this one was relatively easy. Gig tickets sorted- fun for receiver and of course they will have to have someone to go with….
The eco wrapping challenge is one, if any, to test my artistic abilities. Newspaper and potato prints = wrapping paper. I think I can mange that!
I’m doing my round robin, have you done yours???
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While the UN speaks Climate Squad acts – COP16
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As part of our ‘While the UN speaks Climate Squad acts’ project, we had a team of COP16 reporters blogging away to keep you updated with the latest hot off the press news of COP16 climate talks in Mexico.
Find out what happened, how and why:
What does the EU delegation say they want to achieve in Cancun?
Dear Davey C – please go to Cancun
Science, business and politics
A little word from COP16 reporter
COP16: the lack of the political will and the complexity of the international economical dynamics
The public image of climate change
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Thoughts on being a COP16 reporter…
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In these last few weeks following the COP16 process I have learned a lot. Yes I tried to be environmentally-friendly before, but seeing the interrelationship of things has opened my eyes. I have started to think of paper in relation to deforestation and throwing things away in relation to where they might land up.
From reading a Canadian Youth Delegates blog about Greenwashing and somethings I heard at the National Climate March after-party, I am starting to see there is no such a thing as disposable. That everything comes from something and has to go somewhere.
Also I have been thinking more about where my energy comes from and how I can use less. I have been looking at money and the effect of what I spend. In short I have started to think differently.
Making my own sign got me thinking!If this can happen to me in a few short weeks, then it does make me confused as to why the COP processes take so long, as those involved in the process must surely see the effects of their actions or inaction.
I also learned a lot about the UN and how their conferences work, and am really interested in learning about what other roles the UN plays.
Intergenerational equity was a new concept to me and I saw that young people have a contribution to make and a responsibility to make it. In the way they live and through involvement in things like COP16. Young people were working on policy, for example Article 6 on climate change education; providing COP16 side-events and getting involved in actions with other groups, for example the really cool lifeline action.
The youth delegations from around the world inspired me, with their persistence, their knowledge and their dedication. The campaign for Chris Huhne to stay in Cancun run by UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC) was great, even shutting down the Downing Street Switchboard and I liked the fun video they made afterwards. I became interested in climate justice which is about making fair solutions and was particularly inspired by the work of UNfair play.
I am blogging more and am thinking bigger about issues. I’ve used social media like twitter and facebook to communicate and watched webcasts of meetings and events in Cancun and London. I got somewhat addicted to finding out what was going on. It really does show what a cool tool for change the internet can be!
I met lots of interesting people who care about our world and appreciated hearing their views. It is really cool to see what the other COP16 reporters are doing and read their blogs.
In whatever I am doing I will take knowledge of Climate Change issues with me. I am more aware now that Climate Change is an integral part of justice, equality and human rights and that it affects everyone. And I still have things about COP16 left to write about too, so watch out for that!
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Climate Squad staff act throughout COP16
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While COP16 was taking place in Mexico, the Climate Squad staff walked the talk by each taking on a green challenge. We decided what actions would be most difficult for each person and surprise surprise, that would be their challenge. Catch up on how they went and see if you can take on the challenge too!
Part 1 – Amy the meat eater day 1
Part 2 – Amy the meat eater day 2
Part 3 – James – carnivore turns vegan for a day
Part 4 – Kate – the best things in life are C
Part 5 – Simon – giving up gadgets
Part 6 – John – 50 litres of water
Part 7 – Rachel – a day of walking
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No packaging, no kettle, no tea
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We are now in the second week of COP16 and our staff challenges. It has been quite funny watching James turn vegan for a day – the carnivore who talks about feeding oxygen to his future children so they can get strangely big and strong! Kate was given a challenge where everything she ate had to be locally sourced or food that would otherwise be thrown away as waste. This meant no coffee for a whole day, which for Kate was a huge hurdle!
So relatively speaking, I thought mine would be a doddle…and then the day began.
Most work mornings I get into the office and make a pint of hot steaming peppermint tea for myself and bring James a cup of water (he hasn’t worked out how to get water himself yet). But with no tea or kettle usage allowed, I had to join him. It was cold enough getting to work so a glass of even colder water was the last thing I wanted.
I usually have around 5 large cups of peppermint tea a day and by 11am I was struggling, not necessarily because I missed drinking tea but just because it keeps me warm.
At lunch Trewin appeared with a big batch of Krispy Kreme’s in a thin paper box – they always seem to appear every now and then. I hadn’t eaten yet and so was hungry and I had never had a Krispy Kreme before, but there was a lot of deliberation over whether having half of one classed as packaging. But it was settled; John put half of one on my desk and that was that. And then came lunch…
I don’t usually go and buy lunch and just stick with something like soup, however today I thought I would go and try to buy food without packaging. It was difficult! I couldn’t go and ask for a sandwich without any wrapping as I knew it would end up on the floor, and there wasn’t much else to choose from other than fruit so I stuck with 2 pink lady apples – the best apples around by far, and a bakery croissant. Adventurous!
It is actually really difficult to avoid packaging entirely, much harder than I thought. However this means there are huge savings to be made:
· By just avoiding heavily packaged goods you can save around 64kg+ of CO2 each year
· Only boiling the water needed for tea you can save around 34kg CO2
· Buying locally sourced tea foods rather than tea imported from far away, you can save around 235kg CO2 per year
So I guess the main point is to just think about how much packaging is actually on what you buy rather than avoiding it altogether - and then it becomes quite easy.
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