When I first called Richard Angell to get his advice on how I could become more involved with the Labour Party, one of his first pieces of advice was to join the Fabian Society.

Eight months in, and I’m glad I did – through local meetings, their excellent literature and the London conferences, I have been able to reap some great insights and progressive solutions into today’s issues, as well as meeting many wonderful people.

As you are aware, Gordon Brown gave the keynote speech, and I was struck by a couple of things. He said that “in this crisis have learned what was always implicit in our New Labour message but we now have to make absolutely explicit: a fundamentally ethical message, that we have to bring to markets something they cannot generate themselves – the values of fairness and responsibility which we celebrate in our everyday lives.” To me, this much is abundantly clear – I am one of those hateful lefties that believe free markets, like communism, to be an impossible, unworkable fantasy. I would particularly emphasise the environment. The theory of free market environmentalism assumes that bad things that happen (such as excessive pollution) can (and will) be undone if the market is truly free. Science tells us otherwise – for example, if the ice sheets melt, they can’t come back under current temperatures, and certainly not if the world gets warmer. Ethically, practically – it doesn’t work. The markets won’t take care of the planet, which means they won’t take care of people.

I also liked what was arguably the main thrust of the speech: “ours is not merely a party in Britain – it is the party of Britain.” Labour is not at this stage now, but this is what it must strive to be – and this means being a party that caters to both the working and middle classes (we’ll worry about the upper classes later). Other reviews have expressed concern at what they see as a move away from Labour’s core vote – but do we have to choose between them and, assuming we don’t, how do we represent that in the policies? There’s a few things I’d like to see (possibly in dreamland) that I consider to be unifying: any new social housing (such as the 30,000 proposed in Birmingham) should conform to the highest standards of quality and energy efficiency; improvements in the quality and eco-friendliness of public transport (particularly buses, which are easily the easiest to update) that make it a viable, desirable and affordable replacement for cars; and finally, to ensure that we are bold in ensuring that state education allows the best possible start for children of all backgrounds.

As Gordon joked, he was but the warm-up act for Peter Mandelson – who used his splendid oratorical skills to imbue the Young Fabians (and some old Fabians) with the fighting spirit and conviction that Labour supporters are really going to need in the coming months when he spoke during the lunchtime period. “We’re going to fight, fight, and fight again” he crowed, adding that he was “schooled in winning”, and was not about to give up now. Big words, but you know what? I got back, and I see that Grace Fletcher-Hackwood and Kevin Peel have started the inspired #mobmonday – simple, unifying and effective – and proof positive that Labour supporters are willing to be creative and put in the hours to get the results.

In addition, The Big Campaign is ongoing, and I myself am looking forward to January 31st, when I and many other Labour supporters from around the country are heading to Bristol East, the constituency of Kerry McCarthy, to join her campaign. So Peter Mandelson is in good company, I feel.

This blog was originally posted on House of Twits.

Categories: Labour Doorstep, Policy Review
Tags: anthropogenic global warming, campaigning, climate change, economics, education, fabian society, gordon brown, housing, kerry mccarthy, peter mandelson, transport

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Summits like Copenhagen can be frustrating because, by necessity, they place all the cards for positive (and negative) change in the hands of world leaders and delegates. The rest of us can only watch as our path to the future is pulled apart, rearranged and stuck back together. And when it all goes wrong, we feel more disenfranchised and powerless than ever.

But we do have power – and furthermore, we have the capacity to make meaningful change on an international level. Recently, I was inspired to act by Tristram Stuart’s Waste, an amazing narrative that uses reams of data to put our food wastage in a global context. In the West, 10 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from producing food that is never eaten. In the UK, 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is used to produce our waste food – which is, according to WRAP the equivalent of one in five cars on the road.

Personal profligacy is obviously a factor, and it clearly never hurts to keep an eye on how we all purchase, store and consume food. But it is a drop in the ocean compared to the waste generated by our major supermarkets. Currently, supermarkets submit their suppliers (farmers and manufacturers) to restrictions that encourage waste on a large scale, including last-minute orders, take-back clauses, exclusivity clauses and in a final insult, leaving those suppliers with the responsibility and cost of disposing of the surplus. And this surplus is gargantuan and, to consumers and the media, essentially invisible, so the supermarkets can carry on as they please – without ever revealing the true extent of their wastage.

Part of the battle is just telling the supermarkets what we want – for example, as a consumer, I don’t care if the shelves are empty at the end of the day, and I am happy to write to the supermarket chains I frequent to tell them as much. But it’s also about transparency and oversight of their waste practices, and that is where a supermarket ombudsman would come in. Stuart makes the very valid point that we are in a unique position to demand this from the supermarkets – unlike many other companies, they cannot relocate to a more ‘favourable’ regulatory climate – they have to be where their consumers are, and their consumers are right here.

Today, Ed Miliband said “the most important thing is that we don’t lose heart and we don’t lose momentum.” The momentum may not be as we had hoped, but it is here. Let’s use it. Sign my petition for a supermarket ombudsman, and stop the supermarkets from using energy that could be used more productively elsewhere.

This blog was originally posted on House of Twits, with photo from Walter Parenteau.

Categories: Sustainable Lives
Tags: anthropogenic global warming, copenhagen, economics, ed miliband, supermarkets, tristram stuart, waste

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As UK consumers have become more affluent, they have become increasingly able to buy more products, dispose of them or parts of them where necessary/desirable, and replace them more quickly – thereby increasing the waste emissions associated with total consumption in the UK. But waste emissions associated with production in the region have also reduced, and this is largely because the UK does not produce everything it consumes. This much is clear from the UK’s current trade deficit for goods, which stood at £7.2bn at the end of the third quarter of 2009. In addition, it should be noted that a significant portion of the waste the UK does produce is shipped elsewhere, either for recycling, landfill or incineration. This whole situation is illustrated in microcosm in the example of the Emma Maersk (pictured below), a giant Danish container ship, which in November 2006 docked at Felixstowe to deliver a boatload of China-manufactured consumer goods, and returned to China laden with products for disposal and recycling.

But can this continue indefinitely? In some respects, the practice of outsourcing our waste emissions does have some sustainable merit. For example, sending rubbish to China for recycling produces less carbon dioxide than would be produced by incinerating it in the UK. Indeed, Marcus Gover, director of market development at WRAP, told The Telegraph that even shipping these materials by more than 10,000 miles produces less carbon dioxide than sending them to landfill in the UK or producing brand-new materials. However, this particular practice is proving to be unsustainable in a number of ways. Notably, a ban on the import of mixed plastics came into force on 1 June 2008, driven by the then upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. More recently, and more seriously, China’s lucrative recycling industry has been hit hard by declining global demand for packaging. Without that demand the UK, which sends as much as a third of its recycling to China, needs to find another way of disposing of or reusing its plastic waste.

Sending our waste to landfill or to incineration in the UK are both options for disposal, but perhaps not sustainable options going forward. The adverse effects associated with landfill sites are numerous – soil contamination is commonplace, and the potentially more serious contamination of groundwater and/or aquifers is also a risk. Further, as organic waste breaks down, one of the by-products is methane gas – a greenhouse gas with 25 times the impact on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over a 100-year period. Methane (eventually) breaks down into water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As such, increasing the amount of waste we send to landfill, regardless of where we send it, will increase the amount of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And as we are all aware, it is necessary to drastically reduce the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – not increase them.

Further, sending all of the UK’s waste to landfill is not economically viable either, and this is particularly clear in the area of biodegradable waste. The EU Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC) stipulates that biodegradable municipal solid waste going to landfill must be reduced to 75 percent of 1995 levels by the end of 2006, to 50 percent by the end of 2009, and to 35 percent by the end of 2016. The UK, due to its initially poor recycling record, was given a four year extension – so its new deadlines are 2010, 2013 and 2020. However, four years does not seem to have been enough, and recent figures from the Local Government Association (LGA) show that the UK is still sending more waste to landfill than any other EU member state – 19.9 million tonnes. Consequently, the LGA warn that there is a “serious risk” that the UK will miss its 2013 target. The penalty for failing to meet the target is a fine, which the government estimates may be in the region of several hundred million pounds. It is not sustainable for the UK to pay out hundreds of millions of pounds every four years – even if it were an environmentally sustainable practice, which it is not.

Clearly then, our current rate of consumption and the wastage that is attached to that consumption are unsustainable on both an economic and environmental level – but there has been both recognition of and action on this fact. To take just one very specific example, in April 2008, in (eventual) response to the EU Landfill Directive, the UK government dramatically increased the rate of landfill tax, in order to discourage the disposal of biodegradable waste into landfill, and to encourage it into anaerobic digestion or composting. Furthermore, figures from Defra indicate that the amount of per capita household rubbish in the UK fell steadily from 2002/3 to 2006/7 – and correspondingly, the amount of rubbish that was recycled or composted by the same households has increased steadily since 1983/4 until 2006/7. But this is not enough. The UK may be turning its back on its habits, but it is still some distance off some of its closest neighbours in the sustainability stakes. To use the example of biodegradable waste once more, Germany’s response to the EU Landfill Directive was swift and impressive – it managed to reduce the amount of biodegradable waste that it sent to landfill to just 5 percent of its 1993 levels. It managed this feat by compelling half of all households to separate biodegradable waste, before sending it off for anaerobic digestion or composting. Furthermore, any remaining municipal waste has to be incinerated, or reused as a fuel or rendered safe enough to return to the land.

We can’t continue as we have been. The Global Footprint Network estimated in a 2008 study that the human race was using up the equivalent of 1.4 planet Earths. So in 2008, the human race used resources and created waste at a rate 40 percent greater than the annual resources of the Earth. It is likely that this effect will only get worse – the UN has estimated that the human population of Earth is set to increase from 6.7 billion to 9 billion by 2050. As such, UK businesses, local authorities and consumers will have to change their consumption and disposal habits, either by choice or by legislative force, or else face the consequences of unsustainable living in the years to come.

This blog was originally posted on House of Twits, with photo from gCaptain.

Categories: Policy Review, Sustainable Lives
Tags: anthropogenic global warming, china, economics, eu, germany, global footprint network, recycling, renewables, trade, un, waste

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With Copenhagen looming, I took a trip to London on Tuesday to celebrate the launch of a new pamphlet (party!) from SERA – a Labour-affiliated group that seeks to find solutions that bridge the social and environmental movements. ‘The Road to Copenhagen – The Progressive Case for Climate Action’ is a set of essays that emphasise how the progressive left is leading the debate on the response to climate change. The launch, which was a joint effort between SERA and Progress, had David Miliband (eventually – he’s a busy man) as the main speaker, and he raised several interesting points. He emphasised what experience has shown – that market mechanisms, left to their own devices, contain built-in incentives for environmental degradation. Much to my delight, he emphasised the importance of the EU, its political weight and its ambitious targets for Copenhagen, and drew up some valuable distinctions between environmentalism and climate change.

But what interested me the most was the remarks he made about the Conservative Party. He said that we had to be grown-up about their stance – if they say that they accept the scientific evidence available as proof of the reality of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), then we should welcome that stance. As progressives, our stance is not that we think those on the right do not believe in AGW – but rather that the left just has better policies.

I agree with all these things (natch) – but it’s hard to welcome a stance that doesn’t seem to exist on any meaningful scale. Take David Davis – on one hand he says that climate change is “probably” caused by human activity. And to give him his dues, this is all anyone can say with any confidence. Of course, then he ruins all his good work by saying that “the ferocious determination to impose hair-shirt policies on the public – taxes on holiday flights, or covering our beautiful countryside with wind turbines that look like props from War of the Worlds – is bound to cause a reaction in any democratic country.”

Such messages are very damaging. He is saying “I am a man who understands that there are human causes of climate change, and we should be able to carry on behaving exactly as we have been.” That message has no basis in reality. You cannot believe in AGW and also believe that we, as humans, don’t have to change anything. I would have a lot more respect for a person who showed their cards and said “I do not believe in AGW, for these reasons”, or who had proposed viable alternatives to onshore wind, flight taxes, etc. But he hasn’t. He doesn’t. He expresses distaste for the measures proposed, makes one example about how micro-generation is often overlooked, and goes on his merry way.

I have no problem with working with and listening to Conservatives who do not echo my exact views on how we should solve the issues surrounding climate change – I have no authority to say my views on such things are superior, and I truly welcome more information – but if those same Conservatives are misrepresenting their expertise and their stance, with the effect that people are being fed false ideas and information, I can’t just nod along and go “oh well, at least you accept AGW”. Because words are cheap without actions that support them, and it takes a lot of action to undo harmful words from people of influence.

This blog was originally posted on House of Twits, with photo from Be…n.

Categories: Policy Review, Sustainable Lives
Tags: anthropogenic global warming, climate change, copenhagen, david davis, david miliband, eu, progress, renewables, sera

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