Clean SlateClean SlateThe Practical Journal of Sustainable Living

No 69 Summer 2008 £2.50

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The Practical Journal of Sustainable Living

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editorial Caroline Oakley

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The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) is concerned with the search for ecologically sustainable technologies and ways of life. A display and education centre, researcher and information provider, CAT aims to inspire, inform and enable people to reduce their impact on the earth. Published by CAT Publications, CAT Charity Ltd., Centre for Alternative Technology. Editorial Team Paul Allen, Caroline Oakley, Scott Williams, Alex Randall, Hester Kapur, Fiona Rowe. Design Graham Preston Advertising Jo Cooper. The opinions expressed are those of individual originators, not necessarily those of CAT. If you wish to use material from Clean Slate for furthering the aims of the environmental movement please contact the editor. Registered charity no. 265239.

CATCAT News – compiled by Alex Randall 2

CAT community – Tegwyn Brickley 3

Roger’s Garden 4

FeaturesProtecting forest and culture – Dilwyn Jenkins 6

New and inspiring land-use initiative – Grace Crabb ��

Water for the future – Marcus Zipperlen �2

Life in Zero Carbon Britain – Peter Harper 20

Adapt and thrive – Peter McManners 22

My Green Solution – Dr Iolo ap Gwynn 24

Centres for Change: Denmark Farm – Adam Thoroughgood 26

Practical SolutionsPractical Solutions compiled by Jules Lowe �8

RegularsMembers’ Corner:Are you an Anarresti? – Martin Parkinson 28

Questions and answers:Water saving showers – CAT Information department 30

Members’ Letters 3�

Reviews 32

Welcome back…to follow-up articles from Marcus and Peter on preserving our drinking water resources and living in a zero carbon world, an in depth look at taking the Amazon rainforest back from the illegal loggers, from Dilwyn Jenkins, more from Grace on looking after our own local woodlands at CAT and a non-CAT view of sustainable futures from consultant Peter McManners. We hope all of them will inspire you to get on to that next rung of the zero carbon ladder.

The timing couldn’t be better in the light of the persuasion job that needs to be done on our political leaders – with additional coal-fired generation at Kingsnorth in Kent and planned new nuclear generation UK-wide, the renewables message needs to be shouted loud in every corner of Wales, the rest of the UK and beyond. Take Dilwyn’s lead and make some real changes to your world…

I spent an interesting and encouraging morning with the Raven Housing Trust in Redhill, Surrey last week. They are making great strides in greening up their act as I’m sure can you, CAT’s members, in your individual areas of work and play. Let’s all lead by example!

Caroline OakleyCAT Publications

Cover photo: Grace Crabb

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2 Clean Slate

Brimming with biodiversityIn the 50 years since CAT was a working slate quarry, the site has developed a unique biodiversity. Now silver birch trees grow between timber buildings, birds nest in fruit trees in the organic gardens, and the lakes and ponds teem with amphibians and fish.

A number of protected species including dormice, tree pipits, pied fly catchers, peregrine falcons and lesser horseshoe bats make CAT their home.

Following the recent acquisition of 15 acres of woodland in the Snowdonia National Park, CAT is conducting a comprehensive survey of biodiversity over the whole 40 acre CAT site. This survey is part of CAT’s Biodiversity Management Plan and will act as an important benchmark, showing how local activity and the overall effect of climate change is altering biodiversity levels.

‘If we know more about how plants, birds, animals and people at CAT impact and interrelate we can make CAT a better home for all of us,’ says Grace Crabb, biodiversity expert. ‘We may also be able to add to the UK’s body of knowledge on biodiversity.’

To share our knowledge CAT has just finished a series of biodiversity day courses. The courses ran between May and August and helped hundreds of people gain a better understanding of the issues and the unique biodiversity we have at CAT.

The courses were hosted by several local experts. Rob Gritten, former senior ecologist at the Snowdonia National Park led participants through the basics of ecology and landscape management. This course helped farmers and foresters broaden their understanding of the local environment. The course also looked at zero carbon land use and the global food crisis.

In June, students joined in with International Bat and Moth night, trapping moths and listening out for the lesser horseshoe bats. Pauline Barker from the Countryside Council for Wales and Gwynedd Bat Group took the group on a tour using bat detectors, giving everyone the chance to learn about the feeding, mating habits of bats and the habitats that bats thrive in.

In July, dormouse expert Jack Grasse led us on a tour of CAT’s mammals, with possible sightings of stoats and polecats.

For more information about CAT’s biodiversity courses have a look at ww.cat.org.uk/courses

After a romantic March wedding, Helen and Roger came to the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) and spent their honeymoon learning how to build their dream home.

Roger spent ten days on the Timber Frame Self Build course with CAT’s experts, Duncan Roberts and Geoff Stowe, while Helen and Archie, their two month old baby, visited the displays, information team and bookshop. There, Helen swotted up on all the water and energy issues involved in an environmental building project.

The happy couple also got the opportunity to stay in CAT’s Self Build House, and see for themselves what their new home might be like. ‘We really enjoyed the peacefulness of the place, with the lakes and ducks, especially after living in London,’ said Roger. ‘It gave us the opportunity to stay in and talk together. The food was delicious and not having to cook and clear up for a week was great too.

‘We enjoyed exchanging ideas with the group and there was a real mix of people with and without previous building experience. Some were planning to extend their house, others building a shed – all sorts.

‘Our dream has always been to build our own house and the course has really given us the confidence and tools to do that. I would thoroughly recommend it,’ said Roger. ‘It is informative and quite practical, it was like going on a learning holiday.’

CAT offers a variety of short courses all year round in environmental building techniques, renewable energy and organic gardening.

Honeymoon

compiled by Alex Randallcatnews

Clean Slate 3

There have been people living at CAT since its origins over 30 years ago. In the last three decades, however, CAT’s total number of staff has increased and there are far more people

living off site than here at the Quarry. The Community is currently 14 residents in eight cottages.

For me, it is the best of all worlds. It’s great living in an old quarry cottage with my partner and, come September, our baby, in a cosy nuclear unit. However, I love having so many close neighbours and sharing domestic decision making with others. It makes life really interesting. We buy most of our food together, in bulk, share appliances, eat together twice a week and have monthly meetings and workdays.

I grew up in a very small Radnorshire village, where everyone knew each other and was probably related to everybody else to some degree. Few locked their doors. The community spirit was strong and residents set up a shop in the front room of the pub when the shopkeeper of 40 years passed away. We maintained our near surroundings, even cleaning and painting our own telephone box red! There was always an up-to-date directory in there. It was an intimate and trust-filled place to be and helped me develop a healthy interest in other people’s lives and enjoy a sense of community and shared business.

Life as one of CAT’s site community recreates many of the conditions ‘back home’, and goes further; popping in and out of each other’s houses, knowing each other’s business and feeling part of a long history, deciding about joint ventures. At the most recent monthly meeting, we discussed a range of matters, big, small and somewhere in between, including a progress report and plans for future workdays on the new community kitchen building; cutting out delicious, local, organic and therefore expensive cherries from

our weekly veg order and the emptying of the resting chamber of the compost toilet. Does it need doing? Who will do it? Where will the compost go? When will all this happen? So many things to debate...

It is really interesting to think carefully about so many aspects of domestic living, but it’s best not to take anything too seriously and to be open to reaching consensus to make a decision, rather than stubbornly holding on to strong viewpoints. Fridges have always been a contentious appliance for the Community and have long been avoided. This was something that, at one point, we just couldn’t reach consensus on. Last month we decided to have two fridges, one on each side of the site. This change is not because we no longer put sustainability first, because although fridges do indeed use energy, in their manufacture and running, they also reduce food wastage during the summer months.

Not content with leaving a simple domestic issue at that, in typical CAT fashion, we have got ourselves two different fridges and are going to measure the energy consumption of each and consider the embodied energy of buying a new AAA rated small fridge versus using a ‘Powersava’ device on an old, free, fridge that would otherwise have been thrown away. You can rest assured that we will be keeping measurements and discussing the relative environmental merits of each fridge.

The next few months will see lots of growth and change, both personally for my partner and me, and communally. We are earnestly building our timber-framed straw bale community kitchen and will have many work days and weekends over the summer. I will update you on our progress in the next issue, as I wade through a pile of re-usable nappies and thank my lucky stars for all these babysitters on my doorstep!

The CAT CommunityTegwen Brickley

So, time moves on and it’s past midsummer already. May was an interesting

month; we had less than one inch of rain (22mm)! I resisted the urge

to water everything and lo and behold most things just waited for the

rain before continuing their growth. The only watering I did was for the

transplanted stuff, like the brassicas, lettuce (the early ones to get them past the

ravenous slugs), celery and celeriac and the courgettes, cucumbers and pumpkins.

We’ve just had our first carrots, courgettes, basil and climbing French beans – all sown early inside the protection of the polythene tunnel. Outside it’s broad bean and lettuce time, no stopping them... The sugar snap peas are cropping well; now the rain is here again, the turnips and calabrese are a bit slower coming. The garlic is safely under cover as are the early spuds; both cropped well.

Unfortunately it’s mousetrap time again, as we’re about to sow the oriental greens (in mid-July). The exception to this threat is the important spring cabbage crop; I’ll sow it in trays and transplant into individual pots later, getting them big before planting outside.

We’ve just sown some late beetroot (yellow) and early Nantes carrots, for a late crop, and more lettuce, endive and coriander for a continuous supply. On the ground vacated recently by the garlic, we’ll sow corn salad and winter purslane at the end of July.

Our volunteer programme has produced a couple of keen diggers, so the runner beans and the leeks have been treated to some well rotted organic cow manure dug in

trenches a foot deep with the manure 3 inches deep at the bottom. Both are looking well on it.

Some of the crops that like it rich – celery, celeriac, brassicas, broad beans and courgettes have been mulched with the muck. Hoeing has been a bit tricky lately, it’s

been raining for days, so we’ve been pulling the weeds out as best we can. Talking about the weather, April had just over 5 inches of rain. June had 6 and a

half inches (nice after only 1 inch in May). Annoyingly we did have -0.6o frost on the 16th June! It didn’t kill anything but it slowed some tender crops

down. The mean maximum temperature for May was 19.2o and in June 18.6o!

In one of the poly tunnels are some bales of straw left in as a seat, but for a week or so a slow worm has been sunning itself on them. I

know why, now, I found its shed skin and no other sign of the legless lizard to be seen. I think it used the straw to help it rid its self of its

redundant layer. The other day, sitting in the garden shed at CAT, I watched

a fox walk past, stop fifteen feet away, find two chicken eggs and proceed to eat them. Suddenly two magpies appeared and started to peck him which the fox completely ignored. And when he’d eaten the eggs he continued on his way

unperturbed by the whole experience!Anyway, enough rambling, happy double-digging,

or no-digging if you prefer… Roger McLennan

Roger’s garden

4 Clean Slate

Clean Slate �

ask rogerDear RogerI like to see wildlife in my garden, but my partner keepstidying up. How can we have a garden which suits us both?A wildlife-friendly garden doesn’t have to be messy… Lots of garden wildlife will make homes in old stems, leaves and sticks, so tidying plant debris away can mean that wildlife has nowhere to go. However, you can retain these habitats while keeping your garden in any style you want. Old plant stems can be bundled up and stacked neatly, or even made into sculptures – the insects don’t mind what their residences look like. Larger sticks can be made into a ‘dead hedge’ – piled up between stakes into a hedge shape. We have one on our display circuit in which some wrens were nesting, and it hides an unstructured area behind it.

Many wildlife attractants are also pleasing to humans e.g. ponds, meadows and flowering borders. They can be designed to be smart and formal, or wild and jungly, but none would be right without birds feeding on berries and butterflies drinking nectar.

We’re all different, and it’s part of the joy of growing, to do it in our own way. I must say I like a garden on the wild side, being a tiger (Chinese sign) – it’s my jungle.

Dear RogerI’ve just taken on a new vegetable patch. What can I sow in late summer or autumn?

If you’re quick you could sow beetroot, chard, early carrots and coriander. Lots of time to sow lettuce, endive, winter spinach, corn salad, winter purslane and spring onion. Then there are the oriental greens; rocket, mizuna, pak choi, mustard, green-in-the-snow, Chinese cabbage; there’s a lot to choose from – perfect for sowing mid-July to mid-August, but watch out for mice…

Last, but not least, spring cabbage will fill the gap between the last of this year’s veg and before next year’s have grown (it’s commonly called the June gap among gardeners).

Don’t forget hardy annual flowers, too, some of which can be over-wintered in a greenhouse or polytunnel. Sow in mid-September/October time.

6 Clean Slate

It’s almost 17 years since I last wrote about Amazonian ‘development’ for Clean Slate. At that time there appeared few signs of hope for the forest or the people who have lived with it for

millennia. Control over the Amazon was slipping fast from its original guardians’ hands. Thankfully, things change. Loggers, for instance, can be stopped. But, if it’s not loggers, then it’s coca growers or oil companies. There is an ongoing war against the forest and each battle has to be won, one at a time. If we don’t fight now, it’ll be gone before we turn around.

‘It doesn’t really make much odds to the Amazon forest if the sawmills are run on hydro, solar or nuclear power…if the forest is controlled by logging companies after a quick profit, then the trees will inevitably disappear. If, on the other hand, the same forest is controlled by a co-operative of rubber tappers, or a tribe of hunter-gatherers, it is likely to be sustained on a permanent basis.’ (pages 18-19, Clean Slate, Issue No. 6, Autumn 1991)

In the first decade of the 21st century, the destruction of Amazon is speeding up. At the same time, fledgling models for sustainability are rising like bubbles of sanity from the smoking earth. Indigenous Amazon communities are at the core of these new models, not least because their traditional culture relates to the forest as a living, giving system. It can’t be mere coincidence that the last remaining Amazon tribes appear to come from a tradition of deep green wisdom. After all, the fact that they live in the most remote regions of the planet (remote that is from the heart of our industrial civilisation) is because they have chosen to live there over the millennia…as the last pockets of traditional human resistance to Western industrial madness, they have much to teach us. Ibid.

Forest under attackA big part of the problem is that as the frontier of global influences starts to engage Amazon cultures, new generations of semi-

acculturated indigenous leaders emerge, by virtue of their ability to speak Spanish or Portuguese, and negotiate with representatives of external economic or cultural forces. Because of their increased contact with the outside world, many of these new leaders have already been ‘corrupted’ by non-Ashaninka influences reflecting regional political and economic forces. Most tribal communities have also developed needs (steel pots, machetes, sugar, bottled drinks, shot guns, soap, cloth etc.) that can only be satisfied by somehow getting hold of paper money or taking on credit.

The Ashaninka tribe is one of the largest surviving Amazon ethnic groups. What’s left of their territory – in relatively high jungle – is about the size of Wales; a verdant region dissected by deep forested valleys and decorated with waterfalls. Traditionally the Ashaninka are semi-nomadic, living in scattered communities of 50 to 200 people. Their land has, however, been under pressure from the outside world for hundreds of years. Six hundred years ago, the Inca armies failed to dominate the Ashaninka and other neighbouring rainforest tribes. Instead, they invited them to join the imperial Inca armies as fearsome bowmen.

Over the last hundred and fifty years, colonists from Europe and the Andes have stolen most of the original Ashaninka territory. But even today, the remaining legally titled Ashaninka communities, along with their culture and forests, are threatened by massive, uncontrollable and externally generated pressures: loggers, the army, cocaine smugglers, missionaries, anthropologists and TV documentary production teams. All manifest real, if quite different, challenges.

Despite the creation of new community land titles, communal reserves and a national park in the last 10 years, the spearhead of the attack against Ashaninka forests is led by logging companies. Their aim is to cut and remove – usually illegally – community owned mahogany in return for very little money. Even in the heartlands of the Ashaninka forests, where the largest remaining traditional

Protecting forest and cultureDilwyn Jenkins

Clean Slate �

enclave of communities come together, at Cutivireni, the trees are in imminent danger.

When the cherry picking of SE Asia’s tropical forests was effectively exhausted in the 1990s, international markets turned again to the Amazon. Today, legal and illegal loggers are everywhere. Recent reports from Peru suggest that most indigenous communities are in the process of selling their trees. Camouflaged stacks of cut mahogany are guarded by armed and masked young men.

Fighting for the forestWhen illegal loggers first arrived at Cutivireni in 2004, some of the Ashaninka asked me if there was perhaps a way for them to earn money without having to sell their forest. We discussed the obvious possibilities: eco-cultural tourism, trade in craft goods like seed jewellery and cotton bags, exporting cash crops like coffee and chocolate, rainforest honey and medicines. Within 12 months, I set up Ecotribal Ltd and we began trying out many of these options. The idea is that Ecotribal’s direct links to higher value markets might help the Ashaninka retain control over their forest resources and consequently their culture.

The easiest strand to get off the ground was an annual small eco-cultural tour to the Ashaninka. At present, Ecotribal is the only tour company, endorsed by Survival, that visits tribal peoples at their request. Taking a well-managed eco-tour with indigenous tribes can directly preserve biodiversity in the last remote corners of the planet by offering the host communities a repeatable and significant income.

ASHANINKA – Culture and EcologyLocation: Peru - Central Amazon Region Population: 30,000 - 45,000Language group: ArawakCulture: The Ashaninka tribe are one of the largest indigenous groups living in the Amazon today. Their home territory is relatively high jungle region directly east of Lima in the Gran Pajonal plateau and along the rivers Apurimac-Ene, Tambo, Perene and to a lesser extent, the Urubamba. Traditionally the Ashaninka are semi-nomadic, living in scattered communities of 50 to 200 people in an area a little bit larger than Wales, UK. Despite fierce resistance to acculturation by the outside world, in the 21st century there are few communities without at least limited and sporadic contact and trade with non-Ashaninka people.

The Ashaninka community of Cutivireni is comprised on nine separate villages and just over 2000 people. Their territory is comprised of 30,000 hectares, but only 8,000 hectares is titled to the community, the rest is part of the Ashaninka Communal Reserve which acts as a buffer to the neighbouring Otishi National Park, located in the western slope of the Cordillera Vilcabamba mountain range.

The Reserve’s habitat embraces an altitudinal range of few other conservation areas in the region and, along with the Otishi National Park, is designed to protect the whole range of biological communities of the upper parts of the Vilcabamba Mountain Range. These isolated habitats are critical for the biodiversity of wildlife and to protect the dynamics of unique natural processes, such as frequent avalanches.

8 Clean Slate

As it happened, loggers were active on the Rio Cutivireni during Ecotribal’s first eco-cultural tour to the Ashaninka in July 2005. Standing on the edge of the forest, beside the fast flowing river, Geraint, a Welsh hill farmer, and his young son stared in disbelief as half a dozen young men eased the downstream motion of some sixty or so large planks of a massive deep red Peruvian mahogany tree. The Ashaninka receive less than 50p per cubic meter of mahogany – less than they get for selling one small seed necklace.

A few loggers arrived at one Ashaninka village to negotiate for mahogany at the same time as Ecotribal tour participants were buying some crafts goods. It was clear to everyone – Ashaninka, loggers and tourists alike – that there was an essential difference between the alternatives being negotiated. You can only sell a tree once. The wallets of eco-cultural tourists, seed necklaces, cotton bags, chocolate and coffee can all be harvested for ever if the crop is properly managed.

Ashaninka craft goods, like seed jewellery, are produced by women who receive and control the income directly themselves. Cash crops such as coffee and chocolate are produced by men and they control income and expenditure. Partly with the help of Ecotribal, the Ashaninka have recently established chocolate and coffee producers’ associations. Having a hunter-gatherer culture, the Ashaninka traditionally live and survive in very independent scattered households. A more sedentary lifestyle has developed over the last 35 years or so at Cutivireni. In many ways, the time has come for greater co-operation between the dispersed settlements spread around the forest. Their specific locations have been selected over generations by extended families in relation to strategic resources like fishing spots on rivers, good soil conditions and access to game or other forest produce.

Proper managementThe concept of ‘proper management’ is vital. First there’s the whole context of sustainable forest and land management for the Ashaninka. Then there’s learning to administrate, maximise community benefits and share new income streams. And all this needs to be done in a way that maximises community self-determination and participation, whilst minimising environmental, social, political and cultural impacts. Traditionally, the Ashaninka have deep rooted and intricate food-sharing customs and no sense of ownership or material possession. They have never managed large sums of money or had bank accounts. From Ecotribal’s perspective, there’s significant marketing work to be done. Developing a strong branding in this field requires sensitivity, transparency and an ability to balance the rhythms and seasons of the Amazon rainforest with the very particular requirements of Western urban living.

Ecotribal’s long term aims are wider than our work with the Ashaninka tribe. The bigger vision is to work with many tribes, eventually in all continents. Most tribes are marginalised economically and geo-politically. Ecotribal can at least offer a shop window across the world for sustainable tribal produce. But, it will take time to build the brand and it won’t be cheap. Certain inevitable factors, such as the small scale of tribal production and the additional costs incurred because of the remote nature of producer locations,

suggest there will always be difficulties competing in an open market place. Fair Trade has been accused of propping up otherwise non-competitive producers. This is capitalistic nonsense; Fair Trade’s success actually demonstrates the importance of awareness-raising, promotion of benefits and sheer hard work.Our culture, as well as our technologies, needs to evolve. Ibid.

Fair trade has come a very long way in the last 20 to 30 years. Market penetration is high because awareness has been built up by national and local networks and an incredibly successful campaign in recent years. Despite higher costs, their share of the average shopping basket and even the supermarket shelves is still growing fast. From a small-scale producer’s point of view, particularly where the producer population lives thinly scattered across a forest, they don’t produce enough (coffee, chocolate, sesame etc.) on their own to justify additional costs imposed by the certification process. Well-organised tribal producers can sell their produce to regional co-operatives for a halfway decent price. Most of them, however, still sell piecemeal to river traders who rip them off on price and weight.

Ecotribal’s small-scale eco-cultural tourism and trade in craft goods and coffee has helped gain the confidence of some Ashaninka communities, but it has not been anything like enough to guarantee a future for their forests or culture. The visit of a single Ecotribal tour to the Ashaninka will bring the communities involved a total of a £1,000 over a two week period – for guides, cooks, porters, food, camping, use of huts and access to special sites, such as Parijaro waterfall, a stunning single drop of 297m, the fifth highest in the continent. The Ashaninka producers of green coffee beans for Ecotribal support each other on crop and processing improvements through their association and they generally receive around 20 per cent above conventional market rate.

Clean Slate �

Amazon carbon management servicesIn the last twelve months, a new player has arrived in the form of global warming. Climate change is a serious problem we share with South America. The Amazon is also one of the world’s largest carbon ‘sinks’, the tree mass of the rainforest providing a planet sized store for CO2 emissions over the last 60 years. If this store is released, climate change will accelerate much faster than present predictions and, what’s more, the Amazon forest may well turn into desert. Flying to exotic destinations like Peru generates tonnes of carbon emissions per passenger. Tree planting in the Tropics has a greater cooling influence on the climate than planting in temperate zones. With this in mind, Ecotribal began exploring carbon offsetting options in 2006.

By September 2007, trees were already being planted by the Ashaninka tribe to offset carbon emissions from the UK – from air and road travel to weddings and conferences. Planted as part of an Ashaninka-led agro-forestry initiative, the project incorporates a selection of indigenous rainforest trees, like mahogany and cedar, with cash-crops, forest plant derived medicines, fruit bearing and other useful tree species. Located in small forest gardens, often on old abandoned plots, tall trees are planted for eventual shade between other more low lying productive species like cocoa trees or coffee bushes. In effect, UK carbon emissions are part-funding the creation of these small-scale agro-forestry gardens. This is a very useful mechanism for encouraging regeneration of woodland along the damaged edges of the Amazon, including alongside the encroaching road and river tentacles.

The Ashaninka’s main resources are its forests, land and clean rivers. The forests embody living carbon standing on the land and nourished by the rain. Existing rainforests perform significant carbon storage and sequestration functions (in some cases over

800 tons CO2 hectare/year), so it makes sense to invest carbon offset money into both keeping intact the remaining expanses of rainforest – ‘avoided deforestation’ – while also re-planting new trees where they will be most effective. Lacking financial resources, but surrounded by virgin forest, the Ashaninka are ideally positioned to offer environmental management services, utilising their carbon resources in a way that allows Western energy users to at least mitigate some of our emissions.

A battle won?Early in February 2008, a logging company from the nearest town arrived at Cutivireni to negotiate a two-year contract to log trees from community owned forests adjacent to the more remote forests of the Ashaninka Communal Reserve and Peru’s newest protected area, the Parque Nacional de Otishi.

The Ashaninka contacted Ecotribal (using the all-important solar powered satellite public phone now located at Cutivireni) to inform us of the loggers’ approach and that several Ashaninka chiefs were considering signing a contract. Liaising with Cool Earth (a major London-based NGO player in carbon offsetting) and the Cutivireni community, Ecotribal found

that most of the Ashaninka leaders were really pleased to find a way to keep their forests intact. On Sunday 10th February, the Ashaninka community met at Cutivireni. The loggers were present to finalise their negotiations, but the Ashaninka ejected them and accepted instead Cool Earth’s proposal for some income to the communities in return for avoided deforestation. Hopefully this is the beginning of a long partnership.

Carbon projects offer Ecotribal and the Ashaninka something practical and tangible to do in mitigation of CO2 emissions. I firmly believe that in a few year’s time people everywhere will be saying – Why on earth didn’t we plant more trees, save our forests and change to clean and renewable energy much earlier? Equally exciting is the option of installing renewable energy projects in and around the Amazon frontiers to offset the spread of fossil fuel generators and in return for carbon offset funding. Working with existing carbon stores, like trees, or switching to clean energy are among our best options and both can be funded through carbon offsets.

The timely Cool Earth partnership is an important battle won. Without it, the Ashaninka forests around Cutivireni would have been decimated over the next few years. But it’s the whole sustainable package that Ecotribal will continue to develop and promote. Handicrafts and agro-forestry are equally important. As long as the community wants it and feels the benefits, sensitive and low impact eco-cultural tourism can also continue to play a positive role. There will undoubtedly be more unforeseen twists and turns as the windows of opportunity continue to change. The most practical and successful models can eventually be replicated and unfurled along the frontier of the western Amazon at the outer edge of the industrial world.What really matters is the motivating force or principle underlying the culture which dominates the forest environment. Ibid. CS

Background to the Cool Earth project

A report published in May 2007 by the Peruvian organisation AIDESEP (The National Association of Amazon Indians in Peru) reveals extensive illegal logging and subsequent clear violations of international (CITES) regulations. It also documents how the logging and trade in mahogany threatens the survival of indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation.

Illegal logging of mahogany is threatening the survival of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in the Peruvian Amazon. Unsustainable logging is also putting the whole ecosystem in the Amazon at risk, and must be stopped immediately, says Alberto Pizango, president of AIDESEP.

Illegally logged mahogany is whitewashed in Peru and exported to the US, Europe and other destinations with unjustified CITES licenses issued by the Peruvian CITES administration, INRENA (the section of Peru’s Ministry for Agriculture responsible for natural resources and protected areas). At least 20 of the 24 companies exporting mahogany from Peru exported illegally logged mahogany in 2005. Peru’s export quota for mahogany is set by the Peruvian government, but disregards most advice given to ensure a sustainable extraction. This is also a violation of Peru’s obligations under the CITES convention.

�0 Clean Slate

Since writing this piece, I have visited the Ashaninka tribe (mid May) and at end of June (26th June to 4th July) the ‘avoided deforestation’ NGO came to visit the tribe, along with Sky TV (who will be doing their first ever live broadcast by satellite from a remote Amazonian community), The Times and The Sun newspapers.

When I went in 6 weeks or so ago, I passed 7 trucks heavily loaded with mahogany and other precious timbers during the last 2 hours of driver, to the river port along a dirt track. That’s a lot of timber leaving the valley every hour. I then traveled up river by canoe with the Ashaninka. This was a 6 hour journey during which we passed a massive floating raft of some 50 tree trunks , steered by 3 motorised canoes and a gang of loggers, who gave me a resounding fingers up sign as I went by. Fearing for my life, I decided not to take what would have been a brilliant and evocative photograph.

When I arrived at the Indian community – Cutivireni – it was clear that they were over the moon with the Ecotribal arrangement. It seems like they are one of very few indigenous communities in this part of the Amazon that haven’t signed contracts with loggers.

The chief of Cutivireni spent some time telling me how pleased he was with Cool Earth project. Back in February this year, he said, he had been in a really difficult position with both the loggers and also cocaine smugglers knocking on the community’s door. The loggers wanted them to sign a 2 year contract. The smugglers wanted the community to allow them to use the community’s small grassy airstrip, in return for 5 outboard motors.

With the support of Ecotribal and the Cool earth project they felt able to say no to both loggers and smugglers.

Dilwyn Jenkins has been in close contact with the tribe for 30 years, since he first visited them as an anthropology undergraduate – spending 2 months with the Ashaninka in 1978 making an ethnographic documentary for the BBC. Last year he returned with a Channel 4 film crew to make ‘Medicine Men Go Wild – Jungle Tripping’, which was broadcast last February 12th

Photographs by Dilwyn Jenkins and Carlos MontenegroCHRONOLOGY OF RECENT EVENTS

2004 – Illegal loggers arrive at Cutivireni Ashaninka community and negotiate with some village chiefs for selected mahogany. Ecotribal donate and install solar radio communications system for remote Ashaninka village.

2005 – 1st Ecotribal Tour, August 2005, sees the first selected mahogany trees, cut into 8ft planks, stacked along the Cutivireni river, camouflaged from aerial discovery by cut leaves and branches (see right). Loggers arrive to negotiate in one village as Ecotribal tour participants buy seed jewellery and organic cotton robes from the Ashaninka.

2006 – Logging abated at Cutivireni. 2nd Ecotribal tour to the Ashaninka.

2007 –Tree planting carbon offset project established at Cutivieni. Ecotribal donate and install solar lighting and laptop power system for school at Cutivireni.

Early February 2008 – Logging company ejected from Cutivireni. Cool Earth’s ‘avoided deforestation’ proposal accepted.

Clean Slate ��

The Centre for Alternative Technology has always been a holistic organisation, teaching and disseminating knowledge on a range of subjects concerned with protecting the

environment and living as harmoniously as possible with rest of the planet’s systems and inhabitants. However, it is not until recently that we have focused on the use of the land in a potentially ‘zero carbon’ future.

The biology department at CAT has been leading the way in green approaches to water treatment and composting for many years, and has always been keen to teach about biodiversity, but again, it is not until recently that we have been utilising the wildlife that inhabits the site as an educational tool.

This new strand of research and activity needs its own identity within CAT, so that people can find us and know what we are up to. The Sustainable Land-use Initiative (SLI) will be the umbrella title under which zero carbon land-use, biodiversity conservation, soil management, woodland management and crafts, water management, composting, reconnecting with nature, sustainable agriculture, horticulture, environmental economics, land rights, and many other

subjects that are related to the way we perceive the land and our landscape, will fall.

CAT is now the proud owner of a beautiful 15 acre wood across the road from Llwyngwern Quarry. We have decided to call it Coed Y Gwern, or Alder Wood, to tie in with the name of the quarry where CAT is based (Valley of the Alders). It is also distinctly damp and therefore prime alder territory. The wood is part of the Esgair estate, once consisting of 466.05 acres of forest and 146.25 acres of hill grazing, which has now been fragmented. The previous owners have retained the pasture and buildings, but have sold the majority of the wooded areas to a forestry operation that is promoting sustainable techniques, and, of course, have sold 15 of the remaining acres to us. The old Esgair house is set at the end of a long steep drive off the Machynlleth to Corris road. In 1828 a Captain Brett lived at ‘Esgir’ (sic), and writer and novelist Berta Ruck (1879-1978) grew up there. Her husband was the well-known ghost story writer Oliver Onions (1873-1961). The house was empty for much of the latter part of the 20th Century, but is now occupied again. Coed Y Gwern sits below the house and is a fairly flat south facing wood.

Grace Crabb

New and Inspiring Land-use Initiative

�2 Clean Slate

Our new woodland shows evidence of much natural regeneration of hazel, birch, oak and alder, and there have been plantings of beech and cherry by the Esgair estate. There are a few mature oaks, but the majority are young trees that have come up since the area was clear-felled 15 years ago. We look forward to planting the area with a new hedge of native trees of local provenance, such as blackthorn, hawthorn, hazel, ash, rowan and spindle, and will lay the hedge with standards. The International Tree Foundation have kindly funded tree planting at CAT and we are now part of their family tree scheme (www.internationaltreefoundation.org/). A tree nursery will also be established with tree seed from the estate.

There is a lovely riparian (river habitat) zone through the middle of the site, and by damming up some of the many drainage ditches this can be expanded into an area of wetland and heath, increasing the biodiversity. There are some interesting mosses and lichens present along the riparian zone that will flourish with a little more habitat regeneration. The rest of the site will be managed as woodland coppice with standards. There will be a course on building an ecofriendly space to teach green woodworking, a roundhouse course using different methods of roofing and cladding, and plenty of scope for more wildlife and woodland related courses. Coed Y Gwern will be a prime site for woodworking and will host a course on tools and devices for coppice craft, where participants will make pole lathes, saw horses, cleaving brakes and will be shown all the tools required to be a woodworker. There will also be workshops on spoon carving, hurdle making, willow weaving, the use of axes and scythes and many more ‘re-skilling the nation’ activities.

CAT would like to open access to the woodland to the community for events and educational activities, and there is the possibility of using the site for forest school programmes. It will also be a space for people to come and relax or create land art. The possibilities are endless. But what is most important to us is that its biodiversity increases and thrives.

We have already spotted some intriguing and unusual creatures such as the pied flycatcher, spotted flycatcher, tree pipit, and pole cat. The RSPB have guided bird walks in the wood, and Snowdonia Mammal Group ran a ‘mammal detectives’ workshop, which was very exciting. There is evidence of dormice in the adjacent woodland so we live in hope that they are in our woodland too. You can identify the presence of dormice easily from the way that a hazel nut has been opened (see https://aberdeen.ac.uk/mammal/memapp.shtml). Dormice tend to turn the nut as they eat it, leaving diagonal toothmarks on the inside of the nut. Woodmice chew downwards and squirrels will break the nut clear in half (as will birds such as jays).

But the new focus at CAT is not purely on the woodland. Coed Y Gwern provides a teaching place and educational tool, but this is only a small part of the new Susatinable Land Use Initiative. At CAT we have other exciting programmes and research ongoing. Jessica, the biology long-term volunteer, is currently researching the use of biochar in soil. Biochar is becoming increasingly popular as a potential carbon sequestration material that also has use as a soil fertiliser. Terra preta, a soil discovered in Bolivia from slash and burn areas, is known to have amazing properties. At CAT we would like to show that by coppicing and turning our small wood and off cuts into charcoal (in a retort – more on that later) we can then dig it into the ground improving soil fertility and therefore locking up the carbon in a useful form.

Not only have we been using our woodlands to provide charcoal for these experiments, but we have also been teaching charcoal making, and putting together little bundles of charcoal sticks to sell in the CAT shop. This year, over at Coed Y Gwern, a new retort will be built during a course run by our local woodsman Bob Shaw. A retort is a charcoal burner that taps off the methane and re-burns it beneath the drum, making the burn much faster in duration and expending greenhouse gases. It is also possible to tap off the methane and use it to cook with, so hopefully we can make a feast on the course. Charcoal making adds value to our woodlands. It also has the potential to sequester carbon and help in the battle against climate change. We hope in the future to charge the charcoal with nutrients through the reed beds here. Wonderful stuff…

Continuing the carbon sequestration theme, we are lucky to have a student placement in the biology department this year and the post-holder will be conducting a feasibility study using waste heat from the new CHP (combined heat and power plant) to heat a greenhouse that will be enriched with carbon dioxide from the gases expelled from the flue. We will perhaps bubble these gases through tanks of algae and then into the greenhouse, where crop trials will be conducted under different carbon dioxide concentrations. We want to know more about the ability of soil to sequester carbon through different

Clean Slate �3

methods of planting and soil treatment such as biochar and no-dig. We hope that students will come to CAT to conduct their MSc or PhD research. There is, of course, the hope that we can reduce our carbon emissions more by growing more of our own veg and fruit that we could not grow on the hot bed.

So as you have read, CAT is keen to explore the future of land-use in Wales, and the rest of Britain. Rod Gritten, who has worked on ecology in the Snowdonia National Park for over 30 years, has been sharing with us his vision for the future of land-use in the Welsh uplands. We spent a beautiful day walking on Cader Idris exploring the terrain and becoming familiar with the alpine plants that would grow with greater abundance if it were not for sheep grazing. We also discussed climate change and the impact this will have on the uplands, and what measures should be taken to address that.

It is now time to plan a strategy for land-use and devise the tools required to make changes. This may come through Transition Town movements, agricultural policy, consumer behaviour and many other practices but we need to get ready and start planning now. Wales is an interesting country in which to attempt to explore potential land-use methods. The uplands are relatively inhospitable and are therefore not prime places for arable crops. However the intensity of sheep farming is creating problems. Within the Sustainable Land-use

Initiative we hope to bring together those from the academic, farming and conservation communities to consider the alternatives to the current methods of land-use.

People’s behaviour within the landscape is something that has been determined by their way of life and upbringing. It is essential that culture and the way that people relate to the land is given proper attention within this initiative. The farming community has long farmed sheep on the slopes of Wales and it might seem impertinent when others outside that community suggest that such behaviour is altered. That is why it is imperative that we have a presence from the farming community within this initiatve, as it is this community that knows the land and has shaped the landscape for generations. We need to know whether the farming community is keen to diversify and try new methods of farming in order to lead the way in climate change mitigation.

And one must not forget main economic driving forces affecting farming, such as the common agricultural policy (CAP) and single payment scheme (SPS). The Single Payment Scheme pays farmers for the land that they manage or own. Now that the SPS is in effect in the UK, farmers can produce what the market wants rather than be confined to subsidies for particular crops as it was under CAP. Consumers must lead the way in choosing food that has been reared or grown in a moral way; that is locally produced, organic and fair to the farmer, and then we might see some changes. As recently highlighted by the G8 conclusions, global food shortages, rising oil prices, altered climate and increased biofuel demand are only likely to increase pressure on our food resources.

It is difficult to tease apart the issues that surround sustainable land-use, from the protection of an endangered plant to the starvation of a town in Africa, or the tradition and culture of a Welsh hill farmer. But they are all interlinked in the way that we must approach the future of land-use in Britain. Perhaps it is a case of returning workers to the land, re-skilling those workers in agricultural practices, and

increasing the economic importance of sustainable rural activities. However, it must not be overlooked that those who lived on the land before the advancement of oil supported agriculture often did so in a state of grinding indigence. Do rural Arcadias exist chiefly in people’s imaginations? And when the financial surpluses that allow generous funding for hedgerow planting, for example, are all generated by the economic leverage of machinery, how easy will it be to make the transition? These issues are essential elements of the new Sustainable Land-use Initiative.

Perhaps it is time, too, to recognise the lack of connection between most people and the basic processes of nature, such as the growth of a plant from a seed and the ability to grow food. It is not a case of regression, taking a sentimental step back into the past, but more a wish to take the rich and deep knowledge that the nation once had and use it to improve the future of our land in terms of increased biodiversity, reduced air miles, getting a better deal for farmers and encouraging people back into rural communities or connection with the countryside. We at CAT hope to chip away at theses issues with our new woodland and SLI.

So, if you are interested in joining us in exploring the future of policy and practice in the management of the countryside and rural economies, please write in and let us know. CS

�4 Clean Slate

In the previous article (CS68) we looked at global water resources, how they cycle around the planet, how much is available for the biosphere as a whole and for humanity. We saw that as our human

population expands, urbanises, and grows more wealthy, water consumption increases, and that if current trends continue unabated we humans shall be under severe water stress, food security will be threatened, and we may end up fighting each other for precious water resources. If you factor in changes to precipitation from climate change, the picture can look a little bleak. But let’s not get too despondent. There are ways around many of these problems, and there are effective actions we can take as individuals to help. In this article we take a look at a few solutions to our water woes. First we have a brief look at some necessary changes in how we manage our water, and then look at what we can do as individuals, from a global and local perspective.

A few approaches for securing the future of waterThere are many areas where we need to mend our ways in order to manage water sustainably. A few of the major ones are outlined below.Food and agricultureTo feed a growing population we shall have to increase the extent of irrigated land. We shall also have to change our eating habits (see below). Poorly managed irrigation can damage soils and deplete water resources. The solution to these problems is part socio-economic, part technological.

Large-scale irrigation of cash crops for export may not benefit the local population, especially in developing nations. To ensure local food-security, micro-irrigation schemes will be important at the level of a farm or community. Large-scale schemes suffer from problems of water loss during the storage and transmission of water. Water stored in reservoirs in hot countries evaporates at considerable rates. Take for example the Aswan high dam in Egypt where the reservoir looses 10 per cent of its volume each year to evaporation. Open channels delivering water around regions likewise evaporate precious water.

Drip irrigation is an efficient way of delivering water to plants using a pipe (often around the size of a garden hose) with small holes along its length that ‘weep’ water around the base of plants. Water seeps straight into the soil so losses to evaporation are 20-70 per cent less than irrigation by spray or surface flow. These systems are more costly than other irrigation methods, however, which might limit their application at present.

Other potential solutions are soil and water conservation techniques. There are various ways of keeping water on the land for longer, so that we can use it productively. Small banks, dams, or terraces may be appropriate. Ploughing with the contours rather than up and down hills reduces run-off. Increasing the organic content in soil is important because humus rich soils retain far more water, and support healthier plant growth. The future will probably see increased use of no-till agriculture where there is no ploughing at all. Ground cover plants are maintained all the time, reducing water loss to evaporation, and crops are sown directly through these.

Water for the FutureMarcus Zipperlen

Clean Slate ��

SanitationIn developed countries, sanitation systems consume large quantities of water to transport excreta. Water efficient toilets are readily available and probably require a little more legislative pressure to increase their use. There are of course entirely dry sanitation systems, such as composting toilets, although it is hard to see a widespread adoption of these in the west, and in very dense urban areas they probably are not appropriate. But, compost toilets are not just a rural technology. As wealth and urbanisation spread to developing countries there will be pressure to replicate western water-hungry models of sanitation. But there is also increasing implementation of ‘Ecosan’ (or ecological sanitation) systems. China seems to be taking a lead here, using urine-diverting compost toilets even in urban settings with multi-storey buildings. Urine is separated at source through special diverting pedestals and collected for use as a fertiliser. Solids are composted, and again used in agriculture (helping to improve moisture retention in soils).

In areas serviced by waterborne sanitation, the wastewater can be a valuable resource for agriculture or aquaculture. To make irrigation water, sewage is treated to reduce pathogens and make it safe to handle. The resulting liquid is rich in the valuable plant nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which increase crop yields. Sewage is also extremely valuable as food to fish such as Carp and Tilapia when they are farmed. Partially treated sewage is run to ponds where the fish either eat sewage directly, or eat the algae which the nutrient-rich ponds grow after its application. The sewage from Calcutta is used in this way.

Restoration of the water cycleSustainable water management will only be secured if biological elements of the water cycle that have been degraded or obliterated are restored. Forested upper reaches of a river catchment are important in many areas to ensure sufficient rainfall, and to capture and infiltrate that rain. In the southern Himalayan foothills, for example, clear felling of forest has destroyed the natural sponge-like properties of the area, increasing run-off and erosion. Bangladesh pays the price in terms of increased flooding and less dependable river flows. Closer to home we too need to protect our upland catchments. The mid-Wales uplands provide the catchments for several important rivers including the Severn and the Wye, both of which are used for water abstraction, and have been subject recently to violent flooding. The long-term trend of installing drainage on upland bogs to improve pasture for grazing sheep has contributed to the instability of these rivers. Restoring natural bog land is the answer (and has the added benefit of keeping the massive carbon sinks in peat safely locked-up). So much for outlining a few pathways to the sustainability of water resources: but what can we as individuals, going about our daily round, do about these global issues? Well, quite a lot, actually, and here are a few suggestion.

Individual actions with global consequencesFirst up, you can endeavour to live a low-impact lifestyle and reduce your emissions of greenhouse gasses and so help to alleviate the negative effects of climate change on the water cycle. Using less water in the house, particularly hot water, will be one facet of this, although you will make far larger carbon savings by using less energy in the home and minimising your use of car and airplane.

Secondly, consider reducing your consumption of ‘embedded water’. The average Briton uses around 180 litres of water per day at home. But if we look at the quantity of water that is used to produce the goods and services that we depend upon, our actual daily water use is around 3400 litres per day. This is because all the food we eat and goods we buy have taken water to grow, process and manufacture. This hidden water is what is commonly referred to as ‘embedded water’ (or sometimes ‘virtual water’). A pair of jeans takes about 11000 litres of water to produce, a car 400,000 litres (or around 6 years’ worth of domestic consumption), and a cup of coffee 150 litres. In the UK most of this embedded water (70 per cent) is imported. Our consumption may be draining rivers and aquifers overseas and diverting scarce resources from local populations.

What can we do lessen this impact? Let’s distinguish between consumer goods and food. Looking first at goods, consuming less is the quick answer. The fewer manufactured goods we consume, the lower our consumption of embedded water. We also gain additional benefits by reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution associated with manufacture and delivery. Repairing, re-using and recycling our wares are the ways to go.

Turning to food, eating less may suit some but most of us will best reduce our impact by changing the type of food we eat. In the UK most of our embedded water (65 per cent) is in food imports so individual choices here are important.

Calculating the impact of food production is a complex affair. It is easy to be misled by the appeal of simply comparing embedded water values between commodities and invariably seeing the smaller of the two as more sustainable, but this is not always the case. Take for example rice, which has a relatively high embedded water value (five times that of wheat). Rice is not a ‘bad’ thing to eat. In Thailand, the world’s biggest rice producer, the majority of rice is produced using run-off water from the monsoon. If it weren’t for the paddies most monsoon downpours would run-off quickly and be lost, and could cause ecological damage through erosion and soil loss. So, in this circumstance the retention and use of large quantities of

�6 Clean Slate

water is a positive thing. Local environmental conditions can further complicate the assessment. Compare Thai rice to that grown in the USA. American rice actually has less embedded water per kilo (2000 litres per kilo compared to 5500 in Thailand), but has a greater negative impact on local water use. This is because the climate is mostly unsuitable, so production relies upon intensive irrigation

(not just rainfall) that depletes water reserves that would be more beneficially deployed elsewhere.

In seeking to reduce our embedded water consumption, we don’t want our trip to the shop to be any more of a moral minefield than it already is, adding deliberations over water-use and production methods to our considerations of Fair Trade versus organic versus locally produced. Fortunately, there is a simple rule of thumb to guide our choice. And the remarkable thing is that the ‘right’ choice as far as saving water is concerned is also the right choice for our health (as the nutritionalists tell us), and furthermore the ‘right’ choice for the environment because it reduces greenhouse gas emissions (See CAT’s ‘ZeroCarbonBritain’ report). And the magic formula is…eat less meat and dairy. Simple. Meat has a much higher embedded water content per calorie than vegetables and grains. Calorie for calorie beef takes 15 times more water to produce than grain. The reason for this is that you have to grow the grain first to feed the animals (using water), energy is lost by the animal in the process of converting food to body mass, and along the way the animals need water to drink, too. The most water hungry meat to produce is beef (16,000 litres of water per kilo) followed by pork (5000 l/kg ) and chicken (4000 l/kg). For a water conserving diet then, cut down on your meat intake and eat more grains and vegetables. Go easy on the burgers and eat a bit more chicken if you can’t face being a veggie.

Individual actions with local and regional consequencesHow can we reduce our own direct consumption of water? Thinking primarily of the home, the first thing to do is to install a water meter. Water companies will do this for free. You’ll start saving water immediately. On average households use 15 per cent less water once metered, and your water and sewerage bills will go down as a direct result. Now take a look at the pie-chart opposite. You can see that

the first place to start saving water is with the toilet. If money is no object then install a quality low-flush loo. If you’re on a budget then you can modify an existing toilet to be low-flush for about twenty pounds with a minimum of DIY skill. Next on the list are the shower and taps. Flow regulation and spray or aerator fittings can be fitted to both with relative ease and no noticeable drop in performance. With these basics in place, one might possibly consider re-using water in the garden or house. Unfortunately there isn’t room here to go into the necessary detail, so the next article in this series will explain the practicalities of how to create a truly water efficient home.

drinking water: 0.2%household use: 4.2%

embedded in consumer goods: 30,6%

embedded in food: 65%

Real water use in the UK, taking account of ‘embedded water’ in our food, goods and services

Increasingly, water scarcity is a reality impacting on our daily lives. For the majority-world this scarcity has impacts on health and well-being that our wealth insulates us from. But there’s no need to feel paralysed in the face of inexorable global phenomena because we can directly do something about these problems on both a local and global level, as we’ve seen. And interestingly, if altruism won’t motivate us then self interest might, because saving water at home saves us money, and purchasing more ecologically sustainable food is good for our health. It’s a win:win opportunity… CS

kitchen sink: 15%

outside use: 6%

washbasin: 8%

toilet: 35%

dishwasher: 4%washing machine: 12%

shower: 5%

bath: 15%

washing machine: 12%washing machine: 12%

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Clean Slate ��

18 Clean Slate

PRACTICAL solutionsKeeping in touch…We need to communicate! We need a mobile phone, for work, to feel connected. Fifteen years ago mobile phones were the exception. In some Western cities they still are! Montreal, a cosmopolitan city and new media and entertainment hub for Canada, still works without mobile phones! But globally the demand for mobile phones and video games consoles, laptop computers, digital and video cameras just keeps growing.This need for electronic goods is fuelling a high demand for a mineral called coltan. The price spiked in 2005 with the release of the Sony PS3 console. Coltan is mined heavily in Rwanda, amongst other places. The Rwandan-Ugandan border is one of the most abused places on the planet: more people have died here than anywhere since the 2nd World War. Life expectancy in the area is 43 years and falling. It is also home to the Virunga National Park, a World Heritage site of incredible diversity and the only place in the world to support mountain gorillas.The runaway consumption of electronic goods is directly endangering the mountain gorillas’ habitat, and funding violent civil war. A UN Security Council report has stated that coltan ore is mined and smuggled illegally and is a major source of military income. Do you really need that new mobile phone now? Still want a PS3 console for Christmas? Cutting our consumption of these clearly ‘luxury’ goods would be the obvious solution, but replacing them only when necessary and not on a fashionable whim will also make a difference. Morally though, the choice between being effective in a modern communications society and disengaging from these technologies is a personal one.Last year, Americans only recycled 10 per cent of their phones and 36 per cent were stored. Recycling those phones will reduce the demand for coltan greatly and it is so easy! Here’s how to do it. In the UK, charity shops are the usual drop off point; almost all high street charity shops will take unwanted mobiles, Marie Curé, Cancer Research, Oxfam and Scope all run schemes. (www.fonebank.com will buy your phone and make a donation to Oxfam). Easiest of all, just pop your old phone into the freepost envelope enclosed in

this issue, along with any old printer cartridges, and send them free to EAH recycling in order to benefit CAT. For extra envelopes or larger bags, call 01473 658161.

Climate camps for real change…Do you feel that your everyday actions to stop climate change are not enough? Don’t trust the Government to act effectively in time? Scared that the scale of the problem is not matched by the efforts to tackle it?

Feel empowered – go along to Climate Camp (www.climatecamp.org.uk)! This year it is being held in North Kent at Kingsnorth Power Station and is a direct response to the Government’s policy of burning more fossil fuels by building/ upgrading more coal-fired power stations. The camp will be an exciting place to meet people and learn about sustainable solutions and low impact living. There will be workshops on the practical steps you can take to make a difference and you can help out with building compost

toilets and other elements of an ethical infrastructure. There are also great

speakers, and debates around climate science and solutions, including

Permaculture systems and the situation in Bangladesh.Firmly family friendly, the camp will be set out in a series of local neighbourhood groups – get in touch with your local group and connect with like minded people in your area; there are groups from all over the UK. See the ‘Get Involved’ section of the website under ‘neighbourhoods’ for contact details.Since 2006, Climate Camp has grown to become a movement for social change for those wanting to protest against climate crimes and take direct action to put the issue firmly in the spotlight. Its aims are education, direct action, sustainable living and building a social movement to find sustainable solutions to the climate crisis.The camp is run entirely by volunteers and donations, and is very media friendly. One journalist visiting last year said he was expecting a ‘crusty’ protest camp and found instead impressive individuals with PhDs! Everyone is welcome and there is dedicated kids’ area. Each neighbourhood will be cooking its own tasty food.The camp will be set up and run entirely on renewable energy, demonstrating the effectiveness of these technologies. The Government’s plan is to build six new coal-fired power stations that will produce 50 million tonnes of CO2 instead of investing in proven renewable energy production. If you think this is madness then make your voice heard. Visit the excellent website and get involved. Keep coal in the ground. Be heard.

This need for electronic goods is fuelling a high infrastructure. There are also great

speakers, and debates around climate

Clean Slate ��Clean Slate ��

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20 Clean Slate

In our report ZeroCarbonBritain (ZCB), we described a plan to ‘decarbonise’ the British economy by 2027. Such a rapid transformation would have a big effect on household life, but we did not spell out in detail what these effects might be. Here is an attempt to fill some of the gaps.

The background scenario is this. As part of an international agreement in 2012, the UK commits itself to reduce carbon emissions to zero by the late 2020s. The government sets

a timetable for yearly reductions and issues Tradable Emissions Quotas to households, businesses and other organisations. These quotas act as a kind of parallel currency driving a market-based ‘race out of carbon’. Meanwhile, the government sets the rules, plans the new infrastructure, and guides a large-scale deployment of low-carbon technologies, as described in ZCB. But the government also needs the active collaboration of householders and local communities, and is prepared to encourage them with a whole battery of appropriate carrots and sticks.

After two decades of this, what might it be like for householders? How will they be living in (say) 2030? Of course, there’s going to be an enormous range of possible choices. But we’ll pick two significant cases, based on two sorts of households already introduced in Clean Slate 68. These are two households that want to contribute actively to the decarbonisation process, but in different ways. One prefers to do it through changes of technology, the other through changes of behaviour.

The WOT, or ‘Well-Off Techie’, family have plenty of money are prepared to use it to reduce their carbon emissions, but are not prepared to make radical lifestyle changes. They want to live more or less like other wealthy people do, and in particular they do not want to abandon the basic ‘non-negotiables’ of modern life such as the ever-warm house, the family vehicle, the animal-protein-based diet, holidays abroad, and access to abundant consumer goods.

In contrast the LIL, or ‘Low-Impact Lifestyle’, family are prepared to challenge the non-negotiables. In fact they are prepared to make any feasible behavioural change, but they have almost no spare cash to invest in clever technical measures.

Most other households would be found somewhere between these two extremes.

Let’s start with the WOTs. What would they be doing in 2030…?Two aspects of their life would be relatively easy to decarbonise, because there exist ‘technical’ solutions: house energy and surface transport. Their newly-built ecohouse would perhaps be somewhat out of town, necessitating a personal transport system. It would be at least net-zero because the UK Government is already committed to zero-carbon by 2016. Very likely the WOTs will specify a building that uses carbon-sequestering materials and will already be in carbon-credit by the time it is built. A large house built after say 2020 will almost certainly be able to incorporate a PV roof at reasonable cost, with an installed capacity of 25kW. Of course it will have

solar water heating too, and with enough storage to meet 80 per cent of demand, benefiting from ‘peak-shaving’ top-ups. Electricity consumption would be modest on account of mandatory EU standards for appliances, smart controls and metering. The house itself will be a net generator of electricity. Most of the surplus would go to the vehicles, and the rest into the grid.

The transport arrangements, too, would interact with the national electricity system. The household might have two electric cars, one a large family estate, the other a very light two-seater to be used for the majority of journeys. Batteries would be modular: cars would be ‘refueled’ not by charging in-situ batteries (although that would be possible) but by switching charged for discharged battery cartridges. The same could happen on long trips: ‘filling stations’ would be charging stations and simply exchange discharged batteries for charged ones.

The great benefit of this system is that the millions of batteries in cars and garages (and garden sheds) would be able to act as an enormous reservoir of stored energy to help balance the variable inputs from renewable energy sources. In fact, under certain circumstances, it could be a nice little earner. A fully decarbonised national electricity system would deliver zero-carbon private motoring, but it would be expensive.

The WOTs would find it harder to fully decarbonise other aspects of their life. Take consumer goods. It needs energy to produce, deliver and dispose of material goods, and richer people tend to buy and accumulate more. Some time between now and 2030 the long historical trend for ‘stuff’ to get cheaper than labour is likely to reverse itself, and by 2030 stuff will be relatively expensive. The WOTs are already happy to pay more for good quality goods that last, but increasingly they will be substituting services for material goods. Service companies might deal with house cleaning, garden maintenance, energy management, vehicles. In many cases they will rent the service rather than the object, and this might well apply to fridges, washing machines, computers, carpets, furniture, even vehicles. Nevertheless, the embodied energy (and therefore some carbon) in their goods, especially those imported from more carbon-intensive economies, might amount to several tonnes per year.

Holidays abroad are another carbon-challenge for the WOTs, because there is no complete technical fix for aviation emissions, existing or foreseeable. It is possible that aviation emissions per passenger-km would be less, perhaps even half what they are today, but if emission-prices are very high it is likely that even wealthy households will moderate their behaviour rather than pay very high rates or buy the necessary credits, which by 2030 will be extremely expensive. Perhaps, we can guess, they will take occasional flights to the new resorts on the Black Sea belonging to the latest wave of accessions to the EU; otherwise they might take high speed sleeper trains to the Mediterranean.

The diet of the WOTs is also a bit problematic, because if they insist on maintaining a traditional diet based on animal protein, it is hard to envisage any technical fixes for the non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions associated with cows and sheep. Of course, the WOTs will be in good company because nearly everyone else in Britain will want this diet as well (not to mention the other 7-8 billion people in modernising societies also demanding their long-denied pound of

Life in Zero Carbon Britain 2030Peter Harper

Clean Slate 2�

flesh). The effect of these trends is being seen already: a rapid rise in the price of many foodstuffs. This is as much to do with the sheer space occupied by animals as with their emissions, but the effects will be similar. The wealthy, of course, can insist on grains being used for luxuries such as meat and vehicle fuels, and can outbid poorer people who must either pay much higher prices or simply starve. Now, our WOTs are earnest Guardian-reading folk and not indifferent to the problem, so they would be looking for technical fixes. There does seem to be some possibility that emissions from livestock can be reduced through different kinds of feeding regime, manure management etc., and we can imagine a kind of certification system for this kind of livestock production, such as ‘organic’ or ‘Fair Trade’, that the WOTs could buy into. Perhaps equally likely is that we will be able to develop molecular factories that can efficiently produce ‘genuine’ muscle and other animal proteins from cheap inputs such as grass or vegetable processing-waste, without all the messy business of involving real animals. This kind of animal protein (plus, no doubt, all sorts of cunning texturing and flavouring techniques) would be adequate for the kind of anonymous meat used in burgers, mince, soups, pastes and basic sausages, leaving ‘real meat’ for Sunday lunch and special occasions.

The overall emissions of the 2030 WOTs might be reduced to a few tonnes of CO2 equivalent, but still positive in spite of a general ‘background’ decarbonisation. What else could they do? They could simply buy credits (from the market but ultimately from people like the LILs) but this would get increasingly expensive. More effective would be deliberate investments in low, zero or negative carbon systems. In some respects they have already done this with their eco-house, and if the house itself is a net emitter, this might shave a tonne or so off their score. The present cost of saving a tonne of CO2eq (carbon dioxide equivalent) varies a huge amount depending on what it is, ranging from a few pounds for not cutting down a tropical forest to hundreds for some kinds of sequestration technologies. In the previous article in Clean Slate 68, it was suggested that ‘tithing’ (investing 10 per cent of income) would do the job, but possibly less would do. At £100 a tonne, it only takes £1000 a year to generate 10 ‘negatonnes’, but by 2030 the price might be considerably higher. There might even be a world-wide ‘active carbon capture’ tax that would cost a household money but earn carbon credits.

Now what about the LILs…?In many ways their choices are simpler, but they don’t want to be freaks. Although they are prepared to junk the standard ‘non-negotiables’, they still want to feel they are bona fide members of British society.

The two areas that are most problematic for the WOTs, the LILs solve immediately. Flying – they simply don’t. They argue that although it’s nice, it’s definitely not a necessity; it’s simply something we do because we can, because it’s so cheap, and it has become a cultural norm, so it feels like a necessity.

Food – they have simply asked themselves, ‘What is a sustainable and universally-deliverable diet?’ and adopted it. It would resemble what might be called the ‘Tudge diet’, after Colin Tudge, whose book Feeding People is Easy explains in simple and utterly persuasive terms what we need to do to give everybody an excellent and culturally vibrant diet. The LILs are not vegetarians, they just want to do the sustainable diet, so following Tudge they use small amounts of wild or sustainably-reared meat for stock, condiments and feasts. Like so many traditional cuisines, the diet uses animal products cunningly to exploit their excellent flavours while deriving most of its nutritional value from plant-based materials, especially whole grains and pulses. Food is going to be expensive in 2030 so it is worth the LILs’ while growing as much of their own as they can. What amateurs can most easily grow is the fruit and vegetable part

of the diet, which nutritionists are always telling us to eat more of. This could form an important part of the LILs’ economy. They would therefore choose a house with a large garden, or rent an allotment. No surprises there, perhaps, but if they are earning at a rate of around £15 an hour growing vegetables, as they could well do, this is a serious input for a low-income household of 2030, where food might otherwise account for 30 per cent of expenditure instead of the 10-15 per cent typical of today.

What else will the LILs do? They cannot match the WOTs on the environmental credentials of their house, because they cannot afford a new zero-carbon house. On the other hand, if the UK is really to achieve zero emissions it will need to embark on a systematic programme of retrofitting older buildings that cannot be demolished and replaced. The LILs, of course, would be one of the early adopters of a retrofit programme, and might even earn money by doing some of the work themselves. They would be well-insulated and better draught proofed, possibly with solar water-heating, perhaps heated by a district-heating system running on bioenergy, or heat pumps powered by a decarbonised public electricity system. They would, of course, keep the temperatures low, and in winter keep comfortable with advanced thermal clothing. Hot water would be partly solar, if available, or through electrical on-demand heaters.

If the electricity system is decarbonised and electric vehicles are available, there would be no reason why the LILs should not have a car of their own. But being LILs, they cannot really see the point of owning a vehicle if you have to take responsibility for it and it sits outside the house doing nothing most of the time except cluttering up the street. No, they would do most journeys on foot, by bike (with extra fitness benefits) or public transport, all of which would be rationally priced and cheap, and use a ‘white car’ – or car-share club car – for occasional awkward journeys. An electric-assist bike might be used for routine longer distances, ideal for (say) a 5-mile commute.

As far as holidays are concerned, perhaps the LILs are especially fond of festivals, where summer camping becomes a pleasant change. They could get there with friends from their locality, hiring a van or bus of the right size. Recent statistics from real festivals suggests that some participants actually reduce their carbon emissions relative to staying at home! Longer holidays might involve exchanges with families overseas. What fun to travel by zero-carbon electric train to, say, the Ukraine for a holiday on the Black Sea, staying in the house of a local family that at the same time are staying in the LILs’ house in Britain. Another kind of holiday, oddly but logically, might involve hunting. Large parts of the uplands in the UK might be reforested for reasons of ecosystem and watershed management, then might be licensed for the hunting of ‘pest species’ such as deer, boar, squirrels, and Canada geese. The meat could be processed in various ways – dried to jerky for example – and would constitute a principal source of animal protein for the household.

During the early part of the transition phase the LILs would have a lot of carbon credits to sell, although the prices would be low. Later, credits would become progressively scarcer and the prices would rise. Towards the end of the decarbonisation period high emitters who had been unable to adapt, or had failed to invest appropriately, would be paying enormous amounts.

Decarbonising Britain is likely to need a dynamic partnership of the top-down and the bottom-up strategies. Wealthy households will have the wherewithal to balance their positive emissions by investments in negative emissions, whereas poorer but shrewd households could make money by selling carbon credits. Meanwhile government (and industry) must deal with the infrastructure and production systems, and set the legal and financial frameworks. While there is a lot householders can do for themselves, the arts of collective action – broadly speaking, politics – will be a vital component of the transition to zero carbon Britain. CS

22 Clean Slate

In recent years, the debate over the risks humanity is taking with the environment has migrated from the green fringe to the mainstream. Issues, which organisations like CAT have been

grappling with for decades, are now discussed by the general public, politicians and business leaders. This is progress, but there is still a lack of concerted action to back up the rhetoric.

Our economic aspirations have to be reconciled with the growing imperative to protect the environment. We are a long way from achieving this. Development through increased material consumption has become how we gauge improvement in our lives. At the same time, negative consequences such as climate change are becoming more visible and the calls for action louder and more numerous. Most people are very slow to realise, and then to accept, the need for real change in response to this. Those people who choose to make fundamental changes in their lives should be admired. They set an example to us all. What will be more effective is when wholesale change across society that applies to us all is precipitated, whether we choose it or not.

There will be no hiding from the ‘Sustainable Revolution’ when it finally arrives. Everyone will need to respond. My argument is that we should prepare for it. Some of us will do so because we believe

it to be right. Others will act from a selfish desire to avoid negative consequences and to position themselves to be able to prosper in a sustainable society. Whether it is through self-sacrifice or self-interest, the outcome will be the same.

Before the revolution can start, our thinking must change. We need to understand that single-issue solutions have little chance of success. A classic example is the standard response to traffic jams and the fumes emitted by the vehicles stuck in them. We build more roads and increase the capacity of those we already have. The traffic moves more freely, less time is wasted and the fuel efficiency per mile travelled is better. This is a logical solution to the problem observed. If we think a little deeper, it soon becomes apparent that a better solution is to work on community design, in all its aspects, to make the car unnecessary for many activities. This is a hugely more complex challenge than relatively simple decisions such as whether to build a bypass to counter a particular bottleneck.

Another example of narrow thinking leading us astray is with regard to fossil fuel. Most people now accept the significance of climate change and that elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels is the prime cause. In response, we look for carbon reduction measures. Conventional nuclear power

Adapt and thrive: the sustainable revolution

Peter McManners

Clean Slate 23

is a rational policy option. An operating nuclear power plant has zero carbon emissions. We ignore, or play down, the long-term risks and liabilities as we focus on the issue of reducing carbon emissions. This deflects effort, attention and investment away from finding the real long-term solution, such as driving down energy demand right across the infrastructure of society. We will have to learn to live without energy from fossil fuel at some stage, however we do it. Increasing our use of nuclear power can delay the energy crunch but it won’t prevent it. These examples show that we have to think beyond single issues to coherent broad based solutions.

It is clear to me that we need a fundamental reconfiguration of society. Eventually the divergence between our economic aspirations and our attempts to conserve the environment will become clear to everyone. This will then initiate a period of massive change. If we delay until we reach crisis point, then the Sustainable Revolution will be hugely difficult and damaging. It could even lead to conflict and the collapse of whole societies. If we can persuade our leaders to act early, then we may initiate a peaceful revolution. Whatever sets it off, it will bring with it huge disruption.

The irony of the situation is that we already have many of the solutions. In some cases we have had the solution for decades but have ignored it. As a young engineering student in the late 1970s, I designed a solar water heating system. It was a simple design like the early models deployed at CAT. It consisted of a radiator, painted black, housed inside a glass panel and a water tank mounted above. My undergraduate design was far from perfect. I made no allowance for the risk of freezing in the winter or dangerously hot water in the summer. A few simple enhancements would be required. From this experience, I could not understand why solar water heating systems were not universal.

In the late 1980s, I became a map maker working with global geographic databases. The pressing need to act to conserve the Earth was brought home to me. Now, working with business, I understand the power, capability and sometimes sheer audacity of business. So I see the world through three lenses. As a geographer, it is clear that humankind must change its ways.

As an engineer I can see many of the solutions. As a management expert I have a whole range of business models I can apply. When I bring my three views together, I find that currently they do not fit one with the other.

I return to the example of solar water heating to make my point. Such systems are now very efficient, robust and reliable, with a life of 20 years or more. We still delay universal deployment. A few years back, I compared a quotation for a solar water heating system with the expected savings from reduced fuel bills. The payback period worked out to be 12 years. This appeared to be a clear cut case for purchase. Not so. An estate agent was consulted. In his view, house buyers would not pay more because the house had such a system. House builders therefore do not fit them as standard because they cannot increase the building’s purchase price to match. Owners looking to improve their property must be sure of being resident for more than 12 years to recoup their investment. The same applies to the decisions made by landlords. Unless tenants

are willing to pay a higher rent, it is not in the narrow economic interest of the landlord to make the capital investment. This is despite the core business case being completely robust.

The Sustainable Revolution will change attitudes. We will then accept and understand the value of the measures we need to take. It could then take up to 30 years to change the infrastructure of society because the alterations required are so deep-rooted. Pessimistically, we might need a whole generation to educate people to a new way of thinking. It might not be until the oil runs out, in 20 years or so, that we start in earnest. It would then be 50 years before we arrive where we need to be. I do not think anyone could realistically believe that the Earth’s systems will survive half a century more of industrial progress without suffering major degradation. If more people really understood the nature of the problem, then I believe that the attitude shift could be rapid. We may already be seeing the start, with the fashion shifting towards low-energy houses and celebrities wanting to parade their green credentials.

As I campaign for the Sustainable Revolution, I look for ways to overcome the inertia that afflicts us. One surprising conclusion I draw is that business can be the primary agent for change.

24 Clean Slate

Governments can drift off course as they strive to maintain popular support. Individuals have a tendency to procrastinate in the face of tough choices. However, businesses that behave like this do not last for long. When business sees that the Sustainable Revolution is inevitable, and that governments will get the mandate to bring in the regulations required, business will move quickly to exploit the opportunities. This will of course be self-fulfilling. When business understands how to profit from a sustainable world, and sets a strategy to take advantage of it, then business will make it happen.

Business is taking pioneering solutions, such as those to be found at CAT, and putting the power of fashionable design, brand development and marketing to drive sales to consumers. The unpredictable nature of the Sustainable Revolution will mean that some opportunities do not fulfil their early promise. This is where business can carry the risk. Venture capitalists are used to investing in a range of opportunities. Only a few are expected to succeed. Others will have to be abandoned. Governments can find it difficult to tolerate such failure rates but business knows how to handle such risks.

It is hard to predict the coming changes from within the unsustainable societies we now have. In 2004, I moved to Finland, a country that appears at the top of world league tables for both competitiveness and environmental stewardship. Finland is not perfect, but its society is much more sustainable than other developed countries. It is a matter not just of well insulated buildings or good public transport but a range of co-ordinated policies. For example, all brands of Finnish beer are sold in identical bottles. Almost every sales outlet has an automatic machine to accept the empty bottles and prints a simple bar-code receipt. This can be exchanged for cash or offset against the shopping bill. The result is that each bottle is refilled many times over. There is also a country-wide informal army of bottle collectors collecting those bottles that people abandon. Some of these people are poor and need the money; some are young people supplementing their pocket money; others are well dressed retired people out for a walk as well as keeping an eye open for bottles. These people are not employed or organised;

they exist because the system exists.From a social perspective, we get concerned that jobs become

scarce because of the march of automation. Conventional economists see this as spare capacity in the labour market and respond by attempting to increase consumption. At the point where we have automated everything, more consumption will simply be more robots and more material consumption sucked out of the planet. This cannot continue. Fortunately, in a sustainable world this trend is reversed. Material consumption reduces, but the need for human effort and ingenuity increases, providing ample employment opportunities, as society operates in a more intelligent manner.

Building cohesive communities is one aspect of sustainable society. This improves our quality of life and is also the way to wean society off fossil fuel. Getting around the immediate vicinity is possible on foot, or, a little further afield, by bicycle. As we reclaim land from the car, everything can be closer and more accessible.

Another area of major change is waste. Currently, attempts to extract useful material from our rubbish are well intentioned but of limited real value. In a sustainable society, food scraps and other wet ‘bio’ waste can join with sewage to generate methane (for burning) before ending up as fertilizer. Dry bio waste can be burnt in small combined heat and power (CHP) units at building or local level. All other items will be fully recyclable due to cradle-to-cradle manufacturing backed up by a residual deposit scheme. Recent discussion in the UK about the frequency of rubbish collection would become irrelevant. Looking from inside our throw-away society it seems incredible, but rubbish really can become obsolete. It will require a lot of government time and effort to frame the appropriate regulation, and a lot of businesses changing their operations. The beauty of such a system is that once set up it is naturally self-regulating.

The Sustainable Revolution is coming. It will come slowly if we wait to be pushed, and could then be a painful transition. It would be far better to force the pace of change now before the crisis hits. CShttp://www.petermcmanners.com/

What is your favourite technological invention and why?This is a difficult – because technology fascinates me. Imaging technologies have interested me since I was child, with a Brownie, processing my own photographs. That is probably why I became an electron microscopist. That reflects what I most like doing. As to the best invention, then there is probably only one answer: the Internet. Here is a revolution in the worldwide availability of information and communication, with social and political consequences even more far reaching than the invention of the printing press. It has to take first prize! What technological invention do you most dislike and why?Now smoking is illegal in public places, loudspeakers! Not the ordinary type on hi-fis, but those extremely loud ones used by groups and DJs at events. They only seem to work flat-out. When everyone is happily having civilised conversations, some idiot turns the PA fully on. Then shouting is needed, even to attempt simple conversation, and soon your voice runs out and your throat is like a bear’s arse! That is how pubs increase trade. The noise makes conversation impossible, I get bored and annoyed and go home – because I’m not into dancing!

What piece of technology do you hanker after that has not been invented?In the 70s Sir George Porter, then president of The Royal Institution, said that, with sufficient investment, it is possible to design a panel that could use solar energy directly and efficiently to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This assertion arose from the work of his

research group. Fuel cells can use hydrogen to drive devices efficiently. Internal combustion engines can also run on it. All we need is hydrogen, without using electricity to produce it. Rising fossil fuel prices will, hopefully, drive such a development. What is the most environmentally sound thing you have ever done?Almost by definition, simply existing poses a threat to ‘the environment’. There are simply too many humans on the planet. It is impossible not to have some impact. Probably, the most important thing I have done is to build my own, timber framed, house to have as low an energy budget as I could afford to build into it at the time (just over 20 years ago). If I were to do it now I would do some things differently. Increased wisdom usually comes with hindsight!

What is the most important environmental issue today and why?How can we change from being hooked on energy-wasting consumerism to a more sensible way of doing things, relatively rapidly, without dangerous social unrest? The escalating cost of fossil fuels is forcing such a change. Centralised systems – political or commercial – are much less efficient, potentially unstable and environmentally unfriendly. Living in Switzerland confirmed my views on this. The fundamental issue is how can we decentralise and have real empowerment at community level? Small is beautiful. Leopold Kohr was right!

my green solution Dr Iolo ap Gwynn, Chair of Board of Trustees, CAT Charity Limited

Clean Slate 2�

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Clean Slate 2�

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The Shared Earth Trust is a unique conservation project based at Denmark Farm and nestled in the rolling hills of mid-Wales, close to Lampeter. Established back in 1987, the Trust arose

as a response to the catastrophic decline in wildlife and biodiversity in the farmed countryside.

Years of intensive agricultural practice, beginning with the so-called Green Revolution of the postwar years had left the land of Denmark Farm poised to become an embodiment of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. The farm, like many others, had been pushed to its productive limit, to the detriment of local species and ecosystems. The Shared Earth Trust was established as an attempt to turn around the ecological impoverishment of agricultural land and create valuable experiential knowledge in the process. The Trust’s aim was to create a space for the revival and rejuvenation of natural systems; a practice of natural restoration that would see the flourishing of habitats and biodiversity in a previously intensively farmed agricultural landscape.

One of the Trust’s main motives was to ascertain whether the process of degradation could be reversed without major interventions or capital expense and to monitor the speed and extent of the return of wildlife. Reinstating more traditional grazing regimes, haymaking, reversing drainage, stopping most fertiliser inputs and fencing off overgrazed hedgerows, streams and ditches were all intended to help ‘kickstart’ natural processes.

Today, the farm is a patchwork of flourishing habitats: grassland, wetland, woodland and scrub. All of this has been achieved with

26 Clean Slate

centres for changeThe Shared Earth Trust, Denmark Farm, Lampeter

A very barren place, before

A notable nature reserve, after

Adam Thoroughgood

Clean Slate 2�

minimal human intervention; the principle of observation and gradual interaction has informed the Shared Earth Trust’s activity from the early days. Rejuvenation of the farm’s ecosystems has been achieved without major species introduction and without prescriptive management. The land has been left to heal itself and the natural process of succession has resulted in the return of many species that were absent from the farm. However, management and human activity have not been completely abandoned. One of the most notable new habitats is the wetland, achieved by digging a lake, restoring a farm pond and creating a series of scrapes (shallow pools of water) that have slowed down the movement of water through the land. These wetland habitats now support 14 breeding species of dragonfly and damsel fly. Reversing the drainage has also retained valuable water, resulting in tussocky, damp grasslands and meadows full of flowers that are ideal for ground-nesting birds. The practice of encouraging wetland revival has provided the Shared Earth Trust with some of their most valuable knowledge, all condensed into a series of publications that can be purchased through their website (link below). The fencing off of hedgerows has also created valuable habitat corridors and increased the number of breeding bird species by over 300 per cent, from 15 species to an average of 47.

A return to more traditional grazing regimes has benefitted the grassland habitats of the farm’s environs. For certain months of the year, a small herd of highland cattle are allowed to graze on the land – creating just the right conditions for the revival of diverse meadow habitats. Fields formerly dominated by rye grass are now rich in traditional flowers, grasses and sedges, with the most diverse meadow containing well over 100 plant species.

The evident success of the Shared Earth Trust’s work is an

overwhelmingly positive message. We are bombarded daily by news of environmental degradation and destruction of natural systems and sometimes it is hard to remain positive. The Shared Earth Trust’s work at Denmark Farm is a small but significant pocket of positive change – a beacon of hope that, given the right conditions, the ecosystem can repair itself and reinstate the diversity that is the true state of natural systems, a diversity that carries with it the strength and resilience to respond to change. Denmark Farm demonstrates that land brought out of intensive management can return to health within a relatively short space of time. The farm is an important model for research and study; the template can be used in other intensively farmed regions to revive the ethic of care for the Earth.

Recently, the Trust has benefitted from Big Lottery Fund support for a new programme of events, activities and workshops called Natural Links. The programme is designed to work with community groups to help people reconnect with the natural world and help foster community learning and skills in working with natural materials. Denmark Farm is an ideal location for such activities – based in very comfortable farm buildings and surrounded on all sides by the proof that humans can work in harmony with natural systems rather than impose their will upon them. To find out more about the Shared Earth Trust, Denmark Farm and the Natural Links programme, visit the website at www.shared-earth-trust.org.uk

The return of many species that had disappeared from Denmark Farm and the blossoming of a once barren mono-cultural landscape, proves that by slowing down and observing, then letting Nature lead the way, we can learn valuable lessons – the truths of which are often already present, just beneath the surface, ready to emerge, given the right conditions. CS

28 Clean Slate

Will being greener make us happier? And are we truly free to choose? Is ‘poor but happy’ a piece of sentimental nonsense?

I’m not a pessimist but … There has been a great deal of interest in the last few years in what are sometimes called the ‘soft factors of sustainability’ – what I would call ‘green psychology’. Take transport, for example: there are umpteen ways to lower the carbon emissions per mile of vehicles and no shortage of techno-fix ideas for the future. Engineers simply adore doing this kind of thing, but what they cannot do is to persuade people to actually take up their good ideas, let alone actually drive less. That’s a question for us social-science geeks: how on earth could we persuade people to drive less and buy a battery vehicle? I became interested in this type of problem because I knew that the answer to, ‘Why don’t we all respond to the good science that is telling us to live our lives differently?’ is most certainly not, ‘Because people are irrational/wicked/stupid/greedy/brainwashed.’ For the most part, we are none of these things.

Over the last few years, I have done a good deal of reading around these issues. There are no ‘hard’ answers, no sure fire ways to change behaviour (economic incentives are not a universal answer – sometimes things can be too cheap), no magic words, but it is possible to learn a thing or two about what makes us tick and use this knowledge to assist with campaigns, communications, legislation and so on. But I’ve come to think that what we can do in this way is limited and that green communications can ultimately do no more than lubricate changes that are being driven by other factors. (Mind you, if you extend the metaphor and think of a machine that is seized up, lubrication is not trivial).

I wouldn’t say I’m pessimistic exactly, but certain arguments have given me pause for thought. Here are three non-technical ‘good reads’, each very different, but which I recommend to anyone interested in what might or might not be possible for the future.

Happiness: The science behind your smile, Daniel Nettle, Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0192805591Will we ever have enough to make us happy? The answer is yes and no, because certain kinds of happiness fade, while others do not. We do something that makes us happier – yes, money and possessions can do this – but the boost they give does not last. We get used to our new wealth, sag, and start wanting another boost to put us back where we were before – an effect known as ‘the hedonic treadmill’. Luckily, this can also work in reverse: events can depress us but we can bounce back. Unluckily, this effect does not apply to all changes of fortune – there are some things to which we cannot adapt fully:

‘Basic threats to the safety of the individual – chronic cold, food shortage, or excessive environmental noise, are things that you would never get used to. Serious health problems can leave a lasting mark. The lack of autonomy in life is an enduring negative.’

This distinction between adaptable and non-adaptable changes parallels the distinction between positional and non-positional goods. Income is positional: it isn’t the absolute amount that matters; it’s where it puts us in relation to others. Consumer goods are positional. So, an increase in personal wealth (positional) will not give me lasting happiness but an improved environment (non-positional) will.

So why don’t more of us go for the lasting pleasures? Daniel Nettle, an academic psychologist, is coming from a position of evolutionary psychology on this:

‘Although we implicitly feel that the things we want in life will make us happy, this may be a particularly cruel trick played by our evolved mind to keep us competing.’

Or to put it another way:

‘The psychology of aspiration is not that of satisfaction. We do not always want what we like or like what we want.’

So, we think that keeping up with the Joneses will make us happy, but it doesn’t. Whereas, in the long run, the real sources of happiness are ‘health, autonomy, social embeddedness, and the quality of the environment.’ I am fond of quoting this paragraph:

‘…the British Government is planning a major expansion of airports all over the country. However, hedonics predicts that people will soon adapt to the availability of cheap regional flights in Europe, and find them just as tiresome as the longer train journeys they replace. On the other hand, we will never adapt to the increased noise.’

So there we have it, being green will make you happier, in an important sense of ‘happy’, but making greener choices means defying or getting around our evolved psychologies – and you’d have be very wise to do that.

Can Technology Save Us? John Adams, 1996We all know what the problems with our present transport system are: it munches up resources, it’s noisy, it chucks out greenhouse gases and it kills people in several different ways. But surely we’re smart enough to house-train our vehicles? Adams, a geographer with a longstanding interest in sustainable transport, presents a convincing argument that even if technology could solve these problems (and talk of the ‘hydrogen economy’ often seems to be such a dream), there is a problem with what he calls ‘hyper-mobility’. Our mileage increases but we aren’t taking more trips, we are taking longer ones and distance makes our lives geographically less dense.

Are you an Anarresti?Martin Parkinson

members’ corner

Clean Slate 2�

If most of your social interactions take place at a distance from your home, you will know fewer people in your neighbourhood. If we all travel too far to work, shop, socialise, we create a world of strangers. A world of strangers is not a world of safety.

What about the internet? Here distance disappears entirely and we can create online communities of interest. Surely there’s our solution? But online relationships and communities are pale things, insubstantial substitutes for the true satisfaction of meeting our friends in the flesh. Greater cyber mobility leads to the desire for more physical travel.

If someone were to offer you (asks Adams), ‘…a car, unlimited air-miles and all the computers and communications facilities enjoyed by Bill Gates,’ why should you refuse? ‘In answering, most people probably imagine the world as it is now but with themselves having access to the enlarged range of opportunities.’ Yet a world that attempted to grant these wishes to everyone would become a world no sane person would vote for (and, argues Adams, amongst the other hellish features of such a world, democracy would be impossible).

I was, and am, disturbed by this argument, because I do not see any cap on our desire for mobility. Obviously it is good to be able to travel to some extent yet there is no logical point at which we can say, ‘Well, people are mobile enough now, I think we’ll call a halt.’ If the technology is there we will use it. If we can travel, we will. Daniel Nettle’s speculations about our evolved psychologies, which push us to compete and acquire regardless of diminishing returns, do not imply any hope that humanity as a whole can call a halt, even if a few individuals can understand where we are heading.

The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin, Gollancz, 1974, ISBN 978-0575079038In this science fiction novel the small planet Anarres has been settled by a group of dissidents from its twin planet Urras, a world much like our own. Urras has a rich and luxuriant biosphere and Urrasti culture has property, shopping, class systems, gross inequalities, violence, sexism. Anarres is a harsh world by comparison: its biosphere has evolved little beyond the Devonian and it takes the settlers discipline and courage to be able to call it home. The Anarresti are anarchists: their society has no ownership, no hierarchy, very little violence, complete equality and no shopping. Le Guin pulls off the impressive trick of making us believe in their society because Anarres is not Utopia and the Anarresti have believable human psychologies. They have the normal faults of jealousy, rivalry, egotism, lack of imagination, fearfulness. The desire for ownership still exists, but it is not pandered to and cultivated. Self-awareness and the harsh demands of the planet give a space for the desire for equality and freedom (needs which are just as ‘innate’ as the urge to dominate) to flourish.

Le Guin is a true storyteller and does not spell things out or preach, but I cannot help concluding that if Anarresti culture is believable it is because they do not have abundance, because their world is demanding, because there are no easy surpluses. It may be fiction, but it might be telling the truth.

It is interesting that Le Guin’s anarchists also have advanced, but realistic, technology: this is not an eco-fantasy about humans reverting to the hunter-gatherer stage. I liked that very much about this story, because our technology is us – it’s what human beings do. It’s our Tao: from spectacles to space probes it springs directly from our natures.

I read The Dispossessed for the first time about a year ago and it seemed to echo Daniel Nettle and John Adams. What we think will make us happy will not in fact do so, and abundance will always be abused (perhaps). Autonomy, social embeddedness, meaningful work are sources of satisfaction, which the Anarresti have in abundance, but that is because of the physical constraints placed on

them by their world (perhaps). You never can ‘have it all’ (more-than-perhaps). Our ‘inner toddler’ cannot accept this: some choices – the ones that reject superfluous comfort and mobility – are simply too hard to make, and limits have to be forced upon us by circumstance. (I’m aware that this argument is easily parodied and I must stress that I’m certainly not suggesting that absolute poverty can co-exist with happiness).

I’m not an optimist but …I’m really not a pessimist! The future is uncertain, though it looks like we are in for ‘interesting times’ of some sort. We don’t know what the interaction between peak oil and climate change will be, but one possible future involves a prolonged worldwide recession. Now I’m certainly not wishing for it, but as long as we have basic health and a bit of personal autonomy, there are far worse possibilities. It might not be all bad to be a bit constrained, to not be able to use the car, to have to mend things, make things, grow things, be aware of how the physical world works. We’d moan and feel hard done by of course, but perhaps it might not be so bad. CS

ReferencesAdams, J (1996) Can technology save us? Journal of World transport Policy and Practice 2/3 [1996] pp 24-27 available from www.eco-logica.co.uk/wtpp02.3.pdf

Le Guin, Ursula (2002; 1974) The Dispossessed, Gollancz, London

Nettle, Daniel (2005) Happiness: The science behind your smile, Oxford University Press, Oxford

A CAT member since 2004, with an interest in ‘green psychology’, Martin helped with the 2006 report ‘Painting the Town Green’, and last year studied energy systems with the OU; he is hoping to start the CAT/UEL MSc this autumn.

Empty Printer Cartridge & Mobile Phone Recycling

As you may already be aware, CAT is able to benefit from recycling your old mobile phones and inkjet printer cartridges in conjunction with EAH recycling.

Since the commencement of the recycling schemes we have raised £622 towards CAT’s charitable work – so a huge ‘thank you’ to all our supporters who have taken part. Please keep up the good work by sending your empty cartridges and mobile phones to EAH Recycling in the freepost envelope enclosed in this issue – every cartridge and mobile phone is much appreciated.

For extra envelopes or larger bags please call EAH Recycling on 01473 658161 and mention that it is part of the Centre for Alternative Technology’s appeal.

members’info

30 Clean Slate30 Clean Slate

Saving water helps protect aquatic environments, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and can save you money. Common sense suggests that taking a shower uses less

than a bath, but this is not always so. Although most electric showers will use less water than a bath, a modern ‘power shower’ can use quite a bit more. To help reduce flows on pumped and mains-pressure shower-systems, a number of manufacturers are producing ‘water-saving’ shower heads. This seems like a good idea in theory, but how do they shape-up in practice, how much water do they actually save, and do they offer value for money?

We tested 5 shower-heads with a five-minute shower at mains pressure (at approximately 2 bar) from a ‘combi-boiler’, measuring water flows and assessing user comfort.

The shower with the highest flow rate of 9.9 litres per minute was the supposedly water-saving ‘Flowpoint HH336’, followed closely by the standard showerhead (9.5 l/min) and the other Flowpoint unit (9.4 l/min). All three gave a vigorous and very comfortable shower, but none could really be termed water-saving.

The other two arrangements did offer significant water savings. The Oxygenics showerhead came next in the league table with an average flow of 6.1 litres per minute. Now that is a saving. A leisurely seven minute shower would use less than half the water

of even a modest bath. As to comfort, this aerating showerhead was less forceful than the three above but nonetheless gave a pleasant shower with a mildly vigorous feel. On the down side, it was quite noticeably noisy and a little reminiscent of a distant jet engine. The most water efficient option tested was the standard shower fitted with an ‘Aquaflow’ regulator giving a flow of 5 litres per minute. This gave a similar level of showering comfort to the Oxygenics head, with good water coverage, but was a slightly softer experience with no feeling of vigour to the jets. It was less noisy and considerably cheaper.

So, which showerhead to choose? Given that there is very little difference between the standard and ‘Flowpoint’ shower heads on mains-pressure systems (like a combi-boiler) you might as well stick with what you already have and save yourself the £20.

Only the Oxygenics head or the Aquaflow insert offered any real water savings. At £40 the Oxygenics is relatively expensive, bearing in mind you can get similar results at a fraction of the cost using a flow-regulator. Nonetheless, if you want a water efficient ‘luxury’ bathroom you will have to spend if you wish to be ‘invigorated’ by your shower. If you’re not after eco-chic but just saving water then it needn’t be expensive. Try a 6 litre per minute regulator for substantial water savings, and if you find this not to give enough flow for your taste then you could upgrade to 7 litres or more, as desired.

Q&A CAT Information Department

Water-saving showers

Oxygenics showerhead (£50) Flowpoint HH336 (£20) Aquaflow regulator (£2.50)

Shower head name Cost (£) Water Used (litres per minute)

1 Oxygenics 40 6.1

2 Flowpoint HH336 20 9.9

3 Flowpoint HH412 20 9.4

4 Conventional thermostatic mixer 0 (it came with the shower) 9.5

5 Conventional thermostatic mixer 2.50 5.0 shower fitted with an Aquaflow regulator

Clean Slate 3�

Jo C

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HiIn Grace Crabb’s (CAT Biology) response to Kit’s query she says they are ‘currently attempting to find a supplier that provides glyphosate that is not made by the company “Round-up” so that we are not supporting Monsanto.’ Nufarm UK Ltd used to produce a glyphosate based herbicide called Clinic which is a concentrate form for dilution and application by farmers. I don’t know for certain that they are unconnected to Monsanto but you could try them. Their number was 020 8319 7222. They are based in Kent somewhere. All the best,Elvin Simpson

HelloI hope that the proposed Talbott BG100 CHP installation is a great success; but as I read the

article in Clean Slate I became concerned. The article states that the unit will be heat-led. And that wood burning appliances operate most efficiently when they are at full load. But then we are told that the output can meet the peak site demand, and that there are several other heat loads that can be used to ‘fill any gaps’. In other words it appears that the unit that is being installed is simply too big.This seems to be a terrible waste – of money and resources, and of the opportunity to provide a useful demonstration project. There are many examples of this (oversized biomass burning plant being installed and it leading to problems) reported in the engineering press: it would be a tragedy to see CAT reported next.I would be very interested in any further information that is available; from the information given the average load is nearer 56kW (8 hours at full load, followed by 3 days at 20 per cent or ‘slumber’), with a unit of this output the thermal store could be used conventionally – to deal with the peak loads and allowing the burner to operate continuously (or more so) at near to 100 per cent output.I wish you good luck.RegardsAndy List, C.Eng

PS: at the risk of appearing negative (which is not my intention) in another article on page 24 you advocate using polystyrene sheets for insulating the hulls of boats. As you may (or may not) know there are substantial fire risks associated with polystyrene. It might be a good idea to warn readers of this and remind them to ensure that the polystyrene must be protected with plasterboard or some other suitable finish.

Dear EditorCongratulations on an excellent Summer edition

of Clean Slate. There was much of interest. However I will focus on just one point made in a letter from David Griffiths, stemming from the article on population by Rosamund McDougall in the previous edition. Griffiths suggests that ‘we must avoid aligning environmentalism with the

poisonous debate about immigration.’ I will give two reasons why, however desirable that may be, the subject of immigration cannot be avoided without avoiding the ‘main point’. 1) The USA provides the best demonstration of why immigration is the essence of the problem. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that electricity demand will grow by 39 per cent between 2005 and 2030. A 248 page report has just been circulated entitled 20% Wind Energy by 2030. But note that an increase to 20 per cent in the contribution of wind to the likely electricity energy demand in 2030 is insufficient to meet the demand increase of 39 per cent forecast by the EIA. Note, too, that the 39 per cent is accounted for by population growth. Professor Virginia Abernethy estimates that population growth in the US is between 1.4 per cent and 1.7 per cent per year. The range is unavoidable because illegal immigration is necessarily an imponderable. It would only need a 1.4 per cent expansion to account for the 39 per cent increase in 25 years. A close study of the wind energy report shows that the total construction effort required to provide this 39 per cent increase in electrical demand would include: (1) building 220 fossil fuel plants each of 1000MW (nearly 10 per year); (2) building and installing, on average, 11 turbines of 4MW every day for 23 years; (3) building and installing a national transmission system able to deal with the wind output. It is clear both that the end result will be an increase in fossil fuel use, and also that there is no way that fossil fuel consumption can be reduced without tackling the immigration problem, which is the prime reason for population expansion in the USA, as it is in the UK.2) The second reason is the imminence of fossil fuel scarcity. Professor David Rutledge, in the Watson Lecture (http://rutledge.caltech.edu), estimated that by 2021 the world will have reached the peak of all fossil fuel production, and by 2076 humans will have extracted 90 per cent of all the fossil fuel that we will ever extract. Those estimates may not be accurate, but if they are in the ball park, the conclusion is much the same: here in the UK, we need to be reducing our population steadily over the next century to a size that might be supportable without the advantages of fossil fuels. OPT estimates that figure at around 20 million. There is no way that the reduction can be achieved without balanced migration. Regards to you, and all at CATAndrew

Greetings from IrelandI was most intrigued to see John Cantor’s reference to the Kiss Test (Piranha – Dynamo Shaver, CS68). Surely this is the most innovative, ecological, environmental and sustainable test ever introduced by CAT. I think we should be

given full details of this test in the next Clean Slate and instructions on when and how to apply it!Keep up the good work.All the bestAnthony

Opinions expressed are not necessarily those held by CAT. We reserve the right to edit letters where necessary.

Welcome to the Summer edition of Clean Slate! Whether you’re reading it in your back garden or your local, sustainable holiday destination we hope you enjoy it and find plenty of inspiration, to keep you busy this summer! We always welcome input from members, so if you’d like to contribute then please send your ideas or your feedback to cleanslate@cat.org.uk – we’d love to hear from you!

We recently said a sad farewell to our membership co-ordinator Scott, who left these shores for France to start a new, lower impact life with his family. We wish him all the best and look forward to hearing about his adventures!

Thank you to all those who requested Clean Slate by email – we are pleased to be able to offer this now. If you would like to receive Clean Slate by email then please email members@cat.org.uk and you will be able to read the magazine at your computer from the next edition.

We have had lot of interest in ZeroCarbonBritain, the Alternative Energy Strategy for the UK developed here at CAT. This summer at the Centre there will be a specialist guided tour focussing on ZeroCarbonBritain every Wednesday at 2pm during the holiday season. Check www.cat.org.uk for further details. Don’t miss it!

And finally, we hope to be welcoming many of you to CAT for the annual members’ conference: ‘Transition Time’ from the 29th-31st August, which we hope will be a great opportunity for sharing information about current projects and ideas. Check out the membership pages on www.cat.org.uk for more details!

Membership Teamcleanslate@cat.org.uk01654 704956Next copy deadline: 6th October 2008

letters

32 Clean Slate

A World Without Bees, Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum, Guardian Books, hardback, 256pp, £9.99, ISBN 978-0852650929

If climate change doesn’t get you, the disappearance of the honeybee will – this is the rather gloomy message of Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum’s well researched and engagingly written new book on Colony Collapse Disorder – a honeybee ‘plague’ that has already killed millions of bees worldwide. Some 90 commercial crops owe their continued existence to the pollination services provided free of charge by the honeybee, so it’s fair to say that A World Without Bees is both an important book and a scary prospect. For it to succeed in its mission it has to put the fear of God into us without losing us to jargon. It does so admirably, taking us through the rather complicated but interesting world of honeybee health, politics and economics and delivering us to a conclusion that lays the blame firmly on our own shoulders. Time to start talking about bee rights? Could be…Allan Shepherd

Surviving Climate Change:, The Struggle to Avert Global Catastrophe, Ed. David Cromwell and Mark Levene, Pluto Press, paperback, 272pp, £15.99, ISBN 978-0745325675

This book will definitely help you to survive climate change in the long term. More immediately it will help you to survive those conversations in which someone asks, ‘But what can we really do to stop climate change?’ or ‘What will actually happen if we don’t stop climate change?’

If you want to be more confident when discussing the key issues, particularly in terms of the solutions to this all-encompassing environmental problem, then this book is for you. Divided into chapters beginning with ‘The Big Picture: The Case for Contraction and Convergence’, followed by parts 2, 3 and 4, it covers issues ranging from climate refugees to the mass media coverage of climate change. The book ends with a positive look at what we can do next to avert global warming and transform society for the better.

There is an inspiring afterword by Mayer Hillman and a very welcome glossary that explains all the jargon that no-one understands, followed by a list of groups and organisations to get in touch with, such as the Camp for Climate Action.

The editors have chosen the contributions to ensure a useful mix of background information and peripheral climate change issues, all put together in refreshingly understandable language. Tanya Hawkes

DVD – The Age of Stupid, Dir. Franny Armstrong

The Age of Stupid tells the story of climate change from the perspective of a future wrecked by temperature rises, and is in parts moving, entertaining, amusing and terrifying. Perched in a bunker above the melted Arctic ice cap, the archivist, played by Pete Postlethwaite (Brassed Off, The Usual Suspects) looks back to the beginning of the twenty-first century – our time – and asks why we didn’t choose to save ourselves when we had the chance.

This fictional structure creates a lively film which is built around some amazing (real life) stories of people who are already affected by the changing climate. From the French mountain guide who laments the disappearance of his beloved glaciers, to the Nigerian medical student who has seen her country pillaged by oil companies, and via Iraq, New Orleans, India and Herefordshire, the quality of these human tales shines through.

Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel) has made a film that is entertaining and lively, but which also delivers a powerful cry against over-consumption and human short-sightedness.Christian Hunt

A World Without Bees, Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum, Guardian Books, hardback, 256pp, £9.99, ISBN 978-0852650929

If climate change doesn’t get you, the disappearance of the honeybee will – this is the rather gloomy message of Benjamin and Brian McCallum’s well researched and engagingly written new book on Colony Collapse Disorder – a honeybee ‘plague’ that has already killed millions of bees worldwide. Some 90 commercial crops owe their continued existence to the pollination services provided free of charge by the honeybee, so it’Beesus without losing us to jargon. It does so admirably, taking us through the rather complicated but interesting world of honeybee health, politics and economics and delivering us to a conclusion that lays the blame firmly on our own shoulders. Time to start talking about bee rights? Could be…Allan Shepherd

Surviving Climate Change:, The Struggle to Avert Global Catastrophe, Ed. David Cromwell and Mark Levene, Pluto Press, paperback, 272pp, £15.99,

If you want to be more confident when discussing the key issues, particularly in terms of the solutions to this all-

to the mass media coverage of climate change. The book ends with a positive look at what we can do next to avert global warming and transform society for the better.

understands, followed by a list of groups and organisations to get in touch with, such as the Camp for Climate Action.

change issues, all put together in refreshingly understandable language. Tanya Hawkes

reviews

powerful cry against over-consumption and human short-sightedness.Christian Hunt

Images courtesy of Spanner Films, June 2006, www.crudemovie.net

Clean Slate 33

WWW European Travel – Amy Dartington

www.nationalexpress.comDesign of this site is poor; it’s hard to find local pick-up points, and the map inviting you to click on your area for more info directs you to a standard page with very little regional info. Fares are not displayed until the last minute, prohibiting easy comparison. Also, there appear to be some glitches with finding locations to travel from and to. However, you can find cheaper and more environmentally ways to travel around the UK and also to many European destinations. This includes the joint train and ferry ‘Dutch Flyer’ routes.

www.bahn.co.ukThis German train service website covers journeys all over Europe. The site can be viewed in English but does take some getting used to. If you’re stuck you can call and speak to English speaking operators. This is different to the English phone info service, which is expensive. Also journeys starting in Europe can be far cheaper than starting in the UK, booking two returns both starting in Europe can work out cheaper than one return starting in the UK and using Eurostar.

www.seat61.comThe ‘man in seat 61’ has, among other things, been station manager at Charing Cross and London Bridge and has travelled by train all over the world. This site is a collection of his knowledge, hints, tips and experience – giving advice and info on how to book tickets, where to find cheap fares, the best routes to take, how to travel with a bike, and how to find a route from the UK to Russia, Malta, or Tunisia by combining trains and ships. It is the best website if you want to travel without flying. Visit the site before you book any tickets anywhere. Fantastic.

CAT FundraisingA big thank to all our supporters who have once again shown their amazing backing for the work we do here at CAT by providing the funds needed to help complete the groundbreaking Wales Institute for Sustainable Education (WISE).

WISE is at its most exciting stage to date – the building is almost complete and we are preparing to install all the energy efficient technologies that will encourage students to research, deploy and understand sustainable options from energy efficient computer systems to a solar hot water system, south facing glazing for passive solar collection to rammed earth lecture theatre walls. These are just a few of the working examples of sustainable technology that WISE will demonstrate to the very students it houses.

These students will be taught the skills and knowledge required in a society that is attempting the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. In order to achieve this monumental social change, we have to learn new skills and new techniques, explore new technologies and conduct many investigations into the details of every level of this global challenge. WISE will provide guidance, skills, knowledge and support for the great minds that will engage with and deliver this promise.

Homeowners will learn how to upgrade their homes to make them more energy efficient: the best insulation techniques that are available, green energy suppliers, which green technologies they can install themselves, and

how. Businesses will learn about environmental building techniques and materials. Plumbers

will learn how to install solar water systems and be educated on the various products on the market.

Electricians will learn how to install PV panels.We really appreciate all the help you have already given; your

participation is greatly valued and really does make a difference. We will be holding a supporter’s day once WISE opens, in which everyone who has made a donation to WISE will be invited to come, look round and celebrate with us. Can I please take this opportunity to thank once again all those who have donated – for even the smallest donations we are sincerely grateful.

If you haven’t already, why not become a supporter of this environmentally groundbreaking project? Please contact Adam Thorogood, James Cass, Tanya Hawkes or myself on 01654 704951 or visit the website www.cat.org.uk/wise where you will also be able to find more information.Thank you.Chris Moreton

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