Woo hoo

Just how good is this weather! After a lush longboarding 2 hour surf at Watergate on Saturday (followed by an excellent Pheonix burger with my nippers, pals and Clare), the suns just kept up the good vibes. The last couple of morning walks to work have felt really good (not that my usual walks or cycles are bad, even in the rain it's ace to just have the freedom that my walks give), short shirt and jeans and it's as good as summer. I'll take some snaps soon of what my walk/cycle looks like.

Other news, off to the launch of the Sexy Green Car Show at Eden tomorrow, should be interesting. Last night at my old pad Eden again for a great little show and tell session by Tim and Tony with some great insights in to Eden's hopeful next build phase. Make sure you vote for them when the time comes.

It was also interesting as Eden's new build will be titled the Edge and has a lot of basis in dry arid regions of the world. Exactly where I was 6 weeks ago in Sinai! And the edge is a fitting title for similar regions and peoples around the world and was one of two aspects that filled my thoughts whilst I spent time in the desert. The other was the memory of water that surrounded me.... but I will write fully about Sinai and my time there in the near future.

Right time to work, it's been another lightning paced day with time spent talking to St Austell Brewery about design and sustainability and Leap will be consulting with them in the future - which is nice. Artworking the June Energy in Regional Development conference work that Leap have just branded and a few other tasty projects. One day I might actually do the portfolio so you can see some of the 300 projects we've been part of in the last two years instead of all my old work currently shown!!

Bye bye, enjoy sunny tiimes.
matt x

Fallujah - one to watch

http://www.fallujah.co.uk

This is based on the case study done by Scilla Elworthy of what really happened in Fallujah. I was lucky enough to be on the same journey party as Scilla on my recent time in Sinai (which will appear on our blog in another week, 1 month after my return). If you can, book seats now! And let us know what you thought of it.

Matt

ps Snow swirled around me as I did my daily walk (sometimes cycle) to work today! I soooo wanted to run back home and grab my two under two daughters Bo and Gracie and show them. It's gone now, as quick as that, swirling cold life then gone. The sun is out now and blue skies abound.. I love not having to use a car to get to work:)

Think before you offset...

...and definitely minimise before you think about offsetting:)

We use www.co2balance.com they do good, they think responsibly have great projects and we've had the great if short (babysitter) fun of meeting them at the wonderful Lewinnick lodge in Newquay and they are passionate about what they do and that counts big time at Leap.

However thereare a lot of shoddy practices that are starting to be exposed. See www.robedwards.com/2007/02/from_sunday_her.html This scheme is breathtaking in its misrepresentation. They are also the organisation behind the Coldplay Forest debacle, which you may have read about. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/30/ngreen30.xml This is what happens when a carbon management organisation sub-contracts its carbon saving projects. co2balance deliberately do not do this and only invest in projects that we have initiated and continue to control.

Matt

ps reduce and at the last offset. Oh and trees are ace and good to plant so do it anyway (but make sure you look after them - a tree is for many lives not just for a bit of climate guilt smoothing:)

Channel 4 big bollocks no respect

You may have seen, you may have believed, you may be confused.. alot of people I've spoken to are! As far as I'm concerned it is all kingsize pants and the compass network that I'm part of ran this piece which is taken from the climate denial site. So hold onto your own thoughts of repsonsibilies and values as opposed to the lapdog to commercialism that Channel 4 seem to be.

And at the end of the day even if it is all part of a global re-occuring system so what, we've become throw away hooligans of mass plastic, super CO2 guzzling mass miles and non-recycling. It's getting better and we should all be responsible for our own patch and beyond. And love your world... I bloody do:) Matt



THE GREAT CHANNEL FOUR SWINDLE
George Marshall
http://climatedenial.org/



Last night Channel Four kindly gave an hour and half and a large budget to the international network of professional climate change deniers. ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ was a propaganda gift to the various vested interests who seek to undermine the fragile political and social will to take action on this global action.

And it was sometimes very convincing, as strongly worded opinions often are when they are not subject to any verification or external challenge. For example, there are excellent rebuttals against the contention that global warming is correlated to cosmic rays.

There was only one scientific advisor on the programme, Martin Livermore, whose sole scientific qualification is that he is the Director of a web-based think tank, The Scientific Alliance. The Alliance was set up by in 2001 by Robert Durward, the fiercely anti-green director of the British Aggregates Association, and Foresight Communications, a Westminster public relations and lobbying company, to “counter scare-mongering by the so-called green lobby”. (For more…)

The Scientific Alliance has no affiliation with any recognised scientific body but, like most of the contributors to the programme, it does have very strong links with the US public relations and lobbying organisations that have been so effective in setting the Bush agenda on climate change.

The writer and presenter of the programme was Martin Durkin. Although it was written in a highly personal and opinionated style- speaking freely of “lies”, and the “shrill frenzy” of “scare stories” – we never saw Durkin or discovered his personal credentials. As George Monbiot has revealed Durkin is closely affiliated with the Revolutionary Communist Party which has a strong ideological opposition to environmental science (more on Durkin and the RCP.

In 1997 Channel Four was forced to issue a humiliating public apology over a previous series of anti-environment programmes directed by Durkin called “Against Nature”. The Independent Television Commission found that “the views of the four complainants, as made clear to the interviewer, had been distorted by selective editing” and that they had been “misled as to the content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take part.”

For this programme Durkin drew up a dream team of scientists who have built personal careers as media pundits debunking the peer-reviewed work of their colleagues. There are few of them, but they are well supported by the Washington lobbies and kept very busy with media debates, documentaries and opinion pieces. (I have personally debated with five of them in media debates).

Is it any surprise then, that they were so persuasive. Most of the people on the programme are professional communicators who are more familiar with the chat show than the lab. Of course they give good interviews - it is what they do for a living.

And let us not forget that we all want to believe them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to believe that the science is unsettled, that all that carbon dioxide that we are pumping into the atmosphere really has no effect, and that we do not have to worry about the future.

It would be entirely possible to put together a similar programme, with a string of credible former academics, to argue that smoking does no cause cancer, that HIV does not cause AIDS, or that black people are less intelligent. However, Channel Four would not dare broadcast the programme and we would not believe them if they did. Is it not a reflection of the deep public ambivalence about climate change that these dissenters are given such a prominent and uncritical showcase and that we are so keen to listen to them?

Make up your own minds from their track records. Here is a little more information on some of the people who appeared on the programme:

Fred Singer. Despite the caption on the programme, Singer has retired from the University of Virginia and has not had a single article accepted for any peer-reviewed scientific journal for 20 years. His main work has been as a hired gun for business interests to undermine scientific research on environmental and health matters. Before turning to climate change denial he has argued that CFCs do not cause ozone depletion and second hand smoke does not cause cancer (more… ). In 1990 he founded “The Science and Environment Policy Project”, which aggressively contradicts climate science and has received direct funding from Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. Exxon is also among the funders ($20,000 in 1998 and 2000)

Patrick Michaels is the most prominent US climate change denier. In the programme he claimed “I’ve never been paid a nickel by the old and gas companies” which is a curious claim. According to the US journalist Ross Gebspan Michaels has received direct funding from, among others German Coal Mining Association ($49,000), Edison Electric Institute ($15,000), and the Western Fuels Association ($63,000) an association of US coal producing interests (more…). The WFA is one of the most powerful forces in the US actively denying the basic science of climate change, funding, amongs other things, the Greening Earth Society which is directed by Patrick Michaels. Tom Wigley, one of the leading IPCC scientists, describes Michaels work as “a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation”.

Philip Stott was captioned as a Professor at the University of London although he is retired and is therefore free of any academic accountability. Stott is a geographer by training and has no qualifications in climate science. Since retiring Stott has aimed to become Britain’s leading anti-green pundit dedicating himself to wittily criticizing rainforest campaigns (with Patrick Moore), advocating genetic engineering and claiming that “global warming is the new fundamentalist religion.”

Patrick Moore is Stott’s Canadian equivalent. Since a very personal and painful falling out with Greenpeace in 1986 Moore has put his considerable campaigning energies into undermining environmentalists, especially his former friends and colleagues. Typical of his rhetoric was his claim in the programme that environmentalists were “anti-human” and “treat humans as scum”. Throughout the 1990s Moore worked as lead consultant for the British Columbian Timber Products Association undermining Greenpeace’s international campaign to protect old growth forest there. Whenever he has the chance he also makes strong public statements in favour of genetic engineering, nuclear power, logging the Amazon, and industrial fishing- all, strangely, lead campaigns for Greenpeace

Piers Corbyn has no academic status and his role in such programmes is to promote his own weather prediction business. He has steadfastly refused to ever subject his climatological theories to any form of external review or scrutiny.

Richard Lindzen. As a Professor of Meteorology at the credible Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lindzen is by far the most reputable academic among the US climate deniers and, for this reason, he is heavily cited by sympathetic journalists such as Melanie Phillips and Michael Crichton. His arguments though are identical to the other deniers – for example an article in the Wall Street Journal (June 11 2001) he claims that “there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends or what causes them”.
He is strongly associated with the other people on the programme though co-authored reports, articles, conference appearances and co-signed statements.

Tim Ball was captioned as the University of Winnipeg. In fact he left in 1996 since when he has run political campaigns through two organisations he helped found: the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and the Friends of Science which, according to their websites aim to run “a proactive grassroots campaign to counter the Kyoto Protocol”; and “encourage and assist the Canadian Federal Government to re-evaluate the Kyoto Protocol”. Ian Clark is also on the board of the NRSP.

Catching on to what we've been doing for 6 years :)

Designs for life
If style bible Elle Decoration decrees it, it must be true – eco-chic has arrived. The organic and fair trade clothing label, People Tree, is now stocked at that ultimate emporium of disposability, Top Shop. And for fashionistas who wouldn’t be seen dead in the Sinclair C5 styling of a G-Whiz, General Motors has just unveiled the Volt, the first car designed with electricity, rather than petrol, as its primary fuel source, and the most ‘normal-looking’ hybrid yet. Sustainable design even has its own celebrity poster boys in the form of Changing Rooms’ Oliver Heath and Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud.
It’s true that the recent focus on improving the aesthetics of green products is helping to mainstream their appeal. Advocates have long talked of the need to ‘sex up sustainability’ to get away from its Heath Robinson image, and every good marketeer knows that product and packaging design play a key role in creating a seductive brand. A quick look at the latest high-end organic skincare or food products reveals luxury packaging (recycled, of course) to match the price tag - £85 for an organic cheddar truckle, anyone?
Environment into design
But for far-sighted organisations green isn’t just the latest fashion fad, and design isn’t just about making a product more superficially attractive. Martin Charter of the Centre for Sustainable Design stresses that certain sectors started integrating environmental considerations into product design and development a decade ago. 'What I call ‘eco-design’ has been driven largely by legislation, for example in the electronics industry, and has produced incremental improvements in areas such as energy efficiency and materials use,' he explains. 'But fewer companies have tried to address sustainable design, starting with a blank slate rather than a re-design, and considering the economic, environmental and social angles at the very outset of the process.' As evidence, he cites the low awareness and adoption of the new ISO/TR 14062 standard for integrating environmental considerations into product and service design and development.
As Europe’s largest electronics company, Philips has long been recognized for its comprehensive and long-standing EcoVision programme. Design sits at the heart of these efforts to embed environmental issues throughout the business, responding to customer needs and integrating other disciplines such as human sciences, technology and business. Its EcoDesign product development process encompasses the key green concerns of energy consumption, packaging, hazardous substances, weight, recycling and disposal and lifetime reliability. Top products with a significant green advantage over a predecessor or competitor product are awarded Green Flagship status, currently sported by everything from lighter heart defibrillators to longer lasting halogen bulbs to energy efficient and lead free MP3 players.
Pre-owned goods mean lower costs
And EcoDesign isn’t just about devising new greener products to replace their less efficient forerunners. Philips’ Diamond Select program offers healthcare customers pre-owned (the words ‘used’ and ‘second hand’ are carefully avoided) medical systems, refurbished, tested and installed as new. This keeps the cost down for customers, maintains standards for patients, while keeping still-useful equipment in service and away from the scrap yard.
Charter believes it won’t be long before other businesses are compelled to follow Philips’ lead. 'In Japan, materials security is a key concern as rare metals become harder to find, and in India and China they’re using design to improve dismantling and recycling, the only way to tackle their growing electronic waste mountains.' Closer to home, and the full design impacts of the EuP Directive on product energy efficiency have yet to be acknowledged. But Charter believes the biggest challenge is to get the smaller businesses on board. 'Outside the big leader companies and sectors, knowledge of the issues and the role design can play are virtually non-existent.'

A melting future gorgeously photographed

Incredible shots of Greenland ice cap, taken for Greenpeace that have caused such a stir internationally revealing the extent of seasonal melting due to climate change. The site also includes his other photo essay work which covers protest to cultures in transition to the tensions between our ongoing social, economic and environmental challenges...
http://www.nickcobbing.co.uk/

Defintely a case for everyone to do something... not nothing!

The slinky chair!! Enjoy...

The slinky chair!! Enjoy...

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/versatile-folding-seating-bizarre-chair-or-magic-trick-233896.php

They should talk to Leap

Inefficient printing costs mount

Businesses and the Government are wasting more than £1 billion on inefficient printing practices every year, according to the Centre for Economic Business Research (CEBR). It claims the problem is affecting business growth, productivity and the economy. The CEBR calculates that around £16.7 billion is spent annually on business and Government printing - equal to the GDP of Cuba. Using mono rather than colour printing, and setting up machines to print on both sides of the paper, would help to reduce the inefficiencies, the report said.