I'd like to float an idea that's morphed out of other ideas.
There are two races, (1) for large-scale change to cut emissions/improve sustainability, and (2) to persuade enough people of the need to make this one of their key electoral motivations.
Some reviewers of the Al Gore movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' have said that it's had a really clarifying effect on them, e.g. Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian (here).
I also recall hearing that 2m Americans have seen the film, which would leave another 220m or so American adults that haven't...
So I propose:
[i] A mandatory call-up requiring every known adult to see 'An Inconvenient Truth', with small size screenings, administered largely through employers for those in the workforce, benefit offices for claimants, various other options available for other categories.
[ii] Film is followed by a more brief (10-20 minute) response video by the international consortium of science academies that has spoken out on the climate change issue, and possibly a brief Q&A with a trained person.
[iii] Government seeks international treaties requiring most/all adults in as many other countries as possible to attend [i]-[ii], with language translated versions as appropriate.
[iv] In United States, Al Gore is persuaded to publicly undertake never again to be involved in public party politics (or at least for 20 years) as a condition of the screening.
[v] Accompanying information resource (leaflets, website etc) approved for content and emphasis by the science academies consortium or authored by them.
As it is there are currently call-ups, summonses or obligations for tax paying, jury service and census completion as well as electoral roll completion (less rigidly) and in many countries, military service and ID card completion.
Key moves toward promoting this idea might include campaigners in political parties rolling out a pilot version of the package to party activists, some similar steps among consortia of concerned businesses and other organizations.
Jim
An Inconvenient Truth
Although compulsory viewing is a worthy idea it relies on too many official departments getting off their complacent day to day arses to drive through change. We need to get the BBC to air it as soon as Gore's revenues have been recouped, and then get the trailers promoted over to the mainstream with celebrity endorsments such as David Attenborough and Jonathan Ross.
The masses need to feel they are the unfashionable ones for not watching it, as superficial as celebrity and fashion is it's what drives trends and attitudes.
Support from Jonny Freedland!
Jonathan Freedland calls for mandatory viewings of "An Inconvenient Truth".
He's seen it, I haven't!
Jim ! Go See The Film !
There is really no excuse : you MUST go and see the movie An Inconvenient Truth : it's not big on the SOLUTIONS but it's brilliant on the PROBLEM. I never realised Al Gore was such a great communicator. Honestly, politics crushed his spirit as he tried to fit the suit to play the Presidential Candidature, but now he is free to fly.
Americans Favor Environment; Votes Don't Show It
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38736/story.htm
Copyright: Reuters News Service
US: October 31, 2006
WASHINGTON - Americans care about the environment, but they don't usually vote that way in elections for president or Congress.
Compared to voters in Europe, where the Green Party is a political force and global climate change is part of the public dialogue, US voters in national elections tend to cast their ballots based on candidates' stances on the Iraq war, the economy and health care -- not on environmental policy.
The next Election Day is Nov. 7.
Only about 3 percent of US voters in recent exit polls said the environment was the most important issue to them in casting their ballots, according to Karlyn Bowman, who tracks public opinion polling for the American Enterprise Institute.
That puts it far behind the hot-button issue of abortion, which between 9 percent and 13 percent of US voters said was most important to them.
This may be because Americans reckon the question about what the country wants in terms of the environment has long ago been settled, Bowman said.
"When we (in the United States) agreed in the late 1960s and early 1970s that we wanted a clean and healthful environment and we wanted to spend a lot of money to get one, once that consensus was reached at the national level, most Americans pulled away from the debate," she said.
While Americans accept the need to support a clean environment, each US resident uses about twice as much energy as the typical German, Japanese or Briton and emits roughly as much carbon, according to the Sierra Club.
With 5 percent of the world's population, the United States uses 25 percent of the world's oil and produces 25 percent of the world's carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
Much of the American appetite for energy is focused on transportation, where individuals are more likely to drive energy-inefficient vehicles for longer distances than in other developed countries.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS IS LOCAL
Bowman said the environment has lost its potency as a national issue, but still mobilizes Americans in state and local races.
That mobilization is clear as the United States counts down to the Nov. 7 election for Congress and other offices.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who has broken with the Republican Bush administration on environmental issues, has pushed for special state vehicle pollution standards, a bond issue meant to assure safe water and beaches, and for a sharp reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Nearly 400 Green Party candidates are on US ballots in 2006, and so far Greens have won 24 out of the 62 elections where they had candidates around the country, according to the greens.org Web site. However, those winners are all in local offices, ranging from the Sebastopol, California, city council, to the board of supervisors in Douglas County, Wisconsin.
Most Americans do consider the environment important, according to Michael Bell, an environmental sociologist at the University of Wisconsin. Bell noted polling since 1983 shows a consistent high level of public support for environmental issues.
But he said few politicians make this a highlight of their campaigns, so voters leaving the polling booth are unlikely to list the environment as the reason they cast a ballot for a particular candidate, Bell said.
He also acknowledged that the environmental message is often one of "gloom and doom" -- a strategic mistake, in Bell's view.
"If to be an environmentalist is to put on a hair shirt every day, to force yourself at every second of the day to ask, 'Am I making the environmentally right decision?'... it's going to be rather overwhelming to people," Bell said.
The issue resonates with voters but not with business leaders, Bell said, adding, "That maybe is an important factor in understanding why it doesn't seem to resonate with politicians, whose interests often reflect those of business."
Story by Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
Confusion in UK, but groundswell in Oz
In Australia, "opinion polls show climate change is a major issue for 80 percent of voters", according to Reuters. This chimes with the high turnout in Australia for the D3 marches in 2005.
In the US, presidential candidates are now setting out their climate change credentials. One reason for this sea change is former Vice President Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" laying out the science behind global warming, said Eileen Claussen of the non-profit Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
Back in UK, New Statesman's "Green Denial" article:
Climate change: Why we don't believe it
Lois Rogers
Published 23 April 2007
We reveal an unreported gulf between the pronouncements of campaigners and politicians and British public opinion plus in the comments below we have responses from David Miliband, Peter Ainsworth, Sian Berry, Friends of the Earth and more...
Global warming is a threat that is going to wipe out civilisation as we know it. The liberal elite and political classes are signed up to the message that, unless we take urgent action within ten years, we are all literally doomed to burn up.
But who else believes them?
Beyond the corridors of Westminster and the offices of environmental pressure groups, where global warming and sustainability are buzzwords of the moment, British consumers continue flying, driving and buying with unchecked enthusiasm. The gulf between the pronouncements of our politicians and what the majority of people think and do, could scarcely be wider.
A survey by the polling organisation MORI, published at the end of last year but unreported by the mainstream media, found that about a third of the population - 32 per cent - still knows little or nothing about the threat of climate change. Of those who had heard of it, half thought it was at least partly a natural process, and only 11 per cent of those questioned thought it was up to individuals to change their behaviour. MORI's head of research, John Leaman, acknowledges that the battle for public opinion is not only not won, it has not even seriously begun: "The question of how you persuade people that it is to do with them is a very interesting one," he said. "We need to know whether people's attitudes are the consequence of ignorance, disbelief or personal self-interest and inertia. Even among those who do know about climate change, there is a yawning gap between what people say and what they do. I don't think there is any simple answer." As an organisation, MORI is keen to be seen taking this problem seriously. It is planning its own forum in June, to contribute ideas for ways to promote awareness and behaviour change. (Ironically, the identified key speaker appeared to be away on a foreign holiday and could not be contacted for comment.)
How then are our leaders going to engage our hearts and minds in the green debate? What will be the tipping point that will lead people not just into giving the fashionable answers in opinion polls, but to actually change their behaviour?
At the moment we are mired in a bog of confusing messages. In a portentous speech to the Green Alliance last month, the Chancellor Gordon Brown talked about the need for "new global partnerships and multilateral networks" to tackle the environmental challenge. The recent climate change review by the economist Sir Nicholas Stern predicted hundreds of millions of "climate refugees" streaming across the world in an effort to escape from drought, flood and famine.
Yet opinion polls for the BBC and others indicate that the reaction of people hearing these pronouncements is that they are simply relieved to hear the problem is nothing to do with them. An ICM poll last month found about half the people questioned in some parts of the country were quite clear about their unwillingness to change their lifestyle at all. Elsewhere, there is growing scepticism that any of it is true, and the dissenting voices are getting louder. A recent editorial in the Daily Mail told millions of readers that it is pointless to alter drastically the way we live simply on the "vague possibility of an ecological disaster".
In March, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary entitled The Great Global Warming Swindle, which notoriously ridiculed the whole basis of climate change. The programme was furiously condemned by leading scientists as misleading and badly researched. Yet Channel 4 reported that it drew more than 700 comments from viewers, with those supporting its sceptical line outnumbering critics by six to one. "People appreciated the fact that the questioning approach was being given air time," said a Channel 4 spokesman. "We are planning a discussion programme on the whole issue for June. The best time to have a debate is generally when people say there is no further need for one."
Around the same time, a lone protester from an obscure lobby group called the Association of British Drivers (ABD), garnered almost two million signatures for an online petition protesting against the introduction of road pricing as a means of limiting car use. Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the ABD, claims that he reflects the views of many people in his conviction that discussion of global warming is simply an excuse to raise more taxes from everyone, and motorists in particular. "I enjoy driving," he said. "Lots of people do. It is total nonsense to suggest that it will make a difference if we reduce mileage by a small amount a year."
While it is hard to find anyone - outside the airline industry - to advocate air travel as fervently as Bladon advocates the right to drive, the right to fly is another area of confusion and mixed messages. Even those who regard themselves as "responsible tourists" want to carry on flying. Typical is a comment by travel agent Chris Bland on the GreenTraveller website: "While I agree with trying to limit gratuitous flying by second-home commuters or business travel junkies, I don't want genuine travellers and adventurous tourists to be dissuaded from exploring the world. For me, the message would be: fly less and make it count when you do."
From politicians, however, there is a collective reluctance to take on any of those in the wealthiest and most influential sector of the electorate - whatever their reason for getting on a plane. "Doing anything about global warming is going to hit the middle classes first," says Peter Ainsworth, the shadow environment secretary. "A lot of them do support the Daily Mail view that this is just another means of imposing more stealth taxes. Convincing them that being more energy-efficient is actually going to save money - it is not easy."
Sir Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission, also points to government resistance to any discussion of limitations on car travel or foreign holidays. "Politicians are preoccupied with trying to keep the same level of consumption with a lower output of carbon. In fact, we will end up paying so much for high-carbon goods that rationing will come in because of price rather than government mandate." Porritt himself believes our collective desire for self-preservation will soon win through because of the evident warming up of our world. Mark Lynas, the New Statesman columnist and author of the book Six Degrees: life in a hotter climate, argues, however, that government action is imperative. "It doesn't make sense for people to make individual sacrifices while the world goes on around them. The unwillingness of people to act just reinforces the need for government to do something collectively."
Elsewhere, there is plenty of support for the view that, barring a Katrina-style hurricane ca tastrophe hitting Britain, consumers will not change. "It's very sad, but I actually think we might need a whole series of disasters in different countries before people make the connection," said Brian Hoskins, professor of meteorology at Reading University and a fellow of the Royal Society. "There has always been a conflict between social behaviour and selfish behaviour, but the environment is bearing down on us. It is a huge challenge to see if we can do something 20 years before it bites. We have to be optimistic about it, because otherwise we might as well give up.
"The political parties have taken off on this, but they have left behind them a considerable proportion of the electorate who are still wedded to Margaret Thatcher's notion of individual freedom to do your own thing."
According to Solitaire Townsend, founder of Futerra, a company specialising in sustainability communications, the obvious way to affect public opinion is through what she terms the cultural media - television soaps such as EastEnders or Desperate Housewives: "It is quite easy to 'de-status' things by presenting them as un- aspirational," she says. "If a big 4x4 is such an embarrassment that the kids don't want to be dropped off at school in it, then that's a success for us. The environmental movement has always focused on news and policy-makers, and forgotten how you change what people want. You can't stop people wanting status symbols, but you can make them aspire to different ones."
Numerous studies of collective psychology demonstrate that the greater the threat, the more people are inclined ignore it. John Elkington, founder of the think-tank SustainAbility, pointed out that, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when America entered the Second World War, Ford went on making cars because they said people needed them. It was only when government intervention forced the company to turn its production lines to munitions, that Ford joined the war effort. "People almost enjoy being confused about big issues because it gives them the excuse to do nothing," Elkington said.
He does not think any major change will be orchestrated by government: "All governments are hopelessly conflicted by the pressures from industry and business. My hunch is that climate is going to give us some powerful nudges, which will cause people to panic. Ultimately though, I don't think change will come about through consumers either. It will be the result of colossal pressure from the financial markets. The costs from natural disasters caused by global warming, which are being born by the reinsurance giants such as Swiss Re and Munich Re, are simply going off the scale."
Unanswerable question
There are still those, however, who maintain that acceptance of the need to change will filter gradually through society. "It is an incredibly interesting social phenomenon," said Tim Jackson, professor of sustainable development at Surrey University. "I think we are at a turning point in the relationship between mankind and the environment, but people so far still don't see the responsibility as theirs. They think it is the job of government and big business. At some stage, society as a whole is going to have to enter the discussion."
The unanswerable question of how to do that still remains. Last month, the Market Research Society celebrated its 50th anniversary with a conference discussion heralding the age of the "ethical brand", which it predicted would be embraced first by the "bourgeois bohemians", the economically conservative but socially liberal baby-boomers who are the new establishment. In the absence of a climate-inspired natural disaster, however, it seems unlikely that the threat of global warming will cause the rampant materialism of even the most socially conscious sector of society to be suddenly replaced by a set of long-lost pre-industrial values.
Earlier this month, the 800 scientists involved in the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced their latest report. The 1,572-page document, with its predictions of death and destruction in the developing world, provided plenty of reassurance for stubborn westerners that none of it is anything to do with them. So how will the IPCC convince them of the need to accept their responsibility? Its spokesman was baffled by the question: "They just have to," he said.
Not on the evidence so far. Back in London, civil servants at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) were last week labouring over their own "behaviour change strategy" - what it would take to get different sections of the population to change their behaviour. Next month, a "citizens summit" is being planned to decide on the shape of this strategy. When Defra was asked for the agenda, however, it was clear that the department still did not know what it would be.
Trying to get the message across . . .
Defra has been running pilot "recycling incentive schemes" across the country, giving vouchers to good recyclers or entering them into recycling lottery prize draws.
Ken Livingstone is offering Londoners £100 cash back if they accept cut-price insulation for their homes.
The Department for Transport's "Cycle to Work" scheme lets employees buy tax-free bikes and accessories through their employers.
Toyota has released an attractive (believe it or not) hybrid car. The part-electric, part-petrol Prius is also exempt from the London congestion charge.
Tesco is attempting to tackle plastic bag wastage with its "Bag for Life" scheme. The hard-wearing bags cost 10p and customers are encouraged to reuse them until they finally wear out (when they are replaced free of charge).
Pop stars including Madonna, Genesis, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Razorlight (Johnny Borrell, pictured right) are climbing on board with a series of Live Earth concerts planned across seven continents on 7 July. The intention is to raise popular awareness of climate change. Organisers promise to keep the gigs as carbon-neutral as possible.
The Real Nappy Campaign is trying to persuade parents that giving up disposable nappies will save them at least £300, as well as being better for the environment.
Property sellers now need to provide a "Home Information Pack" to prospective buyers, which includes a certificate on the home's energy efficiency.
Research: Sarah O'Connor
Selected comments:
sianberry
19 April 2007
The government is sending out mixed messages on climate change - on the one hand claiming to recognise that it's the greatest threat out there (as conceded by both Chief Scientist David King and Tony Blair) but on the other hand sponsoring unprecedented growth in areas like air travel and road building.
No wonder people feel confused: if it's so important, why won't they do anything of substance about it?
The reality is climate change is happening, we are seeing the effects already, and the window of opportunity in which to act is shrinking fast. Individual behaviour change - whatever county you are in - can go a long way to make a difference, but to make a real dent in our carbon emissions, we need politicians to change the framework in which we live.
Providing cheap, efficient public transport; making environmentally friendly products cheaper than their carbon-heavy counterparts; facilitating massive growth in the renewable energy industry; all these are in the government's gift, and could make double-figure reductions in our carbon emissions.
Until government policy begins to tally with government rhetoric, the section of the public that don't believe in climate change are going to carry on as they are: it is up to politicians to lead the way on this.
Tony Juniper
19 April 2007
There has been a massive increase in awareness of climate change over the last couple of years and millions of people are keen to do something about it – as demonstrated by the surge in interest in green products – from carbon offset schemes to energy efficient light bulbs. Clearly there are people out there who are still confused about climate change. The important thing is that they pause between doubt and despair and recognise the solutions are out there.
However if we are really going to get to grips with the problem we cannot leave it to voluntary action by concerned individuals. It is imperative the Government takes the lead by making it easier and cheaper for individuals and businesses to reduce their carbon footprint. That’s why Friends of the Earth has been campaigning for the Government to introduce a climate change law which commits the UK to reducing its emissions by at least 3 percent annually.
Tony Juniper, Friends of the Earth Director
Peter Ainsworth
20 April 2007
I am not as pessimistic as Professor Hoskins; but then I guess you'd hardly expect a politician to offer a counsel of despair. I know that climate change can seem huge, complex, remote and someone else's problem. "Look at China", people say (which is a fair point, the only solution will be a global one) or - as Tony Blair has taken to saying - "We're only 2% of the global problem" (which is untrue as well as rather pathetic).
So let's start closer to home. People care deeply and passionately about their local environments - from grime and graffiti through to urban green spaces and protecting the green belt. Last year the Conservatives ran our local election campaign under the banner 'Vote Blue Go Green.'
We reckon that was a success - so much so that we are doing it again this year. There is a deep wellspring of green feeling in Britain, of wanting to do the right thing: we need to tap into this in order to tackle the huge threat of climate change.
Admittedly, this is a more complicated message to sell. But it's worth remembering that we are only at the start of the journey towards a low carbon economy. We shouldn't be, of course - it's well over 20 years since Margaret Thatcher first alerted the world's politicians to the dangers of climate change - and the intervening inertia has left us with a lot to do in a short time. But despite the fact that some of us have been banging on about it for a while, it's really only in the last couple of years that the issue has become politically mainstream.
Likewise, the media has only recently started to grapple with the issues of climate change beyond the sceptical "is it happening or not?" I hope you think it fair of me to say that we have David Cameron's leadership to thank for much of the political traction that now exists around the issue.
It is no surprise that the precise implications of climate change are taking a while to filter through into a general popular consciousness.
This has been true of many big new campaigns, from Aids through to Drink Driving.
I think - I hope - that 2007 will be the year we reach the tipping point in public awareness of climate change and in understanding what can be done. There are really encouraging signs of a shift in public attitudes. Tesco haven't launched their various green initiatives without having done their research. Marks and Spencer are on the case; so are the Women's Institute, Sienna Miller, and Christian Aid.
The message will sink in.
Peter Ainsworth
Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Tomorrow's England
20 April 2007
There are a number of often complex reasons why so many people are not taking climate change seriously. Many of us still believe it will affect only far away places in someone else’s lifetime and that even if climate chaos does ever come to Britain, a nation like ours will surely be able to get round the problems.
Think of the media-fuelled images that we currently associate with climate change: smoke rising from tropical rainforests; violent storms pounding Caribbean communities; polar bears searching for stable ice shelves; glaciers retreating farther into the world’s mountain ranges; drought-stricken grazing lands littered with the sun-bleached bones of cattle; starving brown-skinned children sitting in the dust…
All vivid, horrible and disturbing to us in the UK but all so far away… almost another world that we in Britain subconsciously see as an optional extra that we can choose to ignore.
The big question that remains unanswered is how will climate change affect us? In Newcastle and in Plymouth; in Lancashire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire; in Bristol and in Norwich; and in Leeds and in London? And when? We all need to know whether climate change will be local as well as global, and whether it will be soon or far in the future. That’s not being selfish: it’s being normal.
This is the basis of the Tomorrow’s England project (http://www.climatechangeandme.net), joint work between 11 environmental and community organisations, funded through the Climate Challenge Fund. Tomorrow’s England is looking at how climate change might impact on food production, the economy, jobs, where we live, how we live and, most important, our quality of life, our well being. Here in this country.
The aim is to bring climate change home, to show that, unless we take action, it is likely to affect us and the places around us within our own lifetime or the lifetime of those we care about.
One other reason why people are not facing up to climate change is simply that psychologically they don’t want to. It’s too daunting and they feel too helpless. Climate change comes within our personal sphere of concern but many feel it doesn’t come within their sphere of influence. In other words, they think they can’t do much about it.
The most important thing that government and the environmental movement must be able to offer people is agency, the ability to make a real difference personally. The message has got to be – and truthfully it is – that if we do nothing, if we don’t change, there may be very uncertain or even difficult times ahead, but that scientists agree we can still take effective action to avoid the worst. But we must start now.
Stephen Hounsham, Co-ordinator, Tomorrow’s England
David Miliband
23 April 2007
I think we do the British public a disservice if we assume that they aren’t willing to do their bit in the fight against climate change.
From what I’ve seen, it’s the reverse. There are a lot of simple things people can do to tackle climate change - such as turning down their heating thermostat, recycling more, buying energy efficient goods, or even offsetting their remaining CO2 emissions. And the signs are people are increasingly doing them.
But what's also clear to me is that people and communities aren't going to fully sign up to what I call the 'deal on climate change', unless government and business show that they're also serious about cutting their own emissions.
In fact, government and business have a responsibility to act themselves, and to provide the information and support that individuals need so that they can reduce their CO2 footprint.
That's why today's launch of the Climate Group's 'We're In This Together' campaign, which I attended, is significant.
It shows that big business is acting to reduce their own emissions, and also that they're willing to go that one step further and provide individuals with the tools necessary for them to reduce their own CO2. And by working together I believe we can make a difference.
Government's got a crucial role to play as well. We have to empower individuals to make the right choices to reduce their CO2 footprints. We'll soon be launching a new CO2 Calculator which will help people add up their personal CO2 footprint and provide suggestions for the action they need to take to reduce it. You can get a sneak preview of what the calculator will look like by visiting here
There's also the range of policies in place which can help people improve the energy efficiency of their homes.
Tackling climate change isn't just about what individuals can do, although that's a key part of the jigsaw. We need to move our whole economy to one that is low carbon. That's why we recently published the landmark Climate Change Bill, which will make the UK's carbon reduction targets legally binding. But the Government also needs to influence other nations to join the global fight against climate change. And it's partly by showing that individuals and businesses in the UK are willing to reduce their own carbon emissions that we've got a stronger chance of getting China, India and the US to sign up to a global deal.
David Miliband
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Leo Murray
28 April 2007
Individual action to change our own lifestyles has no possibility of delivering the kind of CO2 cuts required; most people make choices based on their personal circumstances, which is perfectly reasonable, and not according to altruistic principles that will place them at a competitive disadvantage. Those who are prepared to make personal sacrifices for the sake of the greater good when those around them continue on with business as usual are a tiny minority. Individual action can't address this problem.
The notion that businesses and corporations will be able to respond appropriately to the imminent threat of catastrophic climate change is a wildly deluded fantasy. What possible incentive could such organizations have for doing so? Corporations exist to make profit for their shareholders, not address social or environmental injustices or indeed any other issues you could care to name. This is the primary and effectively sole function of a business, since the pursuit of this agenda must supersede all other concerns. If your business depends on causing climate change to make a profit, then that is simply the price that must be paid to stay in business.
What I am getting at is that the responsibility rests on National governments to work together to implement drastic changes that will alter our society and our economies so much as to make them almost unrecognizable. The situation we now face is comparable to a World War. Imagine Churchill hadn't wanted to impinge on people's personal freedoms by imposing rationing, and instead simply asked everyone to eat a bit less. We would have lost that battle. This threat is worse than that faced by England in WWII, it is just less immminent. But no less urgent. We need every government in the world to agree to Contraction and Convergence immediately! In the mean time, Mr Miliband we ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT build more airports. That is patently insane at this stage. Not including aviation in our national carbon reduction targets isn't fooling anyone. Sticking your fingers in your ears and going la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you isn't going to make the fastest growing source of emissions go away. Deal with it.
Leo Murray
Plane Stupid
Officious or sabotage?
From Eco Soundings, The Guardian G2 section today:
Uncomfortable truth
If the National Union of Teachers is quick, it might just be able to get hold of 50,000 free DVDs of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, and use them to explain to every child in Britain the reality of climate change. The DVDs, sitting in a Los Angeles warehouse, were destined for America's huge National Science Teachers Association, but were declined on the basis that free teaching materials could not be accepted, nor political endorsements given. Eco Soundings merely notes that the NSTA is funded by Exxon, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute and major car companies.
another way to get people watching AIT...
Stop Global Warming Virtual March
12/12/06
"AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH" HOUSE PARTIES
On Saturday, December 16, 2006, thousands are getting together in homes around the country to watch the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and then join in a national conference call with Al Gore to discuss how to mobilize people to take action to solve our climate crisis.
It's easy to sign up to host or to attend a party. Simply go to http://www.algore.com/.
WHAT: Host or join a house party to watch An Inconvenient Truth, then join in a conference call with Al Gore, who will talk about the film and take questions live online.
WHEN: Saturday, December 16th, 7PM Eastern
HOW: Go to http://www.algore.com/ to sign up.
BUY AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ON DVD
Remember to buy a copy of An Inconvenient Truth for friends and family holiday gifts, and buy a copy for a school as well. Click Here to Buy Now.
Keep Marching!
Laurie David
Founder
StopGlobalWarming.org
(for those that might find AIT too serious there's always < a href ="http://mediamatters.org/items/200611210008">"happy feet"
...the deniers have labelled it "propaganda", "an animated version of An Inconvenient Truth")
Jon Cruddas' Queen's Speech remarks
Belatedly I have found the following in Jon Cruddas' Queen's Speech comment published in The Independent, 15 November 2006:
"The one redeeming element to today's speech is likely to be the Climate Change Bill. We should not retreat from year-on-year targets for reducing emissions. We should also build on the Climate Change Levy and improve standards of environmental audit for large companies. As an aside, we should also ensure that all authorities are obliged to show Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to every schoolkid in the country."