Clean Slate - no. 110

The Practical Journal of Sustainable Living

No 110 Winter 2018 ÂŁ2.50

Raising Ambition: new report from CAT

1 degree and rising: climate impacts

Kevin Anderson on global solutions

Don’t just change your phone.

Change the world.

From just £30 per month

Fair materials and supply chain

Committed to improving worker conditions

Dual SIM - ideal for international travel

Next time you change your phone – make it a change for good.

Choose Fairphone 2 the world’s most ethical smartphone from the UK’s only telecoms co-operative and we’ll donate a share of every bill to CAT.

www.thephone.coop/cat | 01608 434 040

Prices are correct at time of issue

Clean Slate 12

IN THIS ISSUE… 12. Raising Ambition

A new report from CAT maps low- and zero-carbon models from around the world, showing that we have the technology to prevent climate breakdown. Paul Allen reports.

15. 1 degree and rising

‘Unprecedented changes’ are needed if we are to avoid climate breakdown.

Catriona Toms looks at key findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ‘1.5 degrees’ report.

18. Time to act

We look at 10 things the UK Government must do to take effective action on climate change – and 10 things the rest of us can do to help.

24

20. A prescription for the planet

Paul Allen talks to Professor Kevin Anderson about what the international community must do to prevent dangerous levels of climate change.

24. Coastal sprawl: making space for nature in the intertidal zone

Marine biologist Joe Ironside looks at how artificial structures can help coastal wildlife adapt in the face of urban sprawl and a changing climate.

29. Earthy delights

Rowland Keable introduces a unique event aimed at building skills, knowledge and confidence in sustainable building.

32. Tenant wanted: must eat grey squirrels

Woodland Officer Alex Chadwick is on the look-out for the elusive pine marten in the CAT woodlands.

29

Regulars 3. Editorial

With CAT’s Chief Executive Officer, Adrian Ramsay.

4. CAT news

All the latest news from the Centre.

10. Your views

Over to you for your views, advice, ideas and suggestions…

35. Crossword

Cryptic crossword by Brominicks.

32

For RS, with all our love

Editor Catriona Toms. Crossword Editor Sally Carr.

Design Graham Preston (grahamjpreston@hotmail.com).

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.

The printing of an advert in Clean Slate does not mean that the product or service has been endorsed by the magazine or by CAT. Published by CAT Publications, CAT Charity Ltd., Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Powys SY20 9AZ. Registered charity no. 265239

Clean Slate 1

abundanceinvestment.com

CAPITAL AT RISK. INVESTMENTS ARE LONG TERM AND MAY NOT BE READILY REALISABLE. ABUNDANCE IS AUTHORISED AND REGULATED BY THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY (525432).

YOU WANT: To save for a rainy day YOU’D LIKE: To see more people using solar power

Investments for people exactly like you (although some eat more hummus)

Windows Doors

The UK’s favourite sustainable builders merchant Suppliers of natural building products since 1998

Insulation Airtightness MVHR Passivhaus

The UK’s favourite sustainable builders merchant since The UK’s favourite sustainable builders merchant since1998.

1998.

Suppliers of natural building products Suppliers of natural building products from foundation toto ridge from foundation ridge The UK’s favourite sustainable builders merchant since 1998.

Suppliers of natural building products from foundation to ridge

low energy homes Make your home warm, comfortable and energy efficient, with products and technical expertise from Green Building Store.

● new ● refurbishment ● DIY ● ● ● new ● refurbishment ● DIY self build build off self build build offgrid grid

building shell materials insulation ● windows and doors building shell materials ● insulation ● windows and ● new ●● ● DIY ●doors self build build refurbishment off grid

sunpipes and roof lights ● airtightness ● lime and clay plasters ● airtightness ● lime and clay plasters sunpipes and roof lights natural paints ● maintenance cleaning renewables ● landscaping natural paints ● maintenance cleaning ● renewables ● landscaping building shell materialsand ● and insulation ●●windows and doors water and drainage systems ● & much ● sewage systems ● & much more water and drainage sunpipes and roof lights●●sewage airtightness ● lime and clay more plasters natural paints ● maintenance and cleaning ● renewables ● landscaping water and drainage ● sewage systems ● & much more

®

Beautiful and inspiring Passivhaus and low energy projects www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk

tel: 01484 461705

call 01793847 847444 444ororbuy buyonline online call 01793

www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk

call 01793 847 444 or buy online www.ecomerchant.co.uk www.ecomerchant.co.uk

Pioneers in low energy building since 1995

www.ecomerchant.co.uk

ecomerchant FINAL.indd 1

Green building information hub

18/08/2016 10:01

‘

editorial Adrian Ramsay

Raising ambition

T

he report on the impacts of global temperature rise issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October should serve as a wakeup call to governments around the world. If we are to prevent really dangerous levels of climate change, we need to act now to radically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are pumping into the atmosphere.

Deep-seated changes are needed to our energy supplies – with the clear need to power down energy use through improved efficiencies and to power up supply of clean energy from renewables, replacing fossil fuels. We need to transform what we eat and how we use land, and we need radical changes in transport, industry and in our economy.

CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research shows how this could be done using technology available today, without relying on new nuclear, and our latest report ‘Raising Ambition: Zero Carbon Scenarios from Across the Globe’ shows how net zero greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved in countries across the world (see page 12).

Now we need governments to create ambitious plans for how we will reach net zero before mid-century to give the world a chance to stay within the safer limit outlined by the IPCC. The longer we wait to take effective action, the more radical the required changes will be. The UK and other long-industrialised countries must show global leadership and help buy more time

for less developed nations to adapt by aiming for an earlier target of 2040.

You can read more about the IPCC report on pages 15-17, and we’ve outlined what we think is needed from UK Government on page 18.

To make the transition to a climate safe future, we have to inspire people to take action, and we have to provide the skills and knowledge that will enable them to help create the change we so clearly need. CAT’s education programmes inspire, inform and enable, helping people to understand the problems and to become part of the solution – from schoolchildren learning about the impacts of global warming to engineers, builders, architects and growers being trained up to empower the shift to a zero carbon world.

Working together, we can and must make change happen, because – as the report from the IPCC shows – the alternative is simply unthinkable.

Thank you for your support at this crucial time.

Adrian Ramsay Chief Executive Officer

Keep in touch isit our website: V www.cat.org.uk

Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/centre_alt_tech

e our facebook friend: B www.cat.org.uk/facebook

Read the CAT blog: http://blog.cat.org.uk

email us: members@cat.org.uk

✆

Or give us a call!

01654 705988

Clean Slate is a member of INK, the Independent News Collective, trade association of the UK alternative press. www.ink.uk.com

Clean Slate 3

CAT news Autumn nature fun at half-term

Getting out into the woods on CAT's Quarry Trail.

The CAT site was overrun with witches, wizards and warlocks this October.

During half-term we had a series of events and activities aimed at getting kids out into nature, exploring their world and learning more about the trees, plants and animals that they share it with.

Besom broom making is a great way to get children out into the woods collecting twigs and branches – identifying the right types of trees to make their very own magical broomstick. It’s also a great way for parents to show their kids that fun doesn’t always have to mean buying plastic or playing with pixels. Families got to try their hands at lantern-making and sculpting tree-faces from clay, and we were entertained by local storyteller Peter Stevenson, who draws on traditional Welsh tales to create a magical world of autumn folklore.

We also celebrated the glories of the season with an autumn tree trail and displays of some of the beautiful fruit and veg from CAT’s organic gardens and other local growers, including apples, walnuts and a pumpkin museum offering 20 different varieties of the Halloween favourite.

To find out what’s on for families during school holidays, keep an eye on our website or follow us on facebook.

4 Clean Slate

Exploring nature's wonders.

CAT calls for cross-party consensus on climate action plan As major UK political parties sign up to the net-zero target demanded by the latest climate science, CAT is calling for a cross-party consensus around a delivery plan by 2040, to ensure the UK gains full benefits from playing its part in a just transition. Paul Allen reports.

Since the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ‘1.5oC Report’ in October, there has been a growing consensus on the need to reach net-zero emissions to avoid really dangerous climate change. The sooner we can achieve this, the better our chances of avoiding some of the most serious impacts.

Achieving net-zero by 2040 is a viable pathway; CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research has shown that we already have all the tools and technologies we need.

Tackling climate change and creating a fairer future for everyone is no longer a technological challenge, it’s a challenge of will, of ambition, and of vision. So, just as with airport security or health and safety, we need cross-party agreement on its delivery. Without continuity, we lose support and momentum.

Between now and 2040 there will be at least five or six general elections. As we have witnessed in the past, this can cause massive shifts in our approach to rising to the climate challenge. Time is

tight, the stakes are now very high, and we cannot allow our children’s future to be used as a political football.

This is why CAT is calling for an immediate and inclusive multi-stakeholder cross-party process to build national consensus around a delivery plan.

Businesses, councils, citizens, health and education sectors deserve a stable platform for planning and implementing the most rapid transformation in how we deliver society’s needs ever seen in Britain. A consistent plan that runs to time whoever gets elected is vital to give investors confidence and to build social confidence and support.

Despite the turbulence of changes to feed-in tariffs, zero carbon homes standards, and other environmental policies, the UK has made progress on cleaning up the low-hanging-fruit in switching to cleaner renewable energy. We now need to ramp up investment in renewables and deliver rapid transitions in the more difficult areas of heat, transport, food and land-use.

If we do it right, the zero carbon transition can offer one of the most exciting opportunities for multi-solving challenges in health, social, agricultural, employment and economic stability, whilst also funding the regeneration of biodiverse natural ecological systems.

Paul Allen briefed Claire Perry MP, Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth at the North Wiltshire Sustainable Business Conference on 20th October, and gave her a copy of CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future – a model for getting to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions using technology available today.

Clean Slate 5

CAT news Thank you for your amazing generosity An unexpected gift It’s always exciting opening the post in CAT’s fundraising office, as we never know quite what will be in store.

One rainy September morning, we received a big boost when we opened a letter that included a cheque for £25,000. This unexpected gift was from a long-term supporter, who prefers to be anonymous, after she recently inherited some money from her father. The generosity of our supporters never ceases to amaze us!

CAT’s Green Laboratory Thank you so much to everyone who gave so generously to our ‘Green Laboratory’ appeal. We’re delighted to say that we met and slightly exceeded our target of £35,000. This means that we have been able to make a start on the food and water trails, which will benefit students, short course participants, school groups and visitors.

Leaving a gift to CAT We have been grateful to receive three legacies in recent months. It is moving to know that these people wanted to make a difference for future generations, and we are honoured that they chose to do this in part by including CAT in their wills.

One of these was Jill Hobday, who left us a gift of £2,000 in her will.

She had been a long-term supporter, having visited with her husband David in CAT’s early days, and having returned several times after that, most recently in 2015. David described her as “a woman with a huge social conscience”.

We are immensely grateful to Jill and to others who have left us bequests, for trusting us to carry on with the work that mattered to them – it means a great deal.

Sally Carr, Fundraising Manager

Gifts and goodies from CAT

Have you had your copy of CAT’s winter collection mail order catalogue? It’s packed full of new products, great books, special treats and a new range of merchandise to help you reduce waste whilst supporting CAT. If you prefer to give experiences rather than things, then we have gift membership or short course vouchers to choose from.

To view the full collection, visit http://

6 Clean Slate

store.cat.org.uk/ – or give us a call on 01654 705959 to request a catalogue.

Zero Carbon Britain: new report aims to raise ambition on climate change

On 12 September CAT published a new report looking at zero- and low-carbon scenarios from across the globe. Bringing together 130 energy and land-use models from local, national and regional levels, and drawing on scenarios from a huge geographic range from Tanzania to Los Angeles and from South Asia to the Baltic region, 'Raising Ambition: Zero Carbon Scenarios from Across the Globe' shows how clean energy could now meet all our electricity needs, at all times of the day, and all year round.

You can read more about the report in Paul Allen’s article on page 12.

Free entry attracts new visitors

Over the winter months we are opening our doors to thousands of visitors, completely free of charge.

It’s vital that everyone has access to information about climate change and other environmental challenges, and that they understand both the barriers and the solutions. By waiving the entry fee to the CAT visitor centre, we aim to inspire, inform and enable more people to create change.

CAT members already enjoy free entry all year round – now you can bring friends and family too!

We’ll also be trialling ‘dog days’ following feedback that people would like to be able to bring their four-legged friends with them when they visit.

See our website for dates and details: http://visit.cat.org.uk/

New postgraduate courses

In September 2019 we’ll be adding four new masters degrees to our range of courses.

A new part-time version of our Masters in Sustainable Architecture will allow more people to join the course, fitting their studies around home and work life, opening it up to people already working in architectural practices who would like to specialise in low-impact, sustainable buildings.

We’re also developing new courses in Green Building, Sustainable Ecology and Behaviour Change for Sustainability, offering new approaches to environmental issues and helping build the skills and knowledge to develop solutions across a greater range of disciplines.

Find out more about these and our existing courses on our next open day on Friday 14 December – meet staff and students, take a tour of the site, and generally get a feel for what it’s like to study at CAT. Book your place online at https:// gse.cat.org.uk /open-day If you'd like to be kept up to date with our new courses, please email gsmo@cat. org.uk

Learn a new skill in 2019

We have some great new courses coming up in the new year, covering everything from sustainable woodland management and reedbeds to energy generation from wind or solar. Whether you'd like an introductory day course in compost toilets or a week-long in-depth look at low energy buildings, there's a wide range of topics and levels for you to explore. Take a look at our website to see what you could learn: http:// courses.cat.org.uk/

New website coming soon

We’re just putting the finishing touches on a lovely new website, which we’re aiming to launch in late 2018. The new site will make it easier to access information about sustainable solutions, allowing us to help a greater number of people make environmentally friendly decisions. We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who supported this work. Sign up to our enewsletter or follow us on social media for updates (see box on page 11 for details).

Over one hundred new students start their studies at CAT

September saw the start of a new year at our Graduate School of the Environment, with 70 students joining us on-site at CAT and a further 45 studying from across the globe via distance learning.

One of the highlights of the week was an introductory lecture on the state of the climate and what we need to do about it from world-leading climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson – an inspiring reminder of what we are all collectively working towards (you can read an interview with Kevin on page 20).

It’s always a real pleasure welcoming new students, knowing that they’re developing the skills and knowledge needed to tackle some of the big challenges the world faces.

You can find out more about the kinds of things they’ll be learning and researching, and the impact of the work of CAT graduates, on our website at http://gse.cat.org.uk/

A facelift for CAT accommodation

Ian Dixon (front) with CAT CEO Adrian Ramsay (left) and the team doing up the WISE bedrooms.

CAT’s overnight accommodation is getting a bit of a facelift, thanks to the generosity of supporter Ian Dixon.

Anyone who has stayed in our WISE building will remember the stunning views across Snowdonia and the Scandinavian-style minimalism of the décor. While we wanted to keep things simple and uncluttered, feedback from people staying in the rooms suggested they could do with a few more home comforts. The addition of extra

lamps, desks and tea and coffee facilities has made the rooms a bit homelier whilst retaining the calm, peaceful interiors, and we now have the option of either twin or king-size rooms.

We’re also making improvements to our bunkhouse-style accommodation in the Self Build House.

As well as making our students and conference guests a bit more comfortable, this investment allows us to open up our B&B and group accommodation to a wider range of people – providing a new source of income to support our research and education work, and also attracting new audiences to the CAT visitor centre.

Upgrading the 24 bedrooms in WISE and refurbishing the Self Build House was a substantial investment, and we’re very grateful to Ian Dixon for supporting this work. On making the donation, Ian said: “CAT ranks high among the many charities and campaigns that I support in terms of its professionalism, effectiveness and willingness to maximise income from its assets in order to provide the resources to better achieve the aims we all share.

In particular, I support moves to upgrade accommodation on site to appeal to folks looking for a place to spend holidays. If they are not already enthused by the work CAT is doing I am sure they will go away with a new vision of what the positive and realistic alternatives are to the doom and gloom of much of the publicity surrounding climate change.”

To find out about staying at CAT, see our website at http://visit.cat.org.uk/ or call us on 01654 705950.

Plans for a Zero Carbon Mid Wales discussed with Minister

In October we hosted a visit from UK Government Minister for Wales Lord Nick Bourne, giving us the opportunity to press for ambitious action on climate change and discuss CAT’s role in promoting practical solutions.

During the visit, Lord Bourne heard about CAT’s future plans, and discussed how these could help to build a Zero Carbon Mid Wales. Plans include the expansion of our postgraduate degrees and vocational training and the development of a renewed sustainable tourism destination – all focused on spreading the skills and knowledge needed to create a zero carbon future.

We also used the visit to press the UK Government to commit to an earlier target of 2040 to show global leadership and ensure effective, equitable action on climate.

Measures needed to reach this target include investment in and support for renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, improvements in public transport and infrastructure for cycling and walking, and radical changes to agriculture and land-use.

Speaking after the visit, CAT Chief Executive Adrian Ramsay said: “We welcome this opportunity to give Lord Bourne an overview of our work, and to press for greater ambition, stronger environmental legislation and a clear roadmap outlining how the UK Government plans to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to prevent the very worst effects of climate change.

“In rising to the climate challenge in this way we can also create a million green jobs, tackle fuel poverty, reduce air pollution and improve health and wellbeing.”

You can find out more about how we can reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions using technology available today at www.zerocarbonbritain.org

Lord Bourne (centre) with CAT’s Head of Development Eileen Kinsman and Head of Eco-Centre John Challen.

Clean Slate 7

CAT news CAT Conference 2018 Tanya Hawkes reports on an inspirational hope-filled weekend.

Graduate School lecturer Dr Ruth Stevenson presents a workshop on behaviour change.

‘Raising Ambition’ was the theme of our conference this year, which felt very apt. Seventy people gathered at CAT on the weekend of 5-7 October to discuss and work through the most practical and useful ways we can all raise our ambition in tackling climate change.

What always strikes me about the CAT conference is how serious, dedicated and talented our supporters are. CAT has a long tradition of combining theoretical knowledge with practical skills, providing research and training on a wide range of solutions for environmental change. CAT’s supporters and members bring so much energy and so many ideas to help shape the direction and scope of our work.

This year, speakers from varied disciplines brought a fresh perspective to the climate challenges we all face. We learned how to have better conversations about climate change and navigate those tricky environmental discussions that occur at work, in the bus queue and inevitably at our family get-togethers. We looked at how to analyse evidence more closely to help us be more discerning about where to spend our time and energy when working on environmental campaigns. We heard about the latest in community farming and about greater democracy in sustainable building and planning. We theatrically put the livestock industry through a mock trial, and we learned more from our supporters about their projects and areas of expertise.

We were left with a sense of hope. Despite the urgency around climate change, the CAT conference brings together a group of people who are using their expertise to work together to create a better, more habitable and fairer world – a world that starts with our own contributions to alleviating the climate breakdown we all face, situated within a wider, collective effort to change societal structures. There’s a sense of realism about what’s achievable and an air of hope that we can all work towards a sustainable future.

8 Clean Slate

Delegates discuss solutions.

Graduates share research at sustainable design conference Park-and-ride is not regarded by transport researchers as a particularly sustainable transport solution, or particularly effective at tackling traffic congestion or air pollution, and yet is very popular with local authorities. In this instance, campaigners against the park-andride scheme were able to exploit new and old media, and an in-depth understanding of council processes, build alliances with other campaign groups and, through a highly organised campaign, were able to persuade the council to back down – but not before two years had passed and a substantial sum of money had been spent on the proposal.

Stuart Anderson presented the paper ‘Are dispositional mindfulness traits effective in sustaining proenvironmental behaviours?’, which Masters graduates Stuart Anderson and Lizzie Wynn enjoy a well-earned drink post-conference. was co-authored with CAT Senior Lecturer Dr Ruth Stevenson. This Three students who have recently completed their masters degrees study analysed the lived experience of nine participants who are in Sustainability and Adaptation at CAT’s Graduate School of the engaged in long-term pro-environmental behaviours to see if Environment were accepted as authors at the Sustainable Design dispositional mindfulness (awareness and attention to thoughts of the Built Environment (SDBE) conference in London this and feelings in the present) plays a key role in supporting these September. behaviour changes over time.

Research papers from Stuart Anderson, Sarah Warren and Lizzie The specific mindfulness traits of 'present-centred awareness', Wynn were amongst 110 selected from 300 papers submitted to the 'mindful intention', 'non-judgement' and 'non-reactivity' were conference, and CAT Senior Lecturer Dr Frances Hill was on the found to support pro-environmental behaviour when combined Scientific Committee for the conference. with participants’ formal and informal environmental education The SDBE conference aims to combine rapidly developing experiences and ongoing nature connection experiences. advancements in research and training in sustainable development We’ll be featuring articles on these research projects in future of the built environment with a global perspective, and to support editions of Clean Slate so if we’ve piqued your interest look out for the professional development required in the construction labour more in the coming year.Find out more about the conference at market. http://newton-sdbe.uk/ conferences/sdbe-2018/ Taking place in London Docklands on 12-13 September, the event included inspiring keynote speakers from architecture schools across the UK. Conference themes included education for sustainability, energy effciency in buildings, low and zero carbon design strategies, and renewable energy and green technologies.

Lizzie Wynn presented a paper on sustainable construction technologies and resource efficiency entitled ‘Can structures be created from their site?’ Lizzie’s research shows how local knowledge and site analysis can identify suitable construction materials with low embodied energy/carbon and align new construction with the area’s vernacular or traditional architecture.

Sarah Warren talked about sustainable urban design, looking at ‘Power, transport strategy and the environment: an analysis of the environmental discourse surrounding a proposal to develop a new park-and-ride facility in Bath’. She presented a discourse analysis, aimed at illuminating power relationships in a long-running stand-off over proposed construction of a park-and-ride facility on Sarah Warren presents on power relationships in a park-and-ride campaign. meadows in the setting of the World Heritage City of Bath.

Clean Slate 9

Stuart Anderson

CAT graduates have been sharing their research findings at an international conference on sustainability in the built environment.

Get

15% OFF

your first order!

Apply code:

15CS

by 1 December 2018

Taste the Difference!

Change global trade in favour of farming families, local economies and the environment!

Organic • No Wastage • Local Economies • No Preservatives Post-harvest delivery – pre-order NOW for delivery in December…

Dates (5KG)

Price: £54 Code: FDATESB Honey-sweet organic dates-on the-branch delivered as soon as they have been harvested in Tunisia in December.

Oranges (13KG) Price: £46 Code: FORAN Wonderfully sweet organic oranges delivered as soon as they have been harvested in the Peloponnese in December.

Ready to order NOW…

Dried Mango (1KG)

Price: £19 Code: FMANG This Brooks variety of organic mangoes is sweet in taste and has a slightly sour note. Harvested in Burkina Faso and ready to order now!

Cashew Nuts (1KG)

Price: £22 Code: FCASH Soft, creamy, mild-tasting, broken organic cashew nuts (unsalted).

Harvested in Burkina Faso or Benin and ready to order now!

Almonds (1KG)

’M

G lo

bal Farm

er

s

Price: £24 Code: FALMO Whole, organic unpeeled almonds which are intense in flavour and slightly sweet. Harvested in Pakistan and ready to order now!

ethicalshop

Order online:

ethicalshop.org

Tel: 01420 525544 Free P & P on all orders over £75

a rk

et

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

Food packaging Dear CAT Congratulations for publishing a sensible article on plastic food packaging (Clean Slate 109). The challenge now is to get the mass media to communicate this sense. They do not seem to be able to communicate nuanced compromise - something has to be either good or REALLY BAD. The biggest single thing that members of the public can do to prevent plastic pollution of the oceans is really simple – don’t drop litter! Take your bottles and snack bags home and put them in the waste bin! Surely the media can communicate that? This is not “somebody else’s problem”.

There is an issue with domestic plastic wastes though. We can reduce and reuse to a degree, but eventually we need to dispose of plastic. Some plastics are potentially recyclable but for some, such as wrapping films and catch-weight bags, this will never be economic – too little material and too dirty. For the stuff that is recyclable, it needs to be recycleready: easily separated into different kinds, labelling easily removable, and no unnecessary body colouring (like fluorescent yellow soft drinks bottles or black meat trays).

The easiest way to separate different kinds is (1) reduce the variety of kinds and (2) make each kind a different colour (this colour need not be a colour visible to the human eye under normal light). These won’t happen without some legislative pressure.

Children need to be taught in school how to produce clean recyclate, which probably means teaching their teachers too.

The simplest way for government to apply pressure is to plan to make recycling UK plastic an exclusively UK-based activity.

For plastic that cannot be recycled from the domestic waste stream, incineration with energy recovery is the obvious way forward. Plastics that cannot be incinerated safely, such as PVC, need to be kept out of the domestic waste stream.

Again, something for government to do – ban it for food wraps and containers.

Finally, we do need UK-wide standards for domestic recycling. It’s really confusing travelling around between local authorities, and will interfere with the teaching proposed above.

John Heathcote

Ed: Thanks to everyone who wrote to us about the plastics and food waste article.

It provoked a wide range of responses, and certainly got people thinking. If you’d like to contribute to the debate, please get in touch – please clearly mark your email or letter ‘For publication’.

Standing charges and smart meters Dear CAT I fully agree with Christopher Lycett and his comments on electricity standing charges (Clean Slate 109 letters), which also apply to gas of course.

When I worked for the electricity supply industry we used to have a monthly ‘meter charge’, which was to cover the cost of the man or woman who, before every bill, actually read the meter. This happens rarely nowadays. It is now a daily charge so that it looks a small amount.

Surely in today’s world of trying to encourage consumers to use less gas and electricity – see current TV adverts for smart meters, of which I am not convinced – to hit them with a charge of nearly £100 per year is hardly encouragement.

I have never understood why electricity energy prices vary so much around the country as we have a National Grid system that pushes electricity around Great Britain, so there should be no difference from Glasgow to Greenwich. I suspect it is all because if you make it simple and easy to understand people will see through the fog that energy companies create to hide their disreputable practices.

Robert Wilson Dear CAT People are being duped into believing that smart meters will somehow save them money – they won’t. Only their own actions will, either by switching things off or replacing kit with more efficient stuff.

Once the initial euphoria of seeing your consumption on the kitchen wall has passed, organising your life round the display will lose its attraction.

Don’t be fooled – the real long term reason for making us pay the £20 billion it has cost to purchase and fit them (buried in our current bills) is to finally end fixed tariffs and charge whatever rate the meter is displaying second by second – the ‘spot’ price. Why? So that the suppliers can pass on the instantaneous spot price to consumers so they have no risk in purchasing power contracts in advance of demand. Corporations win again!

G.D.Johnston

Inspiring enews Dear CAT Thank you for your October enews.

I found the list of 10 actions the government must take so impressive, sensible, achievable and important that I’ve emailed it straightaway to my MP. Your name may include the word alternative, but there is nothing alternative about these actions - either for the government or for individuals.

They are urgent and essential.

Thank you for inspiring me to do this.

Ruth Baber

Stay in touch and join the debate

To keep up to date with what’s happening at CAT, make sure you’re signed up to receive our enewsletters. To join in the discussion, follow us on twitter or like us on facebook.

• Subscribe to enews: www.cat.org.uk/sign-up • Blog: http://blog.cat.org.uk/ • Twitter: @centre_alt_tech • Facebook: Centre for Alternative Technology

Clean Slate 11

changing planet

RAISING AMBITION

A new report from CAT maps low- and zero-carbon models from around the world, showing that we have the technology to prevent climate breakdown.

Paul Allen reports.

DFID

D

ata from a global catalogue of recent extreme weather events demonstrates that we are in a climate emergency. To respond appropriately to this crisis, we first need to be sure the climate model we have in our heads is up to the task.

Whilst we call it ‘the greenhouse effect’, there are clear differences between the physics of a greenhouse and the physics of global climate change. A greenhouse full of plants reaches a steady state fairly quickly, where heat lost equals heat gained.

But the Earth, with its colossal oceans and huge mountain ranges has a much greater

12 Clean Slate

‘thermal mass’. This means it takes a long time to warm-up, so even though we are passing 1oC of warming since pre-industrial days, we will be on a rising temperature curve for decades to come.

To make matters worse, our greenhouse is rapidly becoming double glazed, as our increasing fossil fuel emissions capture more and more of the sun’s heat. In addition, huge amounts of our emissions have been absorbed by natural systems such as oceans and forests and if we push these to collapse, massive amounts of these locked-up emissions may be re-released.

Finally, we urgently need to clean our air,

removing the damaging particulates that cause premature deaths, but that is much like polishing the glass in our greenhouse – it makes it work better and traps more heat.

Every time we revisit the greenhouse model in our heads, we must recognise these serious dynamics.

Doing nothing is not an option

Once we have explored our understanding of the challenge, we must also examine the model we use to solve it. Sharing such a highly serious problem without also presenting the relevant solutions can drive people to resign themselves in the

changing planet

words of Dad’s Army’s Private Frazier, “We’re doomed, Mr Mainwaring, doomed”.

Frazer became famous for his bleak, pessimistic outlook; in any situation where circumstances became challenging, he would never fail to find reasons for saying “we’re all doomed”.

Such a mind-set leaves people feeling helpless and detached, with the result that any cultural pressure for the necessary shift in politics and economics evaporates.

The focus then is misdirected towards building walls to stop refugees, scrapping international agreements, cutting overseas aid, growing national military budgets and focusing on nationalist power. Sound familiar? Sound attractive? I don’t think so.

We see the effects of climate change in our own backyards, we see the devastation daily on the news and in documentaries. But once the news ends, we are then encouraged to inhabit a world of 2D box-set Netflix friends, who never take any of the actions we know we must all take, and never discuss the problems we know we all face. This has created a bubble that normalises doing nothing. But, in the light of what we see in our own communities, we increasingly know doing nothing is not really an option.

Fortunately, there is also increasing evidence that we can act to minimise the future climate risks, whilst also developing more resilient and equitable human life support systems. Since 2007, CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research has shown that we have all the tools and technologies we need, and has identified ways of overcoming many of the barriers to change.

We do not claim a Zero Carbon Britain will be some heavenly utopia where all aspects of climate change will magically disappear. We know there are massive disruptive changes already locked into the system, but we can act to minimise the risk of really dangerous climate change.

By showing we have all the technologies needed for the shift, we give hesitant policymakers nowhere to hide and empower citizens to take action for change. If we plan the zero carbon transition right, there are massive multi-solving opportunities for adaptation, resilience, health, jobs, wellbeing and equity.

Evidence-based optimism

We need an approach capable of sharing just how serious a situation we are actually in, but framing it in the context that we know what we must do, and at what speed, to give us the best chance of avoiding really

serious disruption. I call this ‘evidencebased optimism’. We are, admittedly, in uncharted territory here, as the ways we deliver food, land-use, transport and energy have co-evolved with our use of fossil fuels, leading to ‘carbon lock-in’. Coming up with an answer requires serious work to explore how we can overcome barriers across boundaries, scales, disciplines and borders; this is what we explored in our 2017 report Zero Carbon Britain: Making it Happen.

Evidence-based optimism means doing all we can for the best future achievable under the prevailing circumstances; blending the actions of those saying the essential ‘no’ to more fossil fuels with the work of those building the essential ‘yes’ to efficient use of clean energy and land-based systems.

We must link those brave activists risking prison with the creative artists shifting culture, and with the pioneering, innovative, flexible, real-life projects that rethink our relations with food, land-use, transport, buildings and energy. We must crossfertilise best practice.

Solutions for a climate-stable future

Launched in September, CAT’s new report Raising Ambition: Zero Carbon Scenarios from Across the Globe adds vital international perspectives to this story, showing that globally we have all the technologies we need. The report maps the growing evidence that we do have the tools needed to minimise future climate risks whilst also developing more resilient and equitable life

support systems.

Ever wondered what a zero carbon Australia would look like? Or how an archipelago of islands could become carbon neutral? Ever wondered what nations across the world actually need to do to have a good chance of avoiding a really serious hothouse earth? It has been exciting to collate the work of hundreds of researchers around the world who have developed both snapshots and deep visions of possible climate-stable futures at the global, regional, national and sub-national scales.

From Tanzania to Los Angeles, from South Asia to the Baltic we take an indepth look at 18 case studies, and map over 130 scenarios, drawing on cuttingedge modelling work for net zero, deep decarbonisation, and up to 100% renewable energies.

The research also revealed a significant increase in those using hourly modelling, which better demonstrates that clean energy can meet demand 24 hours a day and across the seasons. It was also good to see expert groups with experience in modelling, such as Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology, undertaking collaborations to share their tools with those in other countries to develop scenarios for places such as the Baltic region or Asia.

Through sharing this work in the runup to December’s international climate summit, COP24, CAT aims to stimulate economic and political debate around achieving zero emissions, engage the research community and get society thinking in new ways to help build

Clean Slate 13

changing planet

on Climate Change to look at ways of reaching net zero by mid-century.

The challenge now is to encourage ambitious timelines that take account of the climate science and acknowledge the UK’s moral responsibility, as one of the first industrialised nations, to support less industrialised countries in mitigation and adaptation to climate change. We must continue to push for cross-party consensus around policies and legislation that deliver action to match the rhetoric ( see What CAT would like to see from UK Government – page 18).

Whilst there are of course challenges, there are also huge multi-solving opportunities for adaptation, resilience, employment, heath, wellbeing, economics and natural systems.

Time for collective action consensus and coalition around action. In October CAT officially submitted the report to the official UN climate negotiations process by submitting it to the ‘Talanoa Portal’ where nations, inter-governmental organisations, official bodies, stakeholders and expert institutions are encouraged to share relevant material.

Going beyond electricity

Although there are clearly enough scenarios and models from all corners of the globe to show zero is achievable, our Raising Ambition report also shows that there is more to be done.

Too many countries have not yet been able to access the resources to prepare national scenarios – we found that only 32 out of 199 countries have deep decarbonisation, 100% renewable energy or net zero scenarios. That’s a mere 16%.

Many low-income countries lack publicly accessible zero carbon scenarios; African states are under-represented with only four national scenarios out of a total 54 countries on the continent.

Also, too many scenarios just focus on energy, or even just on electricity.

Modelling must go beyond 100% renewable electricity; humanity needs to get to zero in all sectors.

To take the Paris climate targets seriously, all countries must be supported to prepare 2020-2050 focused full net-zero scenarios that work across disciplines, linking energy, transport, buildings, diets,

14 Clean Slate

land-use and sustainable natural carbon sinks. This will ensure each country’s development pathway and industrial strategy aligns with the mitigating actions required, creates trusted investment frameworks and helps develop social licence.

Whether in energy system modelling, government goal-setting or financial investment – land use is consistently underestimated or ignored. Natural climate solutions such as soil and forests are a missing link and an underestimated asset, not only for sustainable agriculture, healthy diets and recreation, but also for natural carbon management.

A challenge of political will

From researching this report, we can show that tackling climate change and creating a fairer future for everyone is no longer a technological challenge, it’s a challenge of will, of ambition, and of vision.

In the UK politicians are beginning to support the principle of net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The Liberal Democrats have long held a net-zero policy goal, and in September Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Rebecca Long-Bailey, used her keynote speech at the Labour party conference to adopt the “net zero” target. Meanwhile the UK Government has joined the Carbon Neutrality Coalition, countries that have committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, and has asked the UK Committee

The report Shared Values for the City Region shows 74% of people living in the Manchester region place greater importance on compassionate values than selfish values. However, against a background of modern neoliberal media, they found 77% of people believe that their fellow citizens hold selfish values to be more important, and compassionate values less important, than is actually the case.

This misconception is holding us back from strengthening and celebrating the values that bring us together, rather than those that set us apart.

Rising up to a major challenge helps us pull together for the best collective outcome. It unleashes a powerful sense of common purpose, as we see in our responses to major floods or terrorist attacks. There are resources within ourselves and within communities waiting to spring into action. Moments of crisis, like the one we face today as more and more of us realise the highly serious nature of the climate challenge, can allow us to come together and bring to life a stronger, collaborative and more co-operative global society. It is increasingly clear that thousands upon thousands of people now get this, and are opening up to the challenge in many different ways. CAT will continue to inspire, inform and enable those seeking to accelerate the changes we so urgently need to see. CS You can read Raising Ambition: Zero Carbon Scenarios from Across the Globe at www.zerocarbonbritain.org

changing planet

1 degree and rising

‘Unprecedented changes’ are needed if we are to avoid climate breakdown – that’s the take-home message from a seminal report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last month.

Catriona Toms looks at the report’s key findings.

R

‘

apid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society’ are required if humanity is to stay within the threshold of 1.5 degrees of global temperature rise and prevent really dangerous levels of climate change, according to a report released last month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Looking at the difference between 1.5 and 2ºC of warming, the IPCC ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC’ noted a ‘substantial difference’ in effect, highlighting impacts on sea level rise and extreme weather events, with dangerous consequences for food systems, other species, health and the global economy –

The IPPC and the Paris Agreement – background to the report The IPCC is the leading international body dedicated to the assessment of climate change risks, impacts and solutions; they’re tasked by the UN to review and assess the available evidence to help policymakers make informed decisions.

The 1.5ºC report was prepared in response to the 2015 Paris Agreement, signed by 195 countries, agreeing a longterm goal to limit global temperature rise to ‘well below 2°C’ and to ‘pursue efforts towards 1.5°C’. Until then the world had been working to a target of 2ºC above pre-industrial temperatures, but there was growing consensus that this would be more dangerous than scientists had previously thought.

Researched and written over a three year period, and involving 91 authors from more than 40 countries, the report drew on 6,000 cited references and included 42,000 expert and government review comments.

Read the report at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15

with the very worst effects being felt by the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

The report examines the emissions pathways that could limit warming to the lower level, and explores the technologies and solutions that might help us reach the required emissions targets. The authors of the study also looked at how limiting global temperature rise could contribute to sustainable development goals, pulling people out of poverty and helping build a more equitable society.

So where are we now?

Thanks to human activities, average global temperature is already about 1°C above pre-industrial levels – and we’re feeling the effects.

The IPCC report says: ‘Temperature rise to date has already resulted in profound alterations to human and natural systems, bringing increases in some types of extreme weather, droughts, floods, sea level rise and biodiversity loss, and causing unprecedented risks to vulnerable persons and populations.’

We’ve seen some of these impacts for ourselves this summer, with drought, wildfires, flooding and hurricanes – all made more likely in a warmer world.

We are currently on track to break

through the 1.5 threshold in around 20 years, and on a trajectory that will see us reach 3ºC of warming if we do not change course.

What difference will half a degree make?

Half a degree of warming might not sound like much, but the IPCC report shows that it will have a profound effect. The difference between where we are now and 1.5°C of warming will increase extremes of heat in most inhabited areas of the world, and increase flooding in many places. If we reach 2°C of warming the effects are more disturbing still.

It’s important to note that we are talking average global temperatures. The effects are not felt equally across the world. The land is warming faster than the oceans, and the Arctic is feeling the worst effects, with warming of more than twice the global average.

Loss of Arctic sea ice Arctic sea ice is already shrinking dramatically, and the IPCC predicts that one in every ten Arctic summers will be sea-ice free if we reach 2°C of warming. If we stay within 1.5°C then we’re looking at one in every hundred years. Having less ice at the

“

The decisions we make today are critical in ensuring a safe and sustainable world for everyone, both now and in the future.”

Debra Roberts, IPCC Clean Slate 15

changing planet

“

Every bit of extra warming makes a difference.

Hans-Otto Pörtner, IPCC

doubles to 16% for plants and 8% for vertebrates, and triples to 18% for insects.

The consequences for the rest of the food chain are hard to predict, and are potentially devastating.

Coral reefs, already struggling with coral bleaching in too-warm waters, ‘mostly disappear’ at 2°C of warming; sadly the outlook isn’t much better at 1.5°C, with a predicted 90% loss of reefbuilding corals compared to today.

Human health More frequent and more intense heat waves at 2°C will have direct impacts on human health, whilst risks from some vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, are projected to rise, including potential changes to their geographic range.

poles means less heat reflected back into space – instead it’s absorbed by the oceans, creating further warming.

Sea level rise Increases in global sea levels by 2100 are projected to be around 10cm less at 1.5°C than at 2°C, which would mean that ‘up to 10.4 million fewer people are exposed to the impacts of sea level globally’ according to the IPCC. Small islands, low-lying coastal areas and deltas are particularly at risk of increased saltwater intrusion (ruining cropland and making water supplies undrinkable), flooding and damage to infrastructure, with some atoll islands already becoming uninhabitable before we hit 1.5 degrees.

Beyond 2100, sea levels will continue to rise – but keeping within 1.5°C will allow more time for adaptation measures.

Weather extremes We’re already seeing an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and at 1.5°C it will get worse, with central and eastern North America, central and southern Europe, the Mediterranean region, western and central Asia and southern Africa all likely to experience more extremes of heat. But if we can keep within 1.5°C then 420 million fewer people will be frequently exposed to extreme heatwaves than would be the case at 2°C.

16 Clean Slate

Rainfall patterns are also going to become more extreme, with both drought and flooding on the increase. Highlatitude regions, such as northern Europe, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland and northern Asia, are likely to experience more heavy rain and flooding, whilst in the Mediterranean region and southern Africa ‘increases in drought frequency and magnitude are substantially larger at 2°C than at 1.5°C.’ Biodiversity and ecosystems Of 105,000 species studied, the proportion that will lose half their geographic range (the area in which they can feed and breed) between 1.5°C and 2°C warming

Food security The report states that: ‘Overall, food security is expected to be further reduced at 2°C warming compared to 1.5°C warming, due to projected impacts of climate change and extreme weather on crop nutrient content and yields, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and land use.’

The poverty link Disadvantaged and vulnerable populations are at a disproportionally higher risk from climate change, and the report highlights that poverty is expected to increase in some populations as global warming increases. Staying within 1.5°C, compared with 2°C, ‘could reduce the number of people both exposed to climate-related risks and susceptible to poverty by up to several hundred million by 2050.’

Natural methods of removing CO2 from the air are vital, including planting trees, protecting and enhancing soils and preserving peatlands.

Dr Norbert Lange

At 2oC of warming, the IPCC predicts that one in ten Arctic summers would be ice-free.

changing planet

as part of the Paris Agreement (known as ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ or NDCs) don’t add up to enough of a cut in greenhouse gas emissions to keep us within 1.5°C. It is estimated that current pledges would lead to 52–58 gigatons of CO2 emissions a year in 2030, resulting in a 3°C temperature rise. Greenhouse gas emissions would need to fall below 35 gigatons a year by then to stay within the 1.5°C target according to almost all of the IPCC 1.5°C pathways.

Greater ambition and bold action is needed from all of the world’s governments.

So what should the emissions reduction targets be?

Food security is a major concern, with impacts on yields and nutrient content of crops.

So does the Paris Agreement help keep us within 1.5 degrees?

In a word: no. The emissions reduction pledges made by the world’s governments

Carbon dioxide removal To stay within 1.5oC, the report says we will need ‘carbon dioxide removal’ (CDR) to offset emissions from areas that are difficult to decarbonise.

Whilst this sounds like future-tech, CDR also encompasses ‘natural climate solutions’ – enhancing and increasing existing ‘carbon sinks’, such as woodlands, soil and peatlands. CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain scenario includes changes in land use to allow for this. Competing needs for land need to be considered, however.

The IPCC also looked at chemical processes, including capturing CO2 directly from the air – these technologies are unproven at scale, so relying on them is a risk.

“Frankly, the more we are prepared to make changes to behavioural patterns that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the less we would need to rely later on more difficult options that we don’t yet fully understand like carbon dioxide removal,” says Prof Jim Skea of the IPCC.

The report is clear: global carbon dioxide emissions need to reach net zero by 2050, and emissions need to be reduced by about 45% from 2010 to 2030.

How do we get there?

The IPCC says that cutting emissions to stay within 1.5°C requires a transformation in our energy system and our buildings, in land use and agriculture, in consumption patterns, and in transport.

The transformation will require a ‘whole systems’ approach, as so many of the actions needed are interconnected.

The report highlights that there are many pathways that could keep us within 1.5°C, depending on socio-cultural and political priorities. However, all of the pathways require net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 and include radical reductions in other greenhouse gases, such as methane.

All include an increase in energy efficiency and the decarbonisation of the electricity sector by mid-century through a switch to renewable energy and a phasing out of coal.

Nuclear energy use increases in ‘most’ 1.5°C pathways, but not in all (note that CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain scenario shows how we can reach net zero emissions using technology available today without relying on new nuclear).

CAT is calling for the UK Government to commit to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. We would like to see this earlier goal partly because this would allow the UK to show global leadership, encouraging other countries to set ambitious targets, and partly to help build climate justice. The UK and other long-industrialised nations that grew

Impacts in numbers

• On current trends we will reach 1.5°C of warming by 2040.

• The Arctic summer will be free of sea

ice once every 10 years on average if we reach 2°C of warming – it’s once every 100 years if we can keep to 1.5°C.

• 10.4 million extra people will be

exposed to the impacts of sea level rise by 2100 at 2°C of warming compared to 1.5°C.

• 90% of coral reefs are lost at 1.5°C of warming – at 2°C it’s 100%.

• 8% of vertebrates, 16% of plants and

18% of insects will lose half their geographical range at 2°C of warming.

• Three times as many people will be

exposed to extreme heatwaves at 2°C of warming than at 1.5°C.

wealthy on the back of burning fossil fuels can take ambitious action now to allow less developed countries more time to adapt to the climate change already in the system.

The UK also has a moral responsibility to provide both financial and technical support for less developed countries to help with mitigation and adaptation measures.

What happens now?

The next round of UN climate talks takes place in Poznan, Poland this December.

The IPCC report provides the evidence needed to push the world’s governments to set ambitious targets. CAT’s recent report, Raising Ambition: Zero Carbon Scenarios from Across the Globe, provides an overview of 130 models from around the world that show how net zero greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved.

The science says we must, the technology says we can – now we need the world’s leaders to act to take bold, decisive action to help prevent the worst effects of a warming world. Take a look overleaf to see what CAT thinks the UK government must do now – and a few things all of us can do to help. CS

About the author

Catriona has been part of CAT for over 10 years, editing Clean Slate and managing our communications team. She has an MSc in Food Policy from the Centre for Food Policy, and previously edited The Vegan magazine.

Clean Slate 17

1 2

5

l ay

Tr

Launch an inclusive process to build cross-party consensus on an ambitious climate action plan to allow a consistent, coherent approach regardless of who is in and out of power over the next 20 years.

Phase out fossil fuels fast. Follow the lead of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and stop fracking now. Stop burning coal.

Invest in renewable energy, including on-shore and off-shore wind, powering up our clean energy supply.

Support a nationwide programme to insulate the UK's housing stock, allowing us to power down our energy demand.

6 7

Transform agricultural subsidies to support a food system that is good for the environment and for our health.

Radically increase UK tree cover and enhance other natural climate solutions like soils and peatlands.

8 9

Invest in joined-up affordable public transport, and in better infrastructure for walking and cycling.

Cut flights through a frequent flyer levy – and scrap the third runway at Heathrow.

10 18 Clean Slate

a

Commit to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 – and create a clear timeline for action. By targeting 2040, the UK can show global leadership, and help buy time for less developed countries.

3 4

n o s pic tu r e s/ D e p

ie

10 things the UK government must do

/Pa

A bb

TIME TO ACT

-S er

th mi

Pay our historic debts – the UK and other long-industrialised nations grew wealthy on the back of burning fossil fuels; climate justice demands that we provide both financial and technical support for less developed countries to help with mitigation and adaptation measures.

3

10 things the rest of us can do

nt

fo rI

n te rna tio n a

l D e v e lo p m e

2

nt Cre

a ti

ve

Change how you travel – fly less, drive less, cycle more, take the train.

C om mo

ns gon DO T / Ore

Switch to a green electricity provider to support investment in renewable energy.

4 5

Wherever possible, insulate our homes to reduce wasted energy.

6

Eat less meat and dairy – our dietary choices can have a big impact.

7

Join your local community energy scheme – or start one up.

Check out each political party’s climate change policies before deciding how to vote – and challenge your local candidates.

Co

8

Buy less stuff.

m

m

o

ay /R ns

Chan

ve

3

1

Campaign for change – join environmental organisations, encourage politicians and businesses to take action.

ati

me

Cre

a rt

9 10

Talk about climate change with friends, family and colleagues.

Keep campaigning – don’t let politicians and policymakers off the hook.

Clean Slate 19

changing planet

A prescription for the planet As we approach the next round of UN climate talks, Paul Allen talks to Professor Kevin Anderson about what the international community must do to prevent climate breakdown.

“To genuinely reduce emissions in line with 2°C of warming requires a transformation in the productive capacity of society, reminiscent of the Marshall Plan.”

Kevin Anderson’s response to the IPCC report, delivered just a few days after our interview, is typically direct. For decades now he has been sounding the alarm on climate change, and offering solutions to help rein in emissions. It’s a warning that the world’s governments are only just starting to listen to, but are they prepared to make the radical shifts that the science demands? And can change happen quickly enough?

I caught up with Kevin to explore where we are now and what needs to be done to keep the world within 2°C of warming.

Paul Allen: 2018 will most likely go down in history as the time it became crystal clear that humanity is facing an urgent crisis. Both the data and firsthand experiences from the increasing number of extreme weather events in the UK and across the globe very clearly show humanity is now facing a very serious climate emergency.

Can you give us an overview of the timescale needed to reach net-zero emissions?

Kevin Anderson: Before thinking about the future, it is necessary to consider how we have approached climate change in the recent past. The international community has presided over 28 years of abject failure to deliver any meaningful reduction in CO2 emissions.

Since the first IPPC

20 Clean Slate

report in 1990 annual carbon emissions have risen by around 65%. Moreover, include emissions from aviation, shipping, imports and exports, and you find that self-avowed climate progressive countries, such as the UK, Sweden, Denmark and France, have total emissions today as high as they were in 1990.

If the international community is now to deliver on the Paris “well below 2°C” commitment, then we have a set carbon budget range that must not be exceeded; in other words a total quantity of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from now on across and beyond this century. The actual level of the carbon budget does vary depending on a range of factors, from climate sensitivity through to how successful we are in controlling the nonCO2

changing planet

“

in our energy infrastructure necessary to avoid the system-level chaos of unchecked climate change.

Breaking the UK into socioeconomic groups suggests a much more nuanced response to climate change, with equity pointing towards regulations rapidly curtailing the energy use of high energy users.

PA: Do you have any good metaphors to help people understand the science and the maths of climate solutions?

KA: The one that I typically use is a pie, or what we colloquially call where I work, a ‘Manchester tart’. This metaphor imagines the global carbon budget as a round pie, representing the total amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted across the century if we are to “stay well below 2°C”.

This pie can then be cut into slices, with each slice representing a nation’s fair proportion of the pie – or, breaking the metaphor, a country’s total emissions across and beyond the century. It is possible to go still further and cut the slice into smaller pieces signifying the budget for regions, cities, sectors, and even individuals.

greenhouse gases (particularly methane).

However, in 2018, the “well below 2°C” carbon budget range is small and rapidly dwindling. Consequently, whilst the specific range remains an area of interesting academic discussion, from a policy perspective the message is clear.

Add our historical failure to control emissions with a concept of carbon budgets, and the timeframe to fully decarbonise energy shrinks to just a handful of decades, and even this assumes that we begin rapid and deep mitigation today. To put some numbers on it, and taking account of how Paris permits poorer nations to take a little longer to decarbonise, the OECD nations need zero carbon energy by 2035-40, with interim mitigation rates of 10 to 20% year on year. For the non-OECD nations the zero carbon timeframe extends to 2050-2060, but only if they collectively peak emissions in the early 2020s and then ratchet up mitigation rates towards 10% per annum by around 2040.

With few exceptions, this rate and timeframe of mitigation is far more challenging than is typically tolerated in the literature. This is because most analysis for 2°C relies on future generations deploying highly speculative ‘negative emission technologies’ to suck hundreds of billions of tonnes of this generation’s carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. Remove this expedient and often hidden assumption, and the numbers here broadly prescribe the timeframe of the system-level revolution

PA: How does our thinking on climate need to change?

KA: I suggest ten points as a framework for opening up our thinking about the unprecedented challenges posed by climate change: • have the courage and humility to question our own prejudice and dogma • disregard stifling political and economic sensibilities • be open-minded and pluralistic in developing our analysis • acknowledge that numbers within context matter – nebulous arm waving around half-baked ideas is a dangerous distraction from consistency • develop answers amenable to ongoing iterations; Rumsfeldian unknowns litter the technical, social and economic domains, consequently optimisation, and particularly cost optimisation, are inappropriate analytical frameworks • recognise and embed equity between and within nations as a central and quantifiable tenet of our mitigation analysis • research and develop negative emission technologies, but mitigate now as if they do not and will never work at scale • do not use neoclassical (market based) economics; its foundations in marginal (small) incremental change near or at equilibrium make it inappropriate for addressing a mitigation agenda both far from equilibrium and demanding rapid

system-level (i.e. non-marginal) change • r emember climate change is a symptom of something much more malign in our current model of progress •d o not misuse responses to climate change to hide other social objectives; aligning the two is fine provided it is done openly and honestly PA: We need to recognise climate equity – what does this mean for the UK? KA: It accelerates our mitigation agenda beyond that necessary at a global level. In brief, the UK needs to decarbonize all its energy by around 2035, with mitigation rates of somewhere in the region of 15% year on year – starting now. This will require a suspension of economic growth as an

“

The international community has presided over 28 years of abject failure to deliver any meaningful reduction in CO2 emissions. indicator of collective progress.

Breaking the UK into socioeconomic groups suggests a much more nuanced response to climate change, with equity pointing towards regulations rapidly curtailing the energy use (and hence carbon emissions) of high energy users.

It is this mobile elite who have normalized high-consumption lifestyles and see only higher consumption as denoting progress and success. At the same time, equity points to poorer communities in our society seeing a near term rise in their material and energy consumption, and hence their carbon emissions. In the medium term this rebalancing of energy use needs to be delivered through much more efficient housing, appliances and transport, a transformation of energy supply to zero carbon technologies, and a recasting of values and ‘success’.

Finally, the UK has to shoulder its

Clean Slate 21

changing planet

“

Playing poker with climate change negotiations will continue to see meaningful mitigation kicked into the long grass. historical responsibly for the climate change we have and continue to witness.

In partnership with other wealthier OECD nations, the UK should finance any difference in the costs for poorer nations of developing along a low-carbon pathway compared with the higher carbon course (i.e. fossil fuel based) we enjoyed.

In addition, we should cover a significant proportion of the adaptation costs our emissions are imposing on other nations.

Where we cannot agree a fair buy-in from our OECD partners, the UK should vociferously make unilateral contributions.

PA: What’s been happening in your local area of Greater Manchester?

KA: Some genuine ramping up of the policy framing as a prelude to real mitigation – in some areas. Other more challenging emission sources, such as the airport and the regional road network, thus far appear exempt from making their fair contribution to Manchester’s mitigation agenda.

Certainly the recognition of regional carbon budgets as a guiding framework for mitigation is to be welcomed (and here I declare an interest as Tyndall colleagues and I have worked with the Mayor’s office on this). But to date, the implications of such a framework for the immediacy, scale, rate and timeframe of driving down emissions has not percolated through; neither have the implications of equity for focusing attention on the region’s high-energy users.

All this said – the new Mayor has provided a welcome impetus to the region’s mitigation agenda, as well as a focal point for the many local groups rightly critical of the failure, thus far, to seriously address the challenges posed by climate change.

22 Clean Slate

PA: In what ways do you feel the UNFCCC negotiations need to develop to deliver on time?

KA: I suggest five principal areas to develop: 1) A gree a global carbon budget range for the 1.5°C to “well below 2°C” commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement – accompanied with the appropriate ‘what if’ caveats on mitigation pathways for non-CO2 greenhouse gases.

2) Acknowledge that playing poker with climate change negotiations will continue to see meaningful mitigation kicked into the long grass. Perhaps lessons from philosophy may help here? Each country negotiator is randomly allocated another nation to represent. Such an approach would likely see ‘fairness’ emerging as the best strategy for the negotiators to protect the prospects of their home nation. This may sound far-fetched, but surely less so than imagining prosperous and secure lives in a 4°C warmer world.

The outcome of such an approach would be a national carbon budget within which sovereign governments can develop mitigation policies that they judge appropriate to their national circumstances.

3) Develop a form of words or international protocol to provide a robust ‘legal’ framework for requiring nations to deliver on their carbon budgets.

4) R evisit the $100 billion fund for poorer nations, increasing it significantly and potentially developing more innovative tools for ensuring the funding is genuinely forthcoming (perhaps something along the lines of an OECD fossil fuel levy).

5) T he UNFCCC and negotiation process should demonstrate radical leadership by adopting very low carbon practices and technologies and pushing the forefront of what is possible. Not only would this raise the credibility of the negotiations and provide leadership for other events (from conferences to concerts and sports), but may also provide a positive feedback into the negotiations themselves.

PA: How would you sum up where we are now?

KA: In so many respects we are the pinnacle of 3.5 billion years of earthly evolution. We have an innovative and

creative capacity for beauty, captured in Christopher Wren’s soaring spires, Jocelyn Bell’s scientific curiosity, Rosa Parks’ courage, Steve Jobs’ iPhone, the humble bicycle and the wonderful music of Simone and Bach.

“

We should cover a significant proportion of the adaptation costs our emissions are imposing on other nations.

Sadly this creative beauty has its dark side. From the plethora of devices for killing to the elaborate financial mechanisms of greed, we demonstrate a capacity to lay bare and destroy. But perhaps our most unbalanced and dangerous traits are those accompanying mild success? Apathy, latent self-interest, fraudulent optimism and acquiescence with the status quo, all serve to support incremental destruction; to be the frog in the warming pan.

So are we a genetic cul-de-sac, destined to be little more than an anomaly in the fossil record – or do we yet possess a quality for harmonious survival? Whilst most signs point towards the former, the new millennia hints at an emerging change in the old guard, a transformation from fear and expedient politics to perhaps a future guided by cogency, courage and beauty?

But time is short … CS Kevin Anderson is one of the world’s leading climate scientists. He is Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester School of Mechanical, Aerospace & Civil Engineering, and Zennström Professor at Uppsala University in Sweden. He recently delivered a guest lecture on climate science, impacts and mitigation to CAT postgraduate students.

Up t donat o £60 io when n to CAT you sw itch* ’ll be able to better mpany – meaning we co gy er en ry ntu ce ergy Britain st Join a 21 balance the green en your th wi ce en er diff a future. ke – and ma makes and uses in the energy bills. three ’ve just built another our We y ne unty mo co the e me us ho r we At Ecotricity, windmills in ou gy er will en ir ich the wh – on d ire customers spen of Gloucestersh n ee gr r each of we s po ce ur an so cle bills to build new provide enough it’s – ills s. nm me su d ho an energy, like wind year for over 3,000 lls into mills’. ‘bi g nin tur ll ca we at wh front, we And on the transport us s let it d ic Highway, It’s a unique model. An built and run the Electr of electric do lots of cool stuff. our national network d we power car charge points – an rs, me sto cu r ou of lp he th our own With the gy to every charge point wi olo hn tec t es lat the we’re using 100% green electricity. on numerous fight climate change the support fronts.

We do all of this with re people our customers. The mo of w no ’re we , lar so can do.

After wind and join us, the more we o wh n ow ry ve r ou planning to build n Britain – ills – it will grass-fed green gasm Help us create a Gree ine nu ge a d d we’ll an an be a first for Britain, switch to Ecotricity T* .

CA alternative to fracking donate up to £60 to al to build We’ve also got approv e projects five new energy storag

0 123 3 2 1 8 0 8 0 n o e e fr s Call u .uk/cat o .c y it ic tr o c e it is v or

* Terms and conditions apply. Please quote CAT4 when you switch.

Clean Slate 23

energy

Coastal sprawl: making space for nature in the intertidal zone One of our last great wildernesses, the UK coastline is home to a wide variety of plants and animals – but it’s a habitat under threat. Marine biologist Joe Ironside introduces a collaborative project that looks at how artificial structures can help wildlife adapt in the face of urban sprawl and a changing climate.

The replacement of the natural rocky or sandy shore with artificial structures composed of concrete, wood, metal or granite blocks can reduce the complexity of intertidal habitats, eliminating waterretaining features (rockpools) and creating smooth vertical or horizontal surfaces which can be difficult for intertidal organisms to colonise.

The construction of hard sea defences also prevents the shore from retreating as the sea level rises, narrowing the intertidal zone (a phenomenon known as coastal squeeze).

The Ecostructure project

Terrestrial laser scanning of a rock armour (‘riprap’) sea defence.

T

he Irish Sea coastlines of Wales and Ireland are highly urbanised.

Historically, both countries depended on maritime trade, leading to the development of major coastal towns and cities.

The rugged interiors of Wales and parts of Ireland also dictate that most major roads and railways are coastal. Other infrastructure situated on the coasts includes marinas, steelworks, aquaculture facilities, nuclear power stations and, more recently, renewable energy infrastructure such as offshore wind turbines.

The need to protect homes and

Fine-scale photogrammetry and biological survey of a stone and concrete sea wall.

24 Clean Slate

infrastructure from erosion and storms has led to major modification of the Irish Sea coastlines, through the construction of sea walls, breakwaters, groynes and other forms of coastal defence. Increased sea levels, erosion and storminess resulting from climate change, together with the drive for renewable energy, are likely to increase demand for coastal modification in the immediate future.

Ecostructure is a collaborative research project involving scientists from three universities in Wales (Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea) and two universities in Ireland (University College Dublin and University College Cork). CAT is represented on Ecostructure’s steering committee, along with other stakeholders, including engineers, developers, statutory bodies and local government.

Ecological impacts in the intertidal zone

The intertidal zone of Britain and Ireland is one of our last great wildernesses. While the distance between the high and low tide lines is relatively narrow, the complex, indented nature of the coastline creates a total intertidal area that is vast. This landscape, covered by the sea for part of each day, contains habitats for a wealth of specialist organisms including seaweeds, worms, fish and shellfish. These, in turn, provide a rich source of food for birds and mammals (including humans) in addition to other ecosystem services, such as filtering the water and providing habitats for juvenile fish.

Drill-core rock pools newly installed in a riprap sea defence. This simple intervention provides valuable habitat for many intertidal organisms.

We acknowledge that the best ecological solution is to minimise modification of natural shores. However, in areas such as the Irish Sea where coastal sprawl has already occurred, we recognise that further coastal modification is likely to take place, in order to develop renewable energy and to protect homes and infrastructure from the effects of climate change. In such cases, we aim to promote eco-engineering

ygrene

Experimental artificial algal canopies (‘hulas’) deployed on slipway pilings. Natural rope skirts create canopy habitat, potentially providing refuge for fish and other organisms.

approaches that improve the value of artificial structures as habitat for wildlife in the intertidal zone.

Linking structural features to ecosystem function and services

Ecostructure aims to identify features of natural shores that are positively associated with biodiversity and ecosystem function.

Once these features are known, it should be possible to build similar features into designs for new intertidal structures or retrofit them to existing structures.

Our researchers have mapped artificial structures and areas of natural rocky shore along the Irish Sea coasts of Wales and Ireland. Using 3D aerial images collected by drones in combination with terrestrial laser scanning (LIDAR) and fine-scale photogrammetry (taking measurements from photographs) they are assembling detailed pictures of the features associated with various types of intertidal structure.

By relating this information to data from biological surveys of the same structures, we aim to identify relationships between physical structure, biodiversity and ecosystem function. A further step will be translating our findings into predictions of the positive and negative effects of future interventions on the ecosystem services provided by artificial structures in the intertidal zone.

range of these designs in the Irish Sea, with the aim of identifying those interventions that perform most effectively in an Irish Sea context. We are also developing novel habitat units designed to mimic ecologically important features of natural rocky shores.

By studying the effects of varying the size, density and configuration of these interventions on biodiversity and ecosystem function, we aim to provide an evidence base for deploying similar designs at a commercial scale.

We are also testing the durability and ecological effects of using different concrete mixes in the intertidal zone. Through incorporating industrial byproducts, these can reduce the embedded CO2 of concrete structures and, depending upon their physical and chemical properties, they may also provide better habitats for intertidal organisms.

Range extensions and biosecurity Coastal structures made of stone, concrete or metal tend to be colonised by organisms adapted to life on rocky shores, but are often placed in areas of soft sediment since these tend to be at greatest risk of erosion. Ecostructure’s researchers are investigating the potential of these structures to act as stepping stones for rocky shore organisms across areas of unsuitable habitat, such as sand, mud or open water. These habitat stepping stones may have the important consequence of enabling some coastal species to extend their ranges northwards as the warming climate allows them to survive at higher latitudes.

Trialling eco-engineering interventions

Various artificial methods aimed at increasing the diversity of habitats on intertidal structures have been trialled in different parts of the world at an experimental scale. These include drilled pits, bolt-on habitat units and moulded tiles, all of which increase surface complexity or create water-retaining features which act as artificial rock pools.

Ecostructure scientists are testing a

Non-native organisms often colonise artificial structures.

Although they usually provide poor habitat for native species, artificial structures are often preferentially colonised by non-native species, particularly when associated with boat traffic (ports and marinas) or the import of organisms from

Survey of non-native organisms on a marina pontoon.

overseas (aquaculture facilities). Our researchers are developing DNA-based tools and methods to allow the rapid detection and identification of non-native species. We are also using hydrodynamic models to predict the effects of artificial structures on the spread of non-native species around the coasts of Wales and Ireland.

Getting involved

A key element of the Ecostructure project is to raise awareness of the effects of urbanisation and climate change upon the intertidal zone, and of the potential for ecoengineering approaches to mitigate these effects and provide secondary benefits.

Our online platform, the Ecostructure Observatory will allow residents and visitors to the Irish Sea coasts of Ireland and Wales to participate in our research by uploading observations and images, joining discussions and participating in citizen science projects.

Where there is interest in exploring the possibility of applying eco-engineering interventions to an existing coastal structure or development project, we encourage developers, regulators and community groups to contact us at http:// www.ecostructureproject.eu/contact-us/.

Ecostructure is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Ireland Wales Cooperation Programme 2014-2020. CS

About the author

Joe Ironside is a marine biologist, with interests spanning ecology, genetics and evolution. He has a PhD in Biology from University of Leeds and has worked as a lecturer at Aberystwyth University for the past 14 years. He is currently leading the Ecostructure project. Email: jei@aber.ac.uk

Clean Slate 25

WHAT IS PERMACULTURE? Earth Care, People Care, Future Care - promotes regenerative agriculture and is full of money saving ideas for the home, garden and community.

It is packed with courses and contacts and is now an established resource for many of the world’s leading libraries, universities, colleges and institutions.

A subscription to Permaculture magazine includes: p Each of the year’s 4 print issues (each with a bonus digital article) p FREE Digital & App access to all 98 issues/over 26 years of content p Exclusive offers from us & carefully selected partners p You help to support & promote permaculture projects globally

permaculture.co.uk/subscribe

Permaculture Hoodies & T-Shirts - Brand New! All made from certified organic cotton Available in Unisex sizes

https://shop.permaculture. co.uk/clothing.html 26 Clean Slate

 Follow your ethical beliefs  Make a difference

Go Pineapple...

 Achieve positive social change  Influence shareholder meetings

Independent financial advisers for the ethically minded NEW Chevron NEW Cheatah Pineapple Pineapple

NEW Snug Boot Pineapple

Go Hemp...

Veg Supreme Hemp Lo Top

T 01603 309020 E info@investing-ethically.co.uk www.investing-ethically.co.uk Investing Ethically Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

Spider XT Hemp

Panther Hemp

Over 200 mens & womens styles: Casual, Formal, Sport, Leisure, Work, Hiking, Dress, Fashion, Sandals, Belts and Accessories Quality ‘breathable’ non-leather materials - Made in England & Europe ORDER DIRECT:

www.vegshoes.com

Tel: 01273 691913 | info@vegshoes.com A treat for your feet if you don’t eat meat!

Clean Slate ad 97x140 ad 1018.indd 1

CAPITAL AT RISK. INVESTMENTS ARE LONG TERM AND MAY NOT BE READILY REALISABLE. ABUNDANCE IS AUTHORISED AND REGULATED BY THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY (525432).

24/10/2018 15

abundanceinvestment.com

YOU WANT: A nice planet to retire to YOU NEED: To save for your retirement

ISAs for people exactly like you (although some actually like wearing hats)

LIMITED OFFER - SAVE AN EXTRA 25% FOR ALL MAGAZINE READERS

The best cost-saving ONLY energy device ever? £29.95 Plus P&P

Experience an invigorating shower like no other - saving you water, energy and money!

The science

25

%

OFF

When you use code code ‘cs’

I

ntroducing the Jetstorm – best seller from our groundbreaking range of revolutionary water-e efficient shower heads from Ecocamel. With several years of scientific research, we have been able to produce a shower head that instantly increases performance to create an exhilarating shower experience, whilst using significantly less water.

So confident are we that you’ll love your new powerful Jetstorm Shower Head, we’re offering a 30-day money back guarantee*.

PLUS AN EXTRA

Want to find out more... Call one of our friendly experts on 0208 211 3666 - who will be happy to help.

Suitable for all shower systems

NEW

FLOW BOOSTING INSTANT SAVINGS! SHOWER HOSE

This pioneering new shower head is called the Jetstorm because of its patented dual valve ‘AirCore’ technology. Developed to infuse a storm of minute air bubbles into each droplet which are then blasted, jet-like, onto your skin… we guarantee you’ll increase your shower’s performance instantly and reduces your water consumption considerably!

The droplets – now bursting with air – are so much lighter than normal and, rather than just bouncing off you, they saturate and spread all over your body – a sensational experience.

Don’t just take our word for it, read what the experts say…

INNOVATI

“My husband grudgingly admits the new model works better than the conventional shower head, so it’s staying on the shower - much to my & the household purse’s delight!”

S Lonsdale - Sunday Telegraph

IMPROVE THE POWER OF BOOSTS YOURTHE SHOWER!POWER This ‘big bore’ PRESSURE BO hose increases the water flow to OF YOUR SHOWER... boost the pressure in low flow SHOWER HOS systems.

Suitable for all showers SAVES YOU MONEY Even hotels including electric and power have been IMPROVE Fits easily in TOO! seconds.

WATER Save more than just water AND showers.

Air POWER Air clamouringTHE The Jetstorm not only helps cut your water billssaving money, water & energy instantly.

Start but reduces your energy bills too! Using less OF YOUR Our unique inbuilt Aircore Technology injects airto make the water means using less energy to heat it,directly saving into the water stream so you use less savings! SHOWER! Water you £££’s on your energy bills - SIMPLE! water while still experiencing a powerful shower.

This ‘big bore’ hose

“I made my decision to use Ecocamel for two

Do I have to call a plumber?

the– the water the savings I made Ecocamel SAVES ENERGY & WATER reasons: firstly increases Absolutely not, it really could not be easier. ow tome boost the shower heads fl will save annually over £4,000 It takes just a few seconds to unscrew your INNOVATIVE BRITISH DESIGNof combined energy and water costs per hotel. pressure in low existing shower head and pop on your new Secondly, the shower gave a very refreshing POWER SHOWER EXPERIENCE flow head systems. water-efficient Jetstorm. and excellent experience which very Suitable forisall Chrome Plated Stainless Steel UNIQUE 1.5m AIRCORE TECHNOLOGY Do you have... important to our guests.” showers including Universal Fitting - No Tools Needed!

A low pressure or electric shower.

Maybe your WIPE CLEAN RUBBER NODULES Mr. T. G. General Manager, The Days Hotel, Hyde Park electric andInnpower water is supplied by storage tank, if so all our FAST AND FITTINGWe were evenshowers.

Amazing Value shower heads are designed for systems withEASY UNIVERSAL featured onFits Sir Lord Sugar’s ‘

£29

limited water flow.

.95

£12

.95

easily inindeed! seconds!

The Apprentice’ ... fame

“...one of the simplest ways to make financial savings at Plus £1.95 P&P home without having to make changes to your routine.”

£12

.95

BRITISH INVENTION AND DESIGN

by Robin Whitfield

Read our fantastic

E Y B A C K G UA on our N O R A ANY-SIZED ORDER JUSTreviews M The Jetstorm has been £1.95facebook P&P Y N TE designed for use with DA E limited water flow and 3 0 low pressure systems to maximise your Order today quoting code ‘cs’ showering experience ORDER TODAY25% & RECEIVE ANproduct EXTRA and receive an extra off any and save you water Justin Harper writing in The Daily Mail

ACT NOW! ACT NOW!

UNIVERSAL FITTING! Designed for any standard shower hose

25% OFF ANY PRODUCT IN THE ECOCAMEL RANGE

CALL CALL020 0208211 00003666 0000 or visit ecocamel.com/cs ecocamel.co.uk/media

at the same time.

building

Earthy delights Next June CAT will host Clayfest 2019 – a week-long festival dedicated to building with earth.

Event organiser Rowland Keable introduces a unique event aimed at building skills, knowledge and confidence in sustainable building.

Incorporating materials found at site into earth buildings.

E

arth Building UK and Ireland (EBUKI) have run a conference every year since 2009, covering an eclectic mix of earth building techniques and related topics, usually under the three main themes of heritage and refurbishment, new build and experimentation.

In the past few years, the conference has transformed into Clayfest – a weeklong festival dedicated to earth building, with four-day workshops and talks aimed at building the skills, knowledge and networks of people with varying levels of experience.

The event offers an opportunity to hear about academic, practical, commercial, heritage and professional approaches to earth building, bringing together new and old methodologies, drawing on examples from around the globe, and looking at everything from the well-known to the latest research results.

Modern methods for an ancient material

Over the years that EBUKI have been running earth building events, there have been papers covering the minutiae of clay mineralogy, changes to organisational policy in heritage, arts programmes exploiting the possibilities of public participation, as well as many case studies of new and restored buildings.

The thing that links them all is the use of a material that, if found locally, can lead to sustainability in building and living; a material that is highly versatile and can be used again and again, making it the ultimate in cradle-to-cradle making and remaking in buildings.

Many of the examples shown are buildings in the UK, Ireland and around the world that are hundreds of years old, still lived-in and held together by unfired clay.

This very low impact material provides a link to our past and helps us look forward to

a more sustainable future.

The more that earth is shown, taught, discussed, researched and used, the more its versatility is apparent - from multistorey structural materials to lightweight insulators. This growing body of experience and understanding of working with earth is made accessible by the peripatetic nature of Clayfest – the event moves around the UK and Ireland each year to a new area with a new local vernacular, taking a fresh look at old sustainability and possibilities for the future.

Wexford workshops

This year Clayfest was in Wexford, Ireland.

This was the first big event EBUKI have hosted in Ireland. The Irish Heritage Park made an ideal venue, with a range of building types from pre-Roman through to Viking and Norman creating a mix of natural timber, fibre, stone and earth structures. The Heritage Park was keen to

Clean Slate 29

building

workshops were led by or with women.

This proportion is quite normal for clay building, in direct contrast to most of the construction industry.

People and community

Lizzie Wynn re-using litter as 'eco-bricks'.

understand more about clay as a binder, and have kept many of the built examples from the week as exhibits.

A range of expert-led workshops showcased the variety of approaches to building with earth.The basic ancient techniques and speedy results of wattle and daub, using forest products as a framework for structures, was mirrored by a built demonstration of CobBauge, an Interreg project that is doing high tech stuff with earth, mixing thermal mass with a hemp earth side in situ, aiming to solve difficulties with building regulations in both the UK and France.

We had the world-renowned Athena and Bill Steen running an amazing plastering workshop, which attracted both highly qualified artisans and total beginners who all worked together to create a beautiful clay plaster mural.

CAT graduate Lizzie Wynn and Graduate School lecturer Louise Halestrap ran a workshop on building with the materials found near the site – the ultimate in green building, although building with single-use plastic-stuffed bottles as ‘eco-bricks’ was controversial in a workshop area where every other leader was building without oilbased materials, using stone, wood, reeds, heather, and of course a great deal of clay, mud and earth.

Tom Morton, a heritage architect from Scotland, built and tested a structure made from unfired claybricks, and Becky Little from earth builders Rebearth added weatherproofing and beautified the structure There was also the opportunity to try out some heritage skills, making a stone and earth wall and repairing a bowing earth structure.

Women make a significant proportion of the workshop leaders and speakers at Clayfest. This year five of the eight

30 Clean Slate

EBUKI events encourage and bring together people with knowledge and skills, allowing them to share those skills and encouraging participation, experimentation, imitation and practice.

Through Clayfest, EBUKI provide a framework for networking and for building community between people working with clay in construction – this support is vital because they are often operating in very challenging circumstances, unaided and misunderstood by the wider construction community.

Providing help, support and encouragement is about much more than building buildings; it is about demonstrating, on a 1:1 built scale, things that are hard to do on paper and difficult to explain to others without the physical contact of the materials, transmitted through language and physical expression.

Providing opportunities for face-to-face interaction creates confidence, builds community and provides a shared experience vital to allowing the practices to be tried and tried again.

Behaviour change

Changing behaviours is not easy, especially in an industry like construction, which is dominated by capital managed by a very few extremely large companies that demonstrate an extreme aversion to behavioural change.

As well as organising events where people can share knowledge and build excitement around working with sustainable materials, EBUKI are involved in developing industry standards for building with earth. Working with

Clayfest is a chance to experiment with materials, sharing learning and innovation.

European partners, training standards have been developed that have become the basis of UK NVQ qualifications, and EBUKI have supported the training of assessors for the NVQ system in earth building. By opening new pathways to learners, with links to training in other countries, these standards and qualifications help open up access to alternative ways of approaching construction.

Clayfest at CAT

Next year Clayfest is coming to CAT – a natural partner for the event, boasting as it does some of the largest and most advanced earth structures built in the UK over the past 20 years.

There is a ‘Confidence in Clay’ event on 29 November aimed at informing contractors, FE colleges and the heritage sector about earth building and the opportunities it offers. This will include talks and practical science demonstrations on the physics of earthen materials in construction.

Clayfest 2019 has a lot of opportunities for different groups of learners from outside the ‘sustainable’ construction sector to get stuck in and begin to see what earth can offer them in commercial situations, in creative construction, in training and in qualifications pathways. Do come and join us.

Find out more

For more information about Confidence in Clay, 29 November, and Clayfest 2019, 17-22 June – both taking place at CAT – go to ebuki.co CS

About the author

Decorating the structure.

As well as being CEO of EBUKI and one the world’s leading experts in building with earth, Rowland teaches CAT’s rammed earth short course and is a regular guest lecturer and workshop leader in our Graduate School of the Environment.

Soil is at the heart and soul of our planet. 95% of the food we eat comes from it. Without healthy soil our wildlife, crops, farm animals and health will be in danger. And it’s vital for our climate. Right now our soil is degrading at an alarming rate.

But you can help.

The Soil Association is the charity working towards a greener, healthier food and farming future, where caring for soil and nature comes first and before short term profit.

To give a regular donation of ÂŁ5 per month, visit

www.soilassociation.org/save-the-soil Together we will transform food and farming.

Registered charity number 206862 in England and Wales, and SCO039168 in Scotland Code: ACQ18-1-6

C AT

Tenant wanted: must eat grey squirrels Rumours of strange, unfamiliar creatures in the woods around CAT have caused much excitement over the past few weeks. Woodland Officer Alex Chadwick is hoping a pine marten has come to stay.

P

ine martens are incredibly charismatic but elusive creatures.

They are thought to have inhabited Britain since the end of the last ice age, but they have been so rare in Wales in recent times that a discovery of pine marten road kill in 2012 was their first confirmed ‘sighting’ since 1971. This rarity

was caused, sadly but unsurprisingly, by humans: habitat loss and fragmentation of woodlands, historical hunting for their fine fur, and illegal poisoning and shooting (they are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act), pushed them almost to extinction in England, and confined them to small isolated areas of Snowdonia in Wales.

A relatively healthy population has endured in Scotland however – and therein lies hope.

The Pine Marten Recovery Project

The Vincent Wildlife Trust is a small British charity focusing on mammal conservation.

For the past few years they have been running the Pine Marten Recovery Project to help the pine marten regain a viable population size in

32 Clean Slate

Wales. They also run a sister programme called ‘Back from the Brink’, based in England. After extensive site surveys, local engagement, and acquiring all the relevant licenses, the first pine martens were translocated from Scotland to rural mid Wales in 2015. Two more translocations were completed in the autumn of 2016 and 2017, with a total of 51 pine martens successfully moved to a new home here in Wales. They were all initially radio collared and extensively monitored, but the collars have since been removed now that the pine martens have established themselves.

A thorny issue

Population reinforcements like this one (and wildlife reintroductions in general) are almost always controversial, with vested interests on both sides getting involved in the debate. In many ways this is only right, as interfering in the ecology of ecosystems is not something that should be taken lightly, even if we are simply trying to restore it. Add to this the potential impacts on human activities and the issue can quickly become complicated. The feasibility study for the mid Wales project conducted a public opinion survey, which was released online by the Vincent Wildlife Trust, and found some interesting things:

Mark Medcalf

C AT NZ Willowherb

• A very high proportion (87.3%) of those consulted would support a restocking of pine marten in Wales.

• Those that worked in leisure and tourism or wildlife conservation were most likely to be supportive, citing their native status, a perceived positive effect on biodiversity, and its contribution to a balanced environment.

• Respondents who worked in farming, game-keeping and estate management were most likely to oppose a re-stocking, with the main reasons given as predation of wildlife, prioritising the native population, and lack of suitable habitat/knowledge of the current population status.

Our view

We in the woodlands team at CAT would be delighted to welcome pine martens into our woodlands, for a number of reasons, both principled and practical.

worth some reading if you aren’t familiar with it.

Some research has been published recently (based on reintroductions in Ireland) that suggests pine martens might have a similar effect to that which the wolves had on deer in Yellowstone, on one very problematic pest species for our woodlands here – grey squirrels. Grey squirrels are a highly invasive species in the UK, as not only have they pushed out the native red squirrels, but they also frequently ring bark trees – gnawing at the bark right the way around the trunk to get to the sugary liquids inside.

This necessarily kills the tree above the ring bark.

Alex (left) and volunteer Paul install a pine marten nest box.

Thanks to CAT supporter Ray Dickson for help building the nest boxes.

across small branches. As a result, both grey and red squirrels facing pine martens as a predator actually gives the reds a competitive edge.

It would also help protect our trees – seemingly a win-win!

A moral responsibility

In recent years there has been a great deal of interest in the effects that predators have on ecosystems, through a series of knock on effects known as a trophic cascade – the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National park is one well known example, and is well

Pine martens, as natural predators of small mammals, would seem to be the perfect predator of grey squirrels. In the study in Ireland, suppressing the population of grey squirrels through predation in this way actually gave the red squirrels a chance to regain lost territory. Of course, pine martens would predate red squirrels as well, however, since the greys spend more time on the ground (rather than up in trees) than reds, they are more likely to encounter pine martens. Greys are also larger, meaning they are less able than the reds to escape from a predator by fleeing

There is another reason that is often overlooked when considering the practical implications of reintroductions. Since it was human activity (including active persecution) that pushed pine martens to the brink of extinction, we have a moral responsibility to both conserve them now and to help them recover in the future.

It is an important aspect of sustainable land management to recognise that all ecosystems are a complex, interdependent web of species interacting with each other in a potentially delicate equilibrium. So even if we can’t see a practical reason or a benefit to ourselves from conserving a species, it still occupies a niche in its ecosystem, which could have unforeseeable consequences if removed. At the end of the day pine martens are, like so many other species, a part of our natural heritage, and I for one would be very happy to see one more wonderful species brought back from the brink. CS

About the author

As part of our woodlands team, Alex helps manage the CAT site to enhance biodiversity, creating a haven for a wide variety of species.

He also gives tours and workshops to increase knowledge and understanding of nature conservation.

Clean Slate 33

Organic wines, beers, ciders, spirits and juices.

Low sulphur choices.

Mixed cases available.

Nationwide delivery.

ee wine list To request a fr

4992 call 0800 980 eroots.co.uk or visit vintag

3 Offer the complete range of wood log boilers 3 Two complete ranges Angus Super and Angus Orligno 200 3 Output range 18kW, 25kW, 40kW, 60kW, 80kW, 96kW and 130kW 3 Products fully MCS certified 3 Grants available under Renewable Heat Incentive 3 92% Heat Efficiency 3 Significantly reduce heating costs 3 Incorporate into existing heating system

www.ecoangus.co.uk 01934 862642

C AT

Cryptic crossword

by Brominicks

http://www.brominicks.wordpress.com

To enter: Name: Address:

Email: Phone: The first correct entry pulled from a hat on 7 January 2019. wins a £20 voucher for the CAT EcoStore – store.cat.org.uk.

Please send your completed crossword entry to Clean Slate Crossword, Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Powys, SY20 9AZ. Solution will be published in the next issue of Clean Slate.

Nine solutions are of a kind and not further defined

Across 6 Extensive period of time over in Lichtenstein (5) 7 Fitting lever confused worker (8) 10 Undercover operation leads to extended drinking bout in cathedral city (7) 11 Girl into marketing bicycle equipment (7) 12 Jumble sale, the first to trade in digital equipment (4,3) 13 Local returned to the outskirts of Slough for drunken affair (5-2) 14 A 2 ton chap's rambling isn't so great (3,1,5,2) 19 Girl caught out hugging priest (7) 21 Result of heinous tinkering within organisation (2-5) 23 Chicken Romano? Cook has no use for ducks (7) 25 Level with English politician, could it be more clear? (7) 26 Organism involved in the reproduction of smell, etc (4,4) 27 Meticulous old performer (5)

5 Provoke brainwave by the sound of it (6) 6 Model beginning to expose buns after a little reassurance (6) 8 Go and hang creation next to Vermeer's first (3,4) 9 Good and ready to eat beef (5) 13 Bill to render walls, it upset church (10) 15 Find jumper inside cafe?

(3,4) 16 Say nothing, since regularly making contact with gangster and marine (8) 17 Blow one's top, upset Virgin train's no-shower (5) 18 Was a model seen eating going up street in Paris? (6) 20 Rude staff in computer department - quite the opposite!! (6) 22 Nighthawks finally leaving store with salesman from the south (6) 24 Symbol of Wales finally put up (4) Clean Slate 109 Solution

Down

1 Iron man troubled following daughter's admission (8) 2 Alternative route through mountains? (6) 3 Original art, cheaply reproduced (10) 4 Sock beginning to stretch 67x97above Ad Clean Slate.qxp_67x97 Ad Clean Slate 13/06/2018 17:32 Page 1 the knees (4)

Growers of a wide selection of fruit trees for all situations

Detailed catalogue available

01905 841587 Walcot Lane, Drakes Broughton, Pershore, Worcs WR10 2AL

www.walcotnursery.co.uk

Milk Chocolate Coated Hazelnut Pebbles £5.00

But I Could Never Go Vegan £17.99 Kirsty Turner PB 320p

MAIL

ORDER https://store.cat.org.uk 01654 705959

Onya Back £16.00 Red leaves design or bee hive in blue

10 recycled plastic bottles = 1 x Onya backpack

WWF Wild Guess £20.00 A fantastic family board game.

Polyester Reborn Bed Socks £5.25 Socks that were once plastic bottles! Now recycled and reworked, the polyester is so strong and so incredibly soft, it makes it hard to believe you are wearing a plastic bottle! And helps lessen landfill too. Four designs.

2 recycled plastic bottles = 1 pair of socks

Star heather

Star burnt orange

Seablue

Blueberry

TS GIF AS TM RIS CH

Trojan Horse £20.00

The Wild Places £9.99 Robert Macfarlane PB 352p

CAT-Logoed Thermal Mug £8.00 Logo in English and Welsh.

470ml.

CAT Short Courses Gift Card Give the gift of skills to last a lifetime. CAT short courses cover a wide range of solutions for sustainability – from building with natural materials to getting started with renewable energy. Visit http://courses.cat.org.uk to see what’s on offer, then simply choose how much you’d like to give.

IP KIT MEMBERSH IP KIT MEMBERSH Individual mbership e IT m K IP H S R MEMBE bership Family mem rship Joint membe

Gift CAT Membership: Individual £30 Joint £36 Family £40 CAT membership – the perfect gift for anyone who cares about the environment and wants to know what they can do to help. Includes a gift welcome pack, delivered to you so you can add your own special message.

Contact us on 01654 705959