Rochdale's Environmental Sustainability Forum launches

If the passing Ospreys sighted in Rochdale recently happened to be soaring across from the town hall clock spire above the Esplanade to Touchstones last Monday evening they would have been aerial spectators to what was almost certainly the largest Environmental Meeting to be held in our town for a number of years.


An assembled audience of some fifty people participated in the first of a series of meetings under the umbrella of the newly launched Environmental Sustainability Action Forum ~ a green offshoot of Rochdale’s very own Cooperative Social Enterprise & aspiring Environmental Centre Earth Café.

It was a lively, enthusiastic & diverse audience which included Rochdale’s Liberal Democrat MP Paul Rowen, Samir Chaterjee, Rochdale Green Party, Rochdale Labour Party activists whose candidate Simon Danczuck has called for the concept to be supported as a positive non-political venture for Rochdale’s town centre regeneration~ all took time out from their busy election schedules to attend at intervals during the evening.

Church Groups, Community Centres, Rochdale Fair Trade Foundation, Save Spodden Valley Campaign, Rochdale World Development Movement, Rochdale Rotary Club, local pensioners rubbed shoulders with veteran peace campaigners and Environmental Officers from RMBC shared sandwiches with former tree house dwellers from Newbury By Pass Campaign and Greenpeace to name but a few from a truly eclectic mix of Rochdale.

As well as a good mix of eco-activists from Rochdale & Milnrow Friends of the Earth, greens and local folk keen to show support. There was a noticeable buzz of positive energy about the event to the extent the meeting overran by fifteen minutes & this reporter got the singular impression that many of the audience would have quite cheerfully discussed the need to address Rochdale’s Environmental problems well into the small hours.

Earth Cafe Founder Helen McCarthy Chaired the evening speaking passionately of the need to engage the community in local community & environmental initiatives. Earth Café is a home grown vision of an environmental Cooperative Social Enterprise committed to promoting Environmental Sustainability & Environmental Awareness in Rochdale Borough.

Helen pointed out that this was to be the first the first of a series of meetings under the umbrella of the Environmental Sustainability Action Forum as a prelude to hosting in the near future a one day Environmental Conference on the theme of Sustainability & Climate Change & the local response to growing Environmental concerns within Rochdale. With further meetings to continue with the engagement of the community as a whole and what changes are needed and what is important to them.

"Earth Café aims to try and articulate & advocate for the local community giving a voice to the community’s vision of what “Sustainability” means to them. From energy saving, recycling & renewables to local initiatives such as Transition Towns, green shoots are springing up all over the country as local pressure is being put on Councils to respond to the real challenges posed by Climate Change. Positive action is happening on landfill, CO2, renewables & sustainability. Earth Café through the
Environmental Sustainability Action Forum is determined to see Rochdale people equipped with the knowledge, campaigning skills, information & opportunity in order to participate pro actively in this challenge ahead.”

“We can all make what initially may seem to be small changes to our lives to make our Borough sustainable, greener and a more pleasant place to live, love the place you live and help to make a difference by starting at home”, Helen added.

Earth Café is a newly emergent cooperative social enterprise in Rochdale. The Team at Earth Café want to make an environmental difference to Rochdale, to make it a much more sustainable place to live.

"Together, we could make Rochdale Borough a centre for excellence about green issues in the North of England. We are the greenest in terms of scenery & green belt yet amongst the worst in greater Manchester for achieving our environmental targets. We aim to try and change that ~ tonight is the first step in the journey”, added Helen.

Ben McCarron of Manchester Friends of the Earth painted a necessarily bleak picture of what may be in store with Peak Oil .The pesticides & fertilizers and plastics dependent on oil would also go along with our love affair with the car, meaning starvation & mass migration of millions of Climate refugees could well become widespread long before the sea levels rise.
Pointing out that the recent volcano eruption & the grounding of all flights from British Airports is in its unexpected & unplanned nature exactly the same type of events we can expect to encounter in the future in terms of climate change.
But there are positive solutions if people begin to live more sustainably & adopt more environmentally friendly lifestyles, Ben argued that:

“We need to embed resilience into Rochdale’s economy & infrastructure so that when the effects of Climate Change do become apparent that we do not have to begin from scratch. We need to be making plans as individuals & collectively to ensure we have alternative which work already in place.
Friends of the Earth & Transition Towns are advocating people begin to make these changes now rather than later on in a crisis situation.”

Executive Director of Merci, Caroline Downey*, herself another Rochdale resident gave an illustrated talk on how Bridge 5 Mill, once a derelict silk mill was reclaimed by a handful of committed individuals & transformed into the Greenest Building in Manchester.

Also of her belief that Rochdale could follow Merci's lead with plans in the pipeline for a possible Nature Reserve Centre in Healey Dell & indeed the cross-pollination of ideas at the meeting the idea of Rochdale being put on the Environmental map does not seem as remote or impossible as it might first appear.

Particularly when Karen Hayday gave a well received motivational speech on the activities of Hourglass Environmental Ltd to set up community allotments, Wildflower Meadows, Butterfly Bar and Wild Walk & Wetland Planting at the Valley Road Community Leisure Gardens & Food Growing Projects at Kitkholt & Falinge. To enable people to grow their own food & reclaim derelict or neglected community land on the Estates of the town.

"In July 2009 Hourglasses Growth Project won the North West in Bloom Grow Your Own Award being singled out for its horticultural excellence, and its ability to involve, support & develop beneficiaries within a top quality local food project. We are currently based at the Kellet Street site where we provide opportunities, experience and informal training for local residents to enable them to use their skills to improve the environment in their immediate locality through growing a wide range of plants and vegetables both in the countryside and on the streets and on balconies”, said Karen to a round of applause and cheers for her well-loved project and dedication.

With the remainder of the meeting being dedicated to Ketso Feedback Workshops asking people to imagine what they would like in a perfect world to happen by 2020 to make Rochdale more sustainable & Environmentally aware.

From the Sustainable Change Facilitators who gave their time completely free of charge to the feedback results from the four group workshops and the feedback questionnaires from the assembled audience it looks like Rochdale Council should have no problem whatsoever getting opinions or feedback on the Environment from the people of Rochdale at future events.

"It is often said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step......tonight's meeting was in fact a great leap forward into the future.....we have seen tonight the response of ordinary Rochdale people, who, when asked to attend a Public Meeting on the Environment, participate in workshops & share their concerns & worries for their local environment have done so positively, enthusiastically & proactively."

Andrew Wastling

Crains makes a tit of itself

Crain's Manchester Business is a valuable resource for finding out what's going on in the world of (Greater) Manchester business. Wide coverage, pungent analysis. One thing we've noticed here at MCFly Towers is that they don't seem to cover climate change very much. But given the quality of the following editorial, by Steve Brauner, maybe we should be grateful?

March 8, 2010 An economic climate
Population, not pollution, is chief threat to future

By Steve Brauner, Editor
1)After a winter cold enough to freeze the brass neck off an East Anglian professor, it is no wonder that global warming, as it used to be called, no longer strikes terror into the heart of those with time to waste on having their opinions surveyed by pollsters.

Which part of GLOBAL warming are you having problems with?
The satellite data (and nobody disputes this, btw) shows that January was- globally- the warmest since satellite records began.
Personally I blame the idea that you can discern global trends from what's happening in a few islands off the coast of Europe on Doctor Who- where the aliens who invaded always focussed on south-east England.
It was the fourth warmest January on record

And if you take just the satellite readings, it was the warmest

Last week, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its monthly “State of the Climate Global Analysis” for January.
We see blowout warming in the satellite temperature record, which is so beloved of the anti-science crowd since they think — incorrectly — it doesn’t show warming. Note that in UAH, we crushed the previous record.
In NOAA’s own surface dataset, January is slightly less record-shattering:
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2010 was 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20th century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F). This is the fourth warmest January on record.

2) Thanks to the Northwest Climate Change Partnership, we learn that just over two out of five businesses think climate change will affect them.
3) I take this to mean that very nearly three out of five businesses think it will have no impact whatsoever.

Or they might think that it will have big impacts elsewhere, or elsewhen- i.e. Not a short term problem they want to do a lot about now? The argument is spurious, anyway, since there are plenty of examples of people within a sector not spotting problems ahead. Economic meltdown of 2008, anyone??

4) This impression is reinforced by another finding in the “Perceptions of Climate Change within the Northwest 2009” report: that 67 per cent of businesses “do not currently look for advice on the issue”.

5) Mind you, considering how much advice we are given on the subject whether we want it or not, why would anybody have to go looking?

6) I recently had the misfortune to stay in a holiday apartment where BBC Worldwide was the only English-speaking television channel.

7) Its news coverage consists almost entirely of handwringing about climate change, usually by people filing reports from exotic locations at the licence fee payers' expense.

That's an exaggeration, I am sure. Poor show. “Hand-wringing.” Nothing like emotive language to keep an argument rational and clear-sighted, eh?

8) Strange, isn't it, that the search for stories about climate change takes television news crews to Nepal and the Amazon and not the banks of the River Irwell?

As I am sure you are aware, Steve, the earliest evidence of climate change that has pictures (the great beast television only feeds on pictures, not words) is in the tropics and the poles. There IS work being done on the challenges we face in Manchester. It's called the Ecocities Project. It's being funded by the Bruntwood property group. Maybe you've heard of them?


9) One of the reports I recall watching was about the melting glaciers in the Himalayas — based on a now discredited claim in a United Nations report.

Sigh. You are repeating a canard. The people at “Real Climate” (as in, real climatologists, who know what they are talking about) have this summary

Himalayan glaciers: In a regional chapter on Asia in Volume 2, written by authors from the region, it was erroneously stated that 80% of Himalayan glacier area would very likely be gone by 2035. This is of course not the proper IPCC projection of future glacier decline, which is found in Volume 1 of the report. There we find a 45-page, perfectly valid chapter on glaciers, snow and ice (Chapter 4), with the authors including leading glacier experts (such as our colleague Georg Kaser from Austria, who first discovered the Himalaya error in the WG2 report). There are also several pages on future glacier decline in Chapter 10 (“Global Climate Projections”), where the proper projections are used e.g. to estimate future sea level rise. So the problem here is not that the IPCC’s glacier experts made an incorrect prediction. The problem is that a WG2 chapter, instead of relying on the proper IPCC projections from their WG1 colleagues, cited an unreliable outside source in one place. Fixing this error involves deleting two sentences on page 493 of the WG2 report.

10) Before the eco-warriors get on the warpath, I should say that I do regard the degradation of our environment as a serious matter, but suspect that it can only be remedied if the number of humans on the planet stops increasing.
So, you're trying to claim high-moral ground/deflect from your ignorance by talking about an unrelated issue.

On Population, check out the Yale 360 piece by Fred Pearce, who has been writing on climate change for the New Scientist for two decades.
“Consumption Dwarfs Population as Main Environmental Threat” It's overconsumption, not population growth, that is the fundamental problem: By almost any measure, a small portion of the world's people — those in the affluent, developed world — use up most of the Earth's resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions.

Given that 1 westerner is worth about 80 Bengalis, maybe we should start with some population restraint here?

11) Set against the ticking time bomb of population growth and the implications it has for the world's finite resources, arguing about whether human activity causes climate change seems rather pointless.

Finally, you say something sensible. Arguing about climate change is pointless. Preparing for its impacts- social, environmental, and ECONOMIC is something we are all going to have to do, whether we like it or not.

To do that, we need accurate information and sensible analysis. Editorials like this are frankly an embarrassment. Greater Manchester's capitalists are ill-served by such tripe. You wouldn't see the Financial Times running such puerile and baseless sneers as an editorial.

The Unreality Principle

Went to two meetings on Tuesday 13th. The first, by a local activist was small but perfectly formed and contained useful information. The second was a big ol' thing organised by Manchester University and with a “star” intellectual. It was dia-fucking-bolical.

Andrew Leask, of Trafford Eco-house and Transition Hale/Altrincham gave a talk about “Aquaponics and Manchester's Food Security” at the latest Manchester Green Drinks.
Here are some of the stats I scribbled down-

3% of our food is locally grown in Greater Manchester
9 days of food in the supermarkets
12% is the Council's guesstimated ceiling of the amount of food that could be grown locally
80% of the UK population lives in cities.

Cited by Leask from the Ecologist;
600,000 of the UK population working in agriculture, with 60,000 new farmers required in the next 10 years. Or 1,000,000 small holders. According to Richard Heinberg, you'd need 12,000,000 people working in oil free agriculture in the UK
There's 200,000 allotments in the UK, with 100,000 people on the waiting list. There were 1,500,000 allotments at the end of world war two, growing 50% of the UK's fruit and veg. Of course, we had fewer people then, and more land available for growing.

He then launched into an interesting account of using fish, water, bacteria in a (relatively) 'closed loop' to produce yummy protein. (Protein, as Marvin Harris points out in his wonderful book 'Cannibals and Kings', makes the world go round).

So, by the time I'd necked a second pint (thanks Chris!) and staggered up to the Fiends Meeting House, Will Hutton (for it is he) was mid-flow. Oh dear.

Facile boosterism for the north west, breathless talk of 'commercial space travel by 2150, jargon around 'agglomeration'. [What's the matter with David Harvey's Spatial Fix? Oh, right, liberals didn't think of it- Not Invented Here Syndrome and all. Sigh.]

Hutton. Just. Would. Not. Shut. Up. He overran his time dramatically, (asking for “permission” to do so) spouting ever banaller banalities and observer, sorry, 'absurder' absurdities. Apparently we're all going to retire later. That's fine if you're a white collar worker (as everyone in the room was. Significantly more males than females too). But what if you're a knackered manual worker? Sigh.

In the q and a, which had to be squeezed because of his needless and self-indulgent over-run, he was explicitly asked about the possible teensy-weensy contradictions between continued economic growth and a habitable planet. He first admitted that the atmospheric concentration of C02 was climbing every year, and then raffled (that is, rambled and waffled simultaneously) about clean coal, more efficient use of water and how we can't tell India and China to stop developing (er, does that mean you support contraction and convergence? If so, say so.)

And that was it. For one of the foremost progressive public intellectuals in this country (we are in deeper trouble than I thought) to give such an ill-informed answer about the real challenges that face us was unsurprising, but shocking all the same

He then, mercifully, buggered off back to London. Don't let the train doors hit your arse on the way out.

After a brief tea break, we were supposed to hear four talks, each of 5 to 10 minutes, framed as a letter to the new Prime Minister on the “main challenges” around Economy, Environment, Housing and I can't quite remember what.

We got to hear a bit about General Purpose Technologies.

Then Professor Alan Harding did a mini-Hutton. Five assertions and five challenges. David Harvey's spatial fix and Aidan While's sustainability fix still ignored. Sigh.
Asked about a steady-state economy (see Tim Jackson etc) Prof Harding at least had the good manners to admit that he didn't see what such a thing would look like. That's OK, neither can I, but the difference is I can see that we need it. The business as usual approach of extracting copious raw materials from t'planet and expecting it to absorb the waste is not going to work anymore.

Again, if our public intellectuals can't see the dangers, explain the dangers and suggest some ways forward, then what are they for??

Next up came Caroline Downey, director of MERCi.

She, surprisingly, took some pot shots at other people in the room, and at the NWDA for its faith in nuclear power and GDP (that was me applauding, Caroline). She gave a shout out to the Mersey Bioregion group and new economics foundation.
A good trick she had, too. Asked us to close our eyes and imagine a sustainable city. Most everyone's included water and wildlife, which Research Shows is what makes us happy.

She gave a shout out to the “Third Sector” (though I believe the politically correct terminology is first sector” At least according to that nice young and trustworthy Dave Cameron) and gave some examples of making the bioregion more resilient and self-sufficient with vertical gardens and increased access to green space.

She, in her letter, thanked the incoming PM for the Environment Bill that mimics Ecuador's bill on the right of nature to persist.

She also congratulated the PM on the Energy Descent planning that was taking place

Asked the standard (and entirely justifiable) question of How to Pay for it all, she said scrap trident, tax the rich and pull out of Afghanistan. She was less successful on the question of what MERCi has done lately for the deprived wards around it, but then that IS a tricky question!

By this stage, your intrepid reporter had had quite enough, and cycled home, missing the transport and housing sessions.

MCFly 46- "Aerial Dogfight"

Council Leader Sir Richard Leese has refused to rule out a third runway at Manchester Airport. Green Party activists wrote an open letter (see MCFly 44) that included a specific question: "When the current agreement not to construct a new runway expires will the Council be applying for planning permission to build a third runway?" In his Friday April 9 reply, Leese wrote "the Manchester Airport Master Plan sets out plans for the airport business developing over a 25-year period to 2030. This plan makes it clear that the second runway will be adequate to meet the forecast demand to 2030. The figures you refer to are from the Committee on Climate Change and were based on modelling conducted by a consultancy working on behalf of the CCC. It was not a prediction. It looked at range of scenarios for emissions and was not an official forecast of demand or based on any airport specific plan."

MCFly hired linguistics experts from Chomsky Associates to examine this text. They state that the word 'yes' or 'no' is nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats manifesto (see story at foot of page 1) states that Labour "took 18 months to come up with a strategy, and then let down the City by excluding aviation and Manchester Airport, owned by the Council, from the Climate Change Action Plan. Some 85% of the Airport’s CO2 emissions come from flights. The Airport cannot be given a free pass." That's the extent of their comment, with nothing concrete about ruling out a third runway, or about freezing expansion at the airport.

The Greens, who won't be running Manchester anytime soon, have "No expansion of the Airport" on their policy page. Marie Raynor, Chairman of Wythenshawe & Sale East Conservatives wrote last year "any further expansion of the Airport is, in our view, unwarranted, given its current size." [see correction at foot of this entry]. At time of going to press, it's unclear if this represents her view, or if official Manchester Conservative policy is to call for a freeze on Airport expansion. MCFly will pursue the story.

The open letter, the response and MCFly's analysis can be seen at www.manchesterclimatefortnightly.info/airportletter.html

The MCFly Says: Richard Leese believes "air travel is a vital part of people’s lives and crucial to becoming a truly competitive world city." This world city guff is inspired by American urban theorist Richard Florida (see his book "Cities and the Creative Class.") But climate change is going to come at us. Chunks of Florida- both the ideology and the place - are going to be flattened by hurricanes and underwater in a decade or three. Building hostages to fortune now, as oil peaks, is myopic. Our children will curse us.

CORRECTION: In the print version of MCFly 46, we wrongly attributed the Conservative's quote to Janet Clowes,the Conservative candidate for the parliamentary seat of Wythenshawe and Sale East. Thanks to the diligent reader who pointed this out.

MCFly 045- Marc Roberts Cartoons

Marc Roberts has been cartooning for MCFly since its very first issue. He now has a spiffing website at www.marcrobertscartoons.com (thanks to Artists Project Earth and Graeme Sherriff). There are almost 500 cartoons on the site, many of which are about climate change. They can be searched via various themes. Volunteers are needed to type up the speech boxes for added accessibility for visually impaired people. Fast and accurate tpyists, please email editor@manchesterclimatefortnightly.info

MCFly 045- Carbon cutting in South Central Manchester

Sat March 27: An exciting new low-carbon social enterprise has been launched in Moss Side with food, music and practical advice for saving money and carbon. Founded by local residents, the Carbon Co-op aims to bring together friends, neighbours and communities in a bulk-buying co-operative, purchasing low carbon technologies such as energy monitors and solar panels.
Saturday's launch, staged in the community garden on Ossory Street off Great Western Street, featured food, music, a bicycle repair drop in, low carbon energy give-aways and children's activities. The aim of the project is to provide simple advice to reduce household energy bills and cut carbon emissions and the co-op aims to overcome the catch 22 situation that low carbon technologies are too expensive to become mainstream but won't fall in price until demand picks up.
The launch featured a Moss Side edition of the Carbon Co-op Manual which can be downloaded from here: http://www.carbon.coop/manual.pdf featuring practical energy advice and money off offers on low carbon products.
Carbon Co-op are working closely with Great Western Street Residents Association and chose the area because of the the strong community links and contacts that exist locally.
Other key partners include Kindling Trust, authors of the Carbon Co-op Manual, designers Because Studio, URBED, Energy Saving Trust and NESTA's Big Green Challenge team.
For more information contact: Jonathan Atkinson, Carbon Co-op project manager
0782 861 7933, info@carbon.coop www.carbon.coop

MCFly 045- Competition commission

COPArt is "an exciting opportunity for young artists to get their work exhibited in galleries all over the country, including Manchester Town Hall, Bristol View Gallery and London Village Underground." Artists are asked to upload images or clips they have created which contain their message about climate change; however this is not limiting the themes or topics to melting ice caps.... This does not need to be an enormous project which takes up weeks of your time, all art is viewed with equal weighting and there are three categories of art which could be submitted:
1.Minute Piece: Anything you see which strikes you as being relevant to climate change or the deterioration of the environment, from something taken on a phone camera to lomography.
2.Hour Piece: Something you’ve sketched or painted.
3.Large scale project: Something you spend a few weeks on developing.
A key element to COPArt is to empower young artists, if your work is selected for the shortlist it will get nationwide exhibition space and be used in various public forums. The winning entry will be used on Climate Squad’s promotional materials, gaining invaluable exposure, so please get involved and show us your art! The closing date is May 28; visit www.cop-art.org.uk to submit.