During the recent UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen our world leaders failed to agree on a climate deal. But we all know it’s not only up to them and there are plenty of things that we mere mortals can do to make an impact on climate change. As consumers, we need to take responsibilility for our own actions. Here’s one way to do something – do 30!

The ‘I do 30′ campaign encourages people across the world to turn down the temperature on their laundry to reduce co2.

Visit their website to find out more about the campaign and become a member of their Facebook group to join the other 12,000 supporters of the ‘I do 30′ campaign to see what positive impact you can have on our planet.

Radical Nature draws on ideas that have emerged out of Land Art, environmental activism, experimental architecture and utopianism. The exhibition is designed as one fantastical landscape, with each piece introducing into the gallery space a dramatic portion of nature. Work by pioneering figures such as the architectural collective Ant Farm and visionary architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, artists Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes, Hans Haacke and Robert Smithson are shown alongside pieces by a younger generation of practitioners including Heather and Ivan Morison, R&Sie(n), Philippe Rahm architects and Simon Starling. Radical Nature also features specially commissioned and restaged historical installations, some of which are located in the outdoor spaces around the Barbican while a satellite project by the architectural collective EXYZT is situated off site.

The exhibition is on until the 18th of October and if you’d like to stand a chance of winning a ticket, simply add a comment telling us about something you do in your daily life that reduces your footprint on our planet.

This competition ends on Friday 9th of October. Two winners will be drawn out of a hat and notified by email.

In central London on the evening of Tuesday 27th October, 8 green leaders will present their view on the future of their industry. To those in the know, it’s quite a star-studded occasion. Green Tomato Cars will give their view on the future of sustainable transport, Ed Gillespie from Futerra will speak about ethical communication and consumer attitudes, and Terra Plana will comment on how its ethical footwear will evolve. Sam Kimmins, Sustainability Adviser at Forum for the Future, will give his take on the future of sustainable construction. Other presentations will be from Germination (a cutting-edge event company furthering social progress), innovative web community Project Dirt, The Hub (a shared workspace concept for social entrepreneurs) and sustainable lifestyle magazine Sublime.

Each of the 8 presentations will last no more than 8 minutes, and to keep things highly visual, no more than 5 words per slide are allowed. It means that 80% of the ideas in a normal presentation can be communicated in 20% of the time. The evening will be held at St Giles Cripplegate Church in Barbican, EC2. Further adding to the creative spirit, guests are invited to help reduce waste and bring their own reusable vessels for wine.

Inspiration and insight won’t just come from the presenting businesses either. Up to 250 keen, green thinkers and doers are expected to attend, so there’ll be food for thought in the conversations and networking, too.

Want to know more and book your ticket? Here are the details you need to know:

When: Tuesday 27th October
Start time: 6.30pm for a 7pm start (drinks will be available – you’re encouraged to bring your own cup for extra green points!)
Where: St Giles Cripplegate Church, Barbican, London, EC2Y 8DA (for map click here)

Tickets are limited, costing £9.50 in advance or £15 on the door.

You can buy your ticket here: http://futureofgreen.eventbrite.com

To find out more, click on http://www.insider-worldwide.com/trend-evening-green-futures/

The most distinctive quality of the urban environment lies in its landscape. Each individual city has its own sense of character, unique infrastructure, and physical presence. As the urban setting becomes increasingly advanced, we are leaving behind our roots – the tree canopy coverage in the developed city is declining. At present, many of world’s greatest cities lack substantial plant life. This observation isn’t just aesthetic, it is harmful on many levels. An increase in tree canopy coverage may require some painstaking effort to succeed, but could have enormous benefit if it does. Incorporating trees into the urban environment would serve to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we burn and ease the damage of deforestation – the two main roots of climate change. Right now, homes and other buildings account for 30% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the North America. Design and sustainability, both significant community objectives, can’t be sacrificed for one another. They must work together.

The city doesn’t “breathe” as well as a forest, contributing large quantities of carbon to the atmosphere with few sources of absorption. The earth, in order to give warmth to support life, needs a reasonable amount of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide appears naturally in the atmosphere, exhaled by humans and involved in the photosynthesis of plants. Carbon is kept in check by a natural carbon cycle, a system which creates a balance between the carbon emitters (humans), and the carbon absorbers (plants). Oceans, land and air are all involved in the process.

After the industrial revolution, when humans began messing with the carbon levels in the atmosphere, the earth began to see increasing quantities of carbon being pumped into the system. And it’s been rising steadily since, resulting in a 1.4 degree increase in global average temperature. This might not seem like a lot, but consider the fact that the global average temperature during the last ice age was only 4 – 7 degrees colder than it is today, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The increase refers to the average temperature, not explicitly presenting the extremes on either side.

The city has taken a lot less time to grow than the forests. And we can’t undo what has been built. But by adding trees into the urban landscape, we can contribute to the solution of the unbalanced carbon cycle. Placed around a house or on a rooftop, trees can cool a building by 40%. Cutting back on air conditioner reliance means a decrease in the human- made greenhouse gas hydrofluorocarbons. An appropriate mix of trees can filter 88% of air pollution in a park, or 70% in a street setting. The benefit isn’t just limited to homes and buildings. On the streets, trees slow rain fall and absorb water, reducing rain flow into our sewers. More trees on the street means less overflow from sewers into the lake.

More trees would attract wildlife, make the city more aesthetically pleasing, and create more jobs. The benefits are numerous. Trees and urban design are a winning team, combining to reconcile urban culture and nature, a gap that must be bridged in order to achieve a truly sustainable city. Restoring an eco system is slow and demanding process. And unlike simply building a condo, it is unpredictable. But adding these lasting structures to the city’s infrastructure would have a greatly advantageous impact on our environment, our resources, and our money.

The potential difficulties of this goal lie in the nature of plant life. Will the slow growth of trees be frustrating enough for us to scrap the plan and come up with yet another quick and easy solution? Most of the trees that make up the canopy in major established cities have been rooted in place for a century or so, meaning that the skinny ones planted in addition will take equally as long to reach full growth. Cultivation in the urban environment won’t be easy, either. City trees die quickly in the drought of the hot summer months, as they bake against the concrete buildings and roads. If trees are to survive in the city, they would need to be planted in large groups and carefully tended.

Cities are built primarily with humans needs in mind. They create the illusion of a world solely for us. Doubling the tree canopy in the city is within our reach, and the cultivation of these entities will force us to recognize the true value of trees. The greater the esteem we assign them, the greater the benefit they will provide. Urban design and sustainability can no longer afford to clash. A green infrastructure starts with a return to the architecture of the natural world.

Photo credit: jeltovski

Read the online FT2020 here.

[via undercurrents]

Reading through some scientific papers recently I was struck by the many, well-intentioned ideas for tackling climate change. These included solar arrays in space beaming back microwave energy to Earth, burying charcoal, pumping iron into the oceans and various ingenious devices designed to block out the sun’s rays.

Whilst not questioning the need to seek new and innovative ideas to halt climate change, I couldn’t help but think that they were missing a more fundamental point. That is, they assume that we can carry on as we are and that technology will somehow get us out of our self-created mess. The reality is that it can’t – it’s like trying to build a perpetual motion machine. The planet’s capacity to provide for an unsustainably large and growing population of increasingly consumptive people is inherently limited. Beyond this point no amount of technology can fix the problem. That’s not an opinion from a ‘green-minded’ person – it’s a statement of fact.

Ironically, the solutions are already at hand and require no complex science or new technology. However, like an alcoholic who wants to give up drinking, it firstly requires a recognition that a problem exists. Analogously, governments need to understand that our volatile, oil-dependent capitalist structures cannot survive in the longer-term. Depletion of fossil fuels, increasing consumption and competition for scarce resources will inevitably lead to conflict and market collapse at some point in the future. Whilst this may seem self-evident, it remains the case that our entire economic model and cherished economic growth are predicated on this unsustainable platform – increasing output from a limited source.

In contrast, a shift towards a more sustainable economy, greater energy efficiency and investment in renewable energy would not only introduce greater stability into the markets but would also create many new job opportunities in the ‘green’ sector and associated spin-off businesses.

However, this process of change needs to be accelerated with meaningful investment and genuine commitment as progress remains slow. To put that in perspective, today less than 2% of the UK’s energy comes from renewable energy sources. We are jostling with Malta and Luxembourg for the accolade of being bottom of the EU league table. The UK has potentially the largest offshore wind resource in the world. Some estimates put this at enough to power the UK several times over (source: Friends of the Earth). Other relatively simple measures could potentially have a huge impact on energy consumption. For example, legislation to remove standby buttons on electrical devices, banning standard light bulbs and patio heaters, etc….

In parallel, the global population needs to be stabilised. The Earth simply cannot support over 10 billion people without something giving. Whilst populations in some European countries are actually declining, this is being offset by large increases in countries such as India and Nigeria. This is an often ignored and politically sensitive aspect of sustainability policy yet it is one of the most significant problems we face, requiring a co-ordinated, global approach to the problem. Unfortunately, population control has traditionally been regarded as a national or religious issue rather than a global issue; consequently assistance from developed nations in the areas of women’s education, empowerment and birth control has often been inadequate.

What we need is not more science fiction type technology but a sober, concerted effort to tackle the core issues in a pragmatic and effective manner.

Photo credit: kevindooley

This is a guest post by Dr Gary Robertshaw of The Green Providers Directory.

The debate surrounding the extent to which the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change misses a more fundamental point. That is, fossil fuels are an inherently finite resource. This resource is dwindling at an accelerating rate as economies such as those of China and India expand rapidly. Fossil fuels will run out. Maybe not in the next 10, 20 or 30 years but they will run out. As the scarcity of fossil fuels grows there will be increasing conflict between nations to secure their supplies in an effort to maintain their carbon-dependent economies. At the same time, there is an inexorably growing human population, destruction of rainforests, depletion of natural resources and plummeting biodiversity. Clearly, this situation cannot be sustained in the longer-term.

Yet our capitalist system is based on the principle of economic growth – growth that is heavily dependent on fossil fuels and unsustainable practices. Just look at recent events; governments are terrified by anything that threatens economic growth – pouring billions of public money into failing financial systems. In addition, many economists see growth not only as desirable but as essential. They claim it lifts the poor out of poverty, feeding the world’s growing population, supporting the costs of rising public spending and stimulating investment and technological development.

The dilemma is how can we square Earth’s finite resources with the fact that as the economy grows, the amount of natural resources needed to sustain that activity must grow too. I am clear in my conviction that economic growth in its current form is unsustainable. We need a new paradigm that limits (or reduces) the global population, a meaningful shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, increasing energy efficiency and the adoption of more sustainable lifestyles. This will require courageous, co-ordinated and global government policies that ensure we don’t use up resources faster than the world can replace them.

Many will dismiss this as a utopian ideology. But isn’t it a utopian ideology to carry on blithely down a path that will ultimately lead to catastrophe? Yes, it will require a new world-view and radical changes but I think we have several grounds for optimism. Firstly, sustainable economies are more stable – whilst growth may be lower than in traditional economies it will be more durable in the longer-term and less volatile. Secondly, the shift towards a sustainable economy would create new opportunities, jobs and greater stability. Thirdly, the potential for conflict between nations is reduced as our dependency on fossil fuels reduces over time. Finally, there is a growing recognition (albeit begrudgingly) amongst governments that the current situation is unsustainable and the mood seems to be shifting from one of cynicism and self-interest to one of genuine commitment to tackling the problem.

The prospect of a truly sustainable global economy, fuelled by renewable energy sources coupled with a stabilised human population and harmonised with biodiversity is an ambitious yet achievable goal. But it’s a goal that requires a re-appraisal of the current meaning of economic growth.

Photo credit: ItzaFineDay

Another top story from the Real News.

Watch this, you’ll like it. It gave me goosebumps.

[via: ecorazzi]

Watch the video and visit http://www.coalfinger.com/.

[via: The Ecologist]