The BBC published an article on 3 April 2008 about research which tests the Svensmark cosmic ray hypothesis
How to check your carbon footprint
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Talks, articles, information
I gave a talk in Hillerød on 27 March, which I promised to put on here, but I need to find a place to save it first. Meanwhile, here is an article about the "front-line" of global warming and how it is affecting people in low-lying areas.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tactics for a local sustainability thinktank
There is a lot of material available to help in developing ideas for a local initiative on sustainability and climate. I will try to provide some here and would be happy if others want to add to it.
A good starting point for ideas on how to change attitudes and behaviour on climate is provided by a report called "The Rules of the Game" and its offspring "New Rules - New Game" http://www.futerra.org/downloads/NewRules:NewGame.pdf
I can send you a copy of the parent report. These reports are short and really fun to read.
Have a look at "Communicating Climate Change" which is also stimulating and fun.
"Carrots, Sticks and Sermons" from Climate Challenge is very useful too
The more detailed reports are well worth reading and have many relevant messages. One of these is:
A "think tank" can act as a provider of information, as an adapter of ideas to fit the local situation, as a catalyst for others to get started in taking action and as facilitator for interaction and resolution of different local points of view.
If you want to read the 2007 IPCC reports in Summary or in full you can download them from http://www.ipcc.ch/
Many of the recommendations in the UK Climate Challenge reports are worth thinking about:
• ‘Sustainable Development’ should not be made the subject of a communications campaign to the general public. The concept is not understood and cannot be defined (in a way that most of the public would be satisfied with).
• ‘Sustainable Lifestyles’ offer a model for public behaviour change, by laying out a framework for behaviours which individuals could adopt, resulting in positive impacts across all three dimensions of SD.
• It is impossible to set targets for ‘sustainable behaviours’, as there is no measurable point at which a behaviour can be deemed sustainable. It is also currently not possible to provide indicators for sustainability at the level of the individual (due to a lack of data); indicators may not be effective tools for public engagement in any case.
• Policies to drive behaviour change for sustainability should aim to change behaviours, and make changing attitudes a secondary objective.
• Behaviour change campaigns should be: action-orientated; focussed on only a narrow range of behaviours; community-led; immersed in local issues; and so forth [these issues are discussed fully in Report 2].
• Campaigns for sustainable behaviour change should employ a wide range of tools, including policy instruments, infrastructure provision, and information provision; a targeted approach observing differences between subgroups should be adopted.
• The Government is especially unable to get messages across to the public about the environment and about behaviour change; the role of NGOs in delivering behaviour change campaigns in partnership with government should be extended.
• If a communications campaign on the inter-related elements of sustainability is to be undertaken, it should consider adopting an anti-consumption, or a pro-social agenda; such a campaign would, of course, be more likely to raise awareness of the issues (or deepen understanding, through making connections) than it would be to elicit behaviour change.
Click for the full report from which these are taken
A good starting point for ideas on how to change attitudes and behaviour on climate is provided by a report called "The Rules of the Game" and its offspring "New Rules - New Game" http://www.futerra.org/downloads/NewRules:NewGame.pdf
I can send you a copy of the parent report. These reports are short and really fun to read.
Have a look at "Communicating Climate Change" which is also stimulating and fun.
"Carrots, Sticks and Sermons" from Climate Challenge is very useful too
The more detailed reports are well worth reading and have many relevant messages. One of these is:
"Behaviour change campaigns should be: action-orientated; focussed on only a narrow range of behaviours; community-led; immersed in local issues"i.e. what the Hillerød Think Tank is aiming for.
A "think tank" can act as a provider of information, as an adapter of ideas to fit the local situation, as a catalyst for others to get started in taking action and as facilitator for interaction and resolution of different local points of view.
If you want to read the 2007 IPCC reports in Summary or in full you can download them from http://www.ipcc.ch/
Many of the recommendations in the UK Climate Challenge reports are worth thinking about:
• ‘Sustainable Development’ should not be made the subject of a communications campaign to the general public. The concept is not understood and cannot be defined (in a way that most of the public would be satisfied with).
• ‘Sustainable Lifestyles’ offer a model for public behaviour change, by laying out a framework for behaviours which individuals could adopt, resulting in positive impacts across all three dimensions of SD.
• It is impossible to set targets for ‘sustainable behaviours’, as there is no measurable point at which a behaviour can be deemed sustainable. It is also currently not possible to provide indicators for sustainability at the level of the individual (due to a lack of data); indicators may not be effective tools for public engagement in any case.
• Policies to drive behaviour change for sustainability should aim to change behaviours, and make changing attitudes a secondary objective.
• Behaviour change campaigns should be: action-orientated; focussed on only a narrow range of behaviours; community-led; immersed in local issues; and so forth [these issues are discussed fully in Report 2].
• Campaigns for sustainable behaviour change should employ a wide range of tools, including policy instruments, infrastructure provision, and information provision; a targeted approach observing differences between subgroups should be adopted.
• The Government is especially unable to get messages across to the public about the environment and about behaviour change; the role of NGOs in delivering behaviour change campaigns in partnership with government should be extended.
• If a communications campaign on the inter-related elements of sustainability is to be undertaken, it should consider adopting an anti-consumption, or a pro-social agenda; such a campaign would, of course, be more likely to raise awareness of the issues (or deepen understanding, through making connections) than it would be to elicit behaviour change.
Click for the full report from which these are taken
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