Activist The newsletter for members September 2014

Welcome to Green Activist. This issue features changes from past issues in both Conference content and design. Regarding design I have increased the font size on most pages, and most pages are split Aston University Conference Centre into two columns. This should make the magazine much 5-8 September 2014 easier to read on smaller screens and smart phones. www.greenparty.org.uk/conference On content, I have included a number of articles designed to stimulate your interest and encourage you to take part in discussion and debate on the issues covered, using Breaking news the chat forums on the member’ website. Hence, some of the articles are being simultaneously published on Online booking closed but you can still forums on the website. A link to the appropriate forum attend Conference and pay at the door. is included at the bottom of each article published here in Green Activist. Campus accommodation still available A controversial attempt to persuade the Party to Opportunity for candidates to have a abandon its total opposition to nuclear energy at the professional photo taken on Sunday Party’s conference is covered on page 3. It is the manner in which this has occurred that is causing concern. We do What happens at Conference? A detailed guide about how Conference works can be found here: wish to stifle debate on this, or any other issue. As such, http://greenparty.org.uk/Conference/Birmingham%202014/How%20 there are two articles arguing each side of the debate conference%20works.doc featured here, both of which are linked to the website for Timetable and Agenda you to join in. We want to hear your opinions and ideas! An outline timetable is available here: http://greenparty.org.uk/Conference/Birmingham%202014/Outline%20 Note: You will need your password to enter the members’ Timetable%20for%20Website.doc website. At the moment there is no email alert system Final Agenda is on the members’ website here: https://my.greenparty.org.uk/sites/my.greenparty.org.uk/files/Final%20 operating on the website, so you won’t receive email Agenda_0.pdf notifications when someone has posted to a forum you are Travel and Accommodation following or commented on. This means at the moment Check the conference website for details, including hotel prices, you will have to visit the forum regularly without being online booking and more info about accommodation and travel. prompted to see if any new correspondence has been www.greenparty.org.uk/conference added. The email alert facility is expected to return later this month. Meanwhile contact me of you have problems. Featured panel debates I hope you enjoy this issue. Comments and suggestions Friday - 1830 - 1945 in the GREAT HALL are always welcome. A&E: a casualty of recent healthcare policy? Peter Barnett, Internal Communications Coordinator Chair - Jenny Jones [email protected] Saturday - 1300 - 1415 in the GREAT HALL Priorities in the year leading contents to the Conference 2 Green Party campaigns & news Chair - MEP 3 Nuclear meltdown at Conference - Peter Barnett Saturday - 1430 - 1545 in the GREAT HALL 4 GPRC defends party principles - Mike Shone, Freda Davis 5 Missing Conference reports The Laws of : what’s the best way to 6 Peoples’ climate march - protect bees, badgers and buzzards? 7 Does a future for a Green plan need nuclear? - Jonathon Chair - Essex Sunday 14.00-15.15 9 The lost generation of - Ian Norris 11 MEP Appeal from the Kurds in Rojave for peace and 12 Talking points - justice 13 The positive alternative to growth - Dr. Richard Lawson Dr Alan Semo, Kurdish politician from Syria, the UK 13 Post growth common sense - Rupert Read representative PYD (Democratic Union Party), will 15 Alarming UN climate report speak to conference about the crisis in and Syria, 16 Green Party resources & events 17-20 Who’s Who in the Green Party All enquiries to the Conferences Coordinator: [email protected] Green Party campaigns and news

General Election 2015 - Brighton Pavilion triumphant in Help keep a Green voice in Parliament Leominster South by-election CAMPAIGN - CALL FOR PHONE CANVASSERS The campaign to re-elect Caroline Lucas is gathering pace, with action days taking place every weekend from now until the General Election. Local parties are encouraged to organise weekend trips down to Brighton - contact Adam McGibbon, Campaign Manager, for more information: [email protected] If you cannot come down, consider phone canvassing for the campaign. On polling day, we need to turn out every last Green voter. Phone canvassing helps us find who and where the voters are. Training is provided but we are particularly looking for people with experience of phone canvassing or with a good telephone manner. Please contact Robin Hinks, Team Caroline Phone Bank Coordinator on [email protected] Cllr Jenny Bartlett

Congratulations to Jenny Bartlett Wiki site for child sex abuse & Jane Lacey, our newest County & For years, powerful people have been covering up and Town Councillors! blocking investigations of child sex abuse. Although Tories lose control of county there are only about 20 names pointed to by witnesses, 18 July 2014 they are very big names, and the Security Services (MI5 and MI6) and Special Branch seem to be deeply involved. THE Green Party claimed a seat from the Conservatives Therefore it is not going to be an easy task to get to at Leominster South by-election in July. truth and justice. Town councillor Jenny Bartlett won a seat on Hereford- shire Council after receiving 384 votes. Tory Wayne Rosser Real democracy and fair and honest politics in our country came second with 222 votes and Independent candidate cannot happen if there is a group of people in the highest Angela Pendleton took 198 votes. ranks of authority who see themselves as above and beyond the law; who believe they can manipulate authority and avoid UKIP’s candidate Elizabeth Portman-Lewis claimed 111 capture. This a form of corruption, corruption that misuses votes while Labour candidate Emma Pardoe received 99. political power not for money but for sexual gratification. Corruption of this kind is intolerable, especially as it is cause of so much human misery. And Jane Lacey, also a Green Party candidate, claimed a seat on Leominster Town Council after taking 726 votes. A Green Party member has created a wiki website - that collates and organises the vast amount of information about The Leominster South by-election was triggered by the child sex abuse by so-called VIPs. The URL is: death of Tory councillor Roger Hunt after a long illness. https://vipcsa.wikidot.com In Ledbury, It’s Our County secured a seat on Herefordshire Council with town councillor and former mayor Terry Here you can find links to no less than 38 instances of cover Widdows receiving 835 votes. ups. We can be proud that Caroline Lucas was among the seven MPs who called for an inquiry into this scandal, but the It means that the Conservatives have lost their majority party needs to be fully informed to get behind the growing on Herefordshire Council. campaign for truth and justice for victims of abuse by powerful political figures. Activist 2 Nuclear meltdown averted at Conference?

otal opposition to nuclear energy has always Grounds for Ruling Motions Out of Order been a cornerstone of Green Politics and remains Submitted by Jo Steranka on 26/05/2011 so to this day. Greens across the world campaign Dear Richard T The policy states that the Green Party is fundamentally opposed to against it as vigorously as ever. Some people believe nuclear power. It makes no distinctions. You are welcome to revise your that this fundamental opposition to all things nuclear motion in advance of the deadline to make the amendments you wish is so deeply embedded into Green belief systems and to see. However, that does not get around the point that the Green Party has always been "fundamentally opposed to nuclear power" and culture that they are no longer capable of looking at that what you are proposing is a significant change to Party policy the issue objectively. which should have passed through the "agreed policy-making process". Whatever the truth, the majority of Greens remain steadfastly I await the view of the Policy Co-ordinators. SOC will take its own view against nuclear energy and a change in this position would signal at its 1st Agenda meeting. Basically, there are some things we can't a monumental policy reversal, with wide-ranging consequences, change without a major debate first, and I think you have hit upon one of these. From reading the correspondence, I have no doubt that impacting on our relationships with the Green movement, our everyone has sincerely held beliefs on this subject. That is why it's sister parties and numerous voters/supporters and members important to have the discussion before everyone gets to Conference for whom this is a fundamental issue. . . . that's about doing the right thing. If it means taking longer to In order to effect a policy change of this magnitude the party's get things right, then that's the wise thing to do. Best wishes, Jo" policy making process requires the new policy to undergo a If the current SOC had discussed the legitimacy of these three stage process, starting with an enabling paper, then a draft amendments with Policy Committee things may have turned voting paper, and finally a voting paper. Each of these stages has out differently. to be approved by subsequent conferences so there's a minimum 18 month period from inception to becoming official policy. By Proposers move to withdraw motions employing this system, every member of the party gets the One might imagine that the authors of the amendmends were chance to express their opinion during the process, whether glorifying in all of this. It is, after all, a remarkable achievement at conference or through other channels. It’s real participative and given their cause much attention. But no, the principle democracy at work. authors, Ian Norris and Oliver Price, who are both recent additions to the Party and unfamiliar with the Party's procedures, The Energy Voting Paper appearing as Motion B1 in the Final had simply followed advice given to them. Their desire was to Agenda has been through such a process, and is now presented have an opportunity to present their case and have a fair and to conference as a comprehensive update to replace the Party's democratic debate. existing energy policy - the Energy Policy Group's blueprint for a nuclear-free future. Once they became aware that most of the party would be excluded, and a great deal of resentment, distress and damage Nuclear surprise to the Party was likely, they contacted SOC to say they wished Can you imagine the feeling of shock experienced by members to withdraw the amendments. Convenor of SOC, Doug Rouxel, when the Final Agenda appeared featuring an array of complex, correctly informed them that this was not possible because they detailed amendments (grouped together as Amendment 1) to had been published in the Final Agenda and were now owned the Energy Voting Paper which, if passed, would utterly transform by Conference. They would have to formerly propose a motion it into a fully-fledged pro-nuclear policy! Likewise with the to conference for their removal during the SOC Report plenary second Voting Paper on Industry & Jobs. debate (Friday 16.30). The amendments bypass the entire policy making process, and SOC to oppose withdrawal would reverse the party's anti-nuclear policy with only a fraction However, Doug added that SOC would speak against such of the 18,000 membership even being aware of it, let alone a proposal claiming that: "it sets a precedent that in order having a chance to express an opinion (made worse by the fact amendments or motions can be bumped off the agenda by our members' website, recently upgraded, has temporarily lost stealth." That would have been true had they been allowed to its email notifications facility, rendering the discussion forums withdraw the amendments in the absence of a debate, but a less user-friendly). primary purpose of the SOC Report debate is to allow members Out of order to challenge SOC decisions and if necessary give conference How could this happen? How could proposals which would the option to overrule them. This session, on the first day of completely negate the principle premise of the paper - a conference, is the only opportunity the membership have to non-nuclear future based on renewables - be considered as challenge the rulings made by SOC since the previous conference. 'amendments'? Has the word ‘amendment’ been assigned a We are now in the strange position where the only people totally new meaning? wishing to advance the amendments are members of SOC! What about the Standing Orders for Conduct of Conference We don't even know whether that is the view of the whole (SOCC) Grounds for Ruling Motions (and amendments) Out of committee because, although constitutionally required to do so, Order, part (g)? i.e. SOC no longer publish the minutes of their meetings. (g) substantially changing policy areas or having complex Peter Barnett implications for other areas, without having passed through the agreed process of consultation." Join the debate Surely by every measure Standing Orders Committee (SOC) Note: This article has been published on the members’ website should have rejected these amendments on a first glance. About to open a discussion forum about the issues raised. Share your three years ago another pro-nuclear proposal was submitted to opinions, thoughts and ideas via link below: the Pre-Agenda forum where a very different SOC, convened by https://my.greenparty.org.uk/node/5968 a most experienced, long term members took a very different view, thus: Activist 3 GPRC - Defending the Party’s Principles quality and freedom from discrimination are GPRC acts to limit negative publicity fundamental values of the Green Party. This Unfortunately, the dispute came to the attention of the local commitment is made explicit in the Party’s press, at which point GPRC members decided that the heat E needed to be taken out of the situation, particularly in light of foundation document, the Philosophical Basis the potential for further damage to the parliamentary seat. At (PB), in which it declares: its July meeting GPRC passed the following motion: “The Green Party rejects all forms of discrimination “GPRC regrets BHGP bringing forward proposals for selection whether based on race, colour, sex, religion, national to public office, which discriminate against men, entailing transgression of the GPEW (Green Party of &Wales PB). origin, social origin or any other prejudice” (PB303). “However, it is likely that BHGP will not be able to find sufficient The Party seeks to enhance equality both in the wider society female candidates to achieve even 50% and we need to avoid and within itself. Indeed, the membership makeup of one of its the matter becoming an issue of visible conflict in public two governing bodies, the Green Party Regional Council (GPRC), (especially as regards damage that can be done to the retention is based on both regional democracy and gender equality: GPRC of the Parliamentary seat) so we propose that GPRC should has one female and one male councillor from each regional allow BHGP to proceed with these rules, but only for selections Green Party; it has a female co-chair and a male co-chair. for the 2015 elections. In April, this truly gender balanced governing body received “However, BHGP is required to amend procedures so that they a complaint from members of a local party. The complaint are compatible with the PB for future elections.” outlined plans by the local party to implement a gender inequality proposal. The motion was sent to the Brighton Executive on 15 July. At the moment GPRC has yet to receive a reply. Brighton & Hove Green Party (BHGP) had approved a proposal that limits male candidates for local elections to no more than The Philosophical Basis is the defining document of the Party 39% of total nominations. On first inspection the proposal from which we derive our values, policies, activities and behaviour. seemed fine, stating a requirement for female candidates “to The Constitution, on the other hand, is a kind of rule book and be at least 50% of those nominated”. However, as a majority of guidance manual, designed to help us achieve our aims. the wards elect three councillors, their new rules would mean Fair is worth fighting for in practice that only one male, at most, could be nominated in any ward, whereas up to three females could be nominated. In It is of deepest concern that SOC are challenging the principle short, the proposal was gender discriminatory. of discrimination, which is one of the most fundamental cornerstones of Green Politics. The complaint came before GPRC. Was the proposal compatible with the Philosophical Basis of the Green Party of England & Furthermore, SOC are setting an alarming precedent by ruling Wales? (PB). Was it compatible with clause PB303 on Equality that a local party’s autonomy allows it to totally disregard within the PB? the fundamental principles which define the very nature of the Party, its values and aims, to which we all pledged our GPRC rules discrimination unacceptable allegiance to when joining the Party. Have they considered the ramifications of such a ruling? GPRC members determined overwhelmingly that the proposal as drawn was incompatible with the national party’s The Constitution says: “The general practice of the Party shall Philosophical Basis. be to encourage the greatest possible autonomy of each Local Party in its pursuit of the Object of the Party.” “The greatest GPRC applauded the BHGP’s commitment to improving possible autonomy“ indicates that there are limits, and we gender balance amongst its candidates, but ruled that the consider the values of the party set those limits. proposal as drawn represented an unacceptable level of gender discrimination and therefore could not be approved. The local The issue has brought into focus how essential the PB is. In party was informed that any selection of council candidates stating the values and perspectives of the Green Party, the carried out under this proposal would be invalid, and were PB provides the overall political direction, unity and identity. advised to either: Disregard the PB and direction is diverted, unity is lost and identity becomes blurred. 1. Create a new "formula" based on their principle of "at least 50% females" but one which would not result in reverse gender We need to look no further than the Labour Party to see what discrimination, or happens to a party that lacks explicit values or side-lines them. 2. Carry out selections under the previous rules. Unlike that former radical party that has now lost its way, the Green Party has clear political direction. It knows where it is This was agreed by GPRC to be a fair and reasonable decision going. - one that would provide the local party with the scope to pursue greater gender balance while protecting everyone from And that is down to the Philosophical Basis. discrimination. Mike Shone and Freda Davis Co-chairs of the Green Party Regional Council A subsequent intervention by the Standing Orders Committee (SOC) clouded the issue, however. SOC declared that local party Join the debate autonomy was a superior consideration to the national party’s Note: This article has been published on the members’ website Philosophical Basis and that GPRC had no authority to rule on to open a discussion forum about the issues raised. Share your the matter. opinions, thoughts and ideas via link below: As a result, BHGP disregarded the GPRC ruling, which resulted https://my.greenparty.org.uk/node/5969 in their officers being sent a warning from GPRC about the consequences of these actions. Activist 4 ANNUAL REPORTS missing from Agenda

Reports to Autumn Conference 2014 Green World Editorial Board Report A number of reports in Section A of the Final Agenda were Convenor of GWEB, Matthew Butcher, resigned from the post in May to take on new challenges in Columbia. Our missing. Here are three of them, which are not officially thanks go to him for successfully part of the Agenda because they missed the deadline, but steering Green World through some may be useful for discussion in their respective workshops difficult, major changes in the recent and are also published for the record. past. Laura Burley was elected to Treasurer’s Report replace him as the new Convenor. The 2013 Budget aimed to achieve break even, stabilising This year marks the magazine’s first the party’s finances prior to the major election years of full year under the new editorial 2014 and 2015. The Budget setting process itself built on and production team at Resource changes introduced in previous years. We have worked Media, with editor Libby Peake and closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure that we manager Charles Newman. We satisfied Electoral Financing law. are delighted to report that the partnership between them and the With a full year’s experience of the new premises, Editorial Board to produce a high quality publication on management of the HQ office budget (our biggest cost time and on budget is working extremely well. line after salaries) was much tighter and savings were in fact achieved in the course of the year, which helped offset There was a problem with the an unexpected (and retrospective ) rates re-evaluation. Autumn edition where a small To further minimise the impact of the latter, we moved but not insignificant number of into smaller offices in the same building. Better than members failed to receive a copy of expected membership income results also helped boost the magazine. This problem appears overall performance, and with good results from the two to have been resolved, but members major membership appeals the party not only achieved are encouraged to let us know of any its budget objective, but added to its reserves position. non-delivery issues. Towards the end of the year, the decision was taken to There is a concern regarding the high invest in two new senior staff positions; one of these was turnover of Green World Editorial the creation of a Fundraising and Operations Director to Board members, resulting in a lack provide greater capacity in raising income and managing of continuity and experience. Apart expenditure. This appointment has already shown its from Matthew Butcher, all the other board members were worth in improved financial results in the current year. new to the role this year, as were most of those who left the previous year. As a way to encourage My thanks are due to our Finance and Fundraising staff people to stay longer, a motion will for their professionalism and dedication. be put to next conference advocating Michael Coffey a two-year term of office for GWEB Finance Co-ordinator and Party Treasurer members, staggered between half the board on alternative years, as is Report of done with the Executive Committee. Yet another exciting year for the Wales Green Party, in fact A new website for Green World is still one of our best years ever! under review, but meanwhile recent back issues of Green World are being Our membership has grown at the fastest on record, posted on the Members’ Website in expanding by 34.63% since January alone. The Welsh the form of pdf files. media are showing much more interest in us, and the activist base is getting very active indeed, with new groups The next issue will be out in mid-October and will feature starting up in Pembrokeshire, Cardigan and Radnor. a theme around the issues of land grab, urban/rural development, Green belt, housing, Wales is hosting the NATO summit on the 4th and 5th of etc. September, and plans to support incoming groups from all over the world are providing the Green Party with a Our thanks, as always, to all who golden opportunity to inform the wider population of our contributed to the magazine this core values of and environmental integrity. year. Another excellent collective This, together with the impending vote in effort as we continue to rely on the has provided, and will continue to offer, numerous talented and knowledgeable pool of opportunities for interviews and media exposure. writers in the Green Party. We are very much looking forward to the General Election Laura Burley when we expect to stand a record number of candidates. Convenor, Green World Editorial Board Pippa Bartolotti Leader, Wales Green Party Activist 5 People’s Climate March Sunday Sep 21, 1pm Temple Place, On the eve of a historic international summit on climate change, the Green Party is urging members to take to the streets and protest in support of real focussed action. We need a that invests in clean renewable energy, green public transport and wholesale energy conservation measures. We need a global agreement that keeps fossil fuels in the ground and an urgent cessation of the destruction of rainforests and other carbon sinks. From melting glaciers to ocean acidification, loss to rising sea levels, the threat of runaway climate change accelerates while policy makers remain in denial. The are supporting protests across the planet to end the suicidal policy of ignoring climate change or making it worse with the expansion of fracking, tar sands and other forms of extreme energy. The People’s Climate March in London is being promoted by a large collection of organisations. We need a large turnout of Green Party members, complete with banners and placards! Scientists are screaming from the rooftops that The People’s Climate March starts at Temple climate change isn’t just a bit of warming and some Place, WC2. The nearest Tube station is Temple. more storms. No exaggeration, our actual survival Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/1428960304030884/ is at risk - this is a fight to save the world. London website http://act.350.org/event/peoples_climate/7683 Twitter @ClimateLdn #PCMLdn #PeoplesClimateLdn Our biosphere is in a fragile balance. Warm it a bit, Global website http://peoplesclimate.org/ and feedback loops start to kick in. Warming melts If you can’t attend, make a pledge to Avaaz, see here: the arctic ice that reflects sunlight, which means https://secure.avaaz.org/en/climate_march_nd_skel/?cl=5679144083 more is sunlight absorbed, which means more &v=44093&OtherAmount warming, which melts more ice, etc. These feedback http://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-international-fight-for-climate-jobs- loops have begun, and they’re approaching ‘tipping for-a-future-that-doesnt-cost-the-earth-tickets-5743228150 points’ where they spin out of our control, threatening everything we love. The UN understands this, and they’ve called an emergency summit of world leaders in New York to discuss action, even inviting our movement into the meeting! The problem is, our heads of state are politicians, not scientists, and they respond to public pressure. They see the polls, but they ask, “where are the protests?” September 21st is our answer. With thousands of organisations, from unions to faith groups, and hundreds of thousands of people already signed up, we’re about to launch the biggest climate change mobilisation in history, with marches from New York to Paris to Rio. On September 21st, we need to shake the world. To get there, we need to mobilise thousands of organisers, saturate subways and airwaves with ads, and mount an effective media operation. Activist 6 Updating our Energy and Industrial Policies – Does a Green plan for our future need nuclear?

by Jonathan Essex he UK is in desperate need of better energy and industrial policies. Ongoing Tindustrialisation is more in the form of a government-sponsored dash to incinerate more waste and frack our countryside while further embedding globalisation. As the Government’s energy strategy focusses on shale gas and nuclear, it has abandoned any real commitment to renewables, so needed to eliminate our fossil fuel dependence once and for all. The UK is defying global energy trends by losing renewable energy jobs and expertise, while subsidising new nuclear at a time when Deutsche Sustainable (PSS)) It also highlight the new enterprises Bank analysts expect solar PV to be sustainable and skills, democracy and behaviour change needed to at grid parity in three-quarters of the world’s create a sustainable energy future. market by 2015. Britain is so behind the curve Energy and resource use on its energy and industrial policy that what is What about the 50% of our carbon emissions that are needed can appear almost idealistic, even when caused by what we build and buy? Addressing this requires based on existing practice elsewhere. a rethinking and restructuring of our existing industrial sectors, while developing new enterprises that enable Calling for an energy price freeze for the big six energy transition to a much more locally sustainable and resilient companies is not enough. So, what can we do instead? society. How different does a Green future look in terms of energy, The industrial strategy therefore focusses on resources industry and jobs? This article aims to introduce a way and energy that are used – in our wider industrial forward – but for greater details see Section B1 in the production rather than just directly as consumers. This conference agenda here. includes consideration of, not just manufacturing, but also Energy the energy, construction and waste sectors – changing Firstly, energy. The starting point for the Energy Policy is what we produce, how we produce it, and how much. how much energy we need in the first place, and how This will mean scaling up sustainable enterprises and much waste can be avoided through energy efficiency increasing jobs in some areas, while reducing resource and changed behaviours. So, the updated policy is based and carbon intensity overall, by transforming high-carbon on a practical analysis of how much energy is needed, and industries and facilitating wider behaviour change away how much of this could be generated locally and nationally from throw-away consumerism. This will change both our through renewable energy (the detailed analysis is shared resource throughput and entail a shift from continually at http://my.greenparty.org.uk/forum/5256). expanding to reducing the impact of our existing built environment, both locally and globally. It also (alongside The underlying challenge is a 90% cut in greenhouse gas the Workers’ Rights section of the PSS) needs good emissions by 2030 – the target in our climate change governance of business. policy - which is in turn consistent with the latest climate science. For example, Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre The circular economy in Manchester is calling for global carbon emissions These energy and industrial strategies are based on the globally to be reduced to zero by 2035, with greenhouse same premise – to reduce our resource and energy use gas emissions resulting only from food production and and climate impacts to within environmental limits, and global deforestation by that time (http://www.whatnext. then expand a resource efficient (zero carbon, zero waste) org/resources/Publications/Volume-III/Single-articles/ alternative that embeds energy efficiency, renewables wnv3_andersson_144.pdf). This proposes policies and and durability/resilience into the fabric of the wider UK regulations that prioritise reduced energy demand economy. This is an alternative to an economy reliant upon and improved energy efficiency first, while increasing cheap (mainly fossil fuel) energy and increasing production renewable energy generation and storage (as needed) to of consumer goods. The updated policy puts the physical meet this demand. scale of our productive economy within environmental limits and focused on creating a circular economy – one The policy also ensures we do this without ignoring the that is both 100% renewable and delivers quality of life for challenge of transport (which requires re-localisation - as developed further in our policy manual, Policies for a Activist 7 all. This means changing our measurement of economic Should we prioritise grid access for renewables ahead of a success from how much we consume to our quality of life, base-load for thermal (fossil or nuclear) power stations – and the wellbeing that results from what we make and which will help make the economic climate for renewables do. As a result, many of the choices that stem from the even better. policy principles set out in these draft Energy and Industry and Jobs strategies are similar. For example, we propose The nuclear option to focus on: And, probably most controversially, should we add nuclear power to these energy and industrial policies? This is Limiting energy demand, through policies such as a hardest to justify as nuclear competes with renewables for massive UK-wide energy-retrofit of buildings to scale- finance, and the nuclear amendment is based on a view down the need for energy in the first place. This is key that the proposed policies for energy demand-reduction to being able to deliver the energy needed through are not achievable. While the nuclear industry argues for a renewables alone. It would allow us to choose a future very maximum of 15% renewable energy (and 35% electricity) different from current business-as-usual ever-expanding there is little hope for a sustainable future – especially energy needs, where the lights (we are told) must be kept as the Government’s new hidden subsidy (Contracts for on by a mix of mass import of clear-cut primary-growth Difference) proposed for Hinkley Point C and other new forests for biomass, a re-industrialisation of our landscape nuclear will result in a direct reduction in finance for to frack and otherwise extract unconventional oil and gas, renewables. and on building nuclear power stations. Perhaps more importantly, adding adding nuclear power The creation of a rebalanced economy – promoting re- to these policies would mean the Green Party abandoning manufacturing, re-purposing through re-use, and high- a long-held non-nuclear stance which has been one of value recycling. That is, an industrial policy that provides its unique selling points (USPs), and would raise issues a real alternative to technofixes that require our society in our relations with other EU Greens, in part due to our to remain wasteful, far beyond the timescale for climate commitment to peace, and concerns about other issues tipping points. This is why incinerators are excluded from such as how we deal with nuclear waste. our industrial strategy (in line with our current Waste Policy) and existing ones would receive a carbon tax, Vision of a Green future should the energy policy be voted through. Hopefully, these policy refreshes will lead to the collective In both cases this means challenging the root cause of agreement which we can take on the campaign trail, unsustainable consumption – the overall scale of energy alongside the wider social justice and environmental and resource use and waste produced in the first place. movements to help make a sustainable future a reality. Whether our individual concern is about greenhouse The policies do require a degree of re-imagining what gases, rainforest destruction or perhaps how unrecyclable is possible to better envision what a sustainable future metallic plastic film used to make crisp packets ends up might be, not just for our household and travel – but what in the pacific waste gyre, affecting marine life worldwide makes our lifestyles possible. It might be achieved using – our policy aims to re-create the possibility of living People’s Design Labs and green incentives to regulate within our planet’s limits. And doing so not by creating a and challenge business to rethink industrial built-in haven for a few high-consuming industries or individuals obsolescence and take ownership for the waste they but ensuring that we leave space for nature, and for all produce. It could mean creating new, green jobs across the humanity to have a decent quality of life. So, by starting UK instead of house building in South East England, which out by conserving our energy and saving our furniture, reinforces the focus of our economy where it is already we might have space left to conserve nature and save strongest (in London) while doing nothing to address the our forests! shortage of jobs where communities are struggling, and the increasingly precarious nature of employment across Choices to make the UK. Please have a look at these policies and see what you think. The key point for debate on these policies still leave a lot The rethinking required for our energy policy is no less of choices to be made, including amendments proposing challenging. We think the way forward is to scale-down the question: our resource and energy use and focus on creating jobs before infrastructure – an economy where we are all Do we accept coal power should be used to trial carbon empowered to make, do and mend a better future. A capture and storage – or is this a pipe dream? 100% renewable, reusable way of life, replacing continued Should we commit to zero carbon as part of our 90% economic growth in our energy and resource use with a reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 target (which RE-conomy for the UK. What do you think? includes other greenhouse gases, mainly from farming and forestry)? This will help us to put greater pressure to divest in fossil fuels completely, as soon as possible – and is consistent with challenges such as 350.org and Zero Join the debate Carbon Britain. Note: This article has been published on the members’ website to open a discussion forum about the issues raised. Share your Should we keep our current ‘tradeable energy quotas’ so opinions, thoughts and ideas via the link below energy access for all is still provided? Carbon tax at a level https://my.greenparty.org.uk/node/5964 to avoid global warming could be punitive (Stern in June 2014 suggested a $280/tonne CO2 carbon tax is needed from now to reflect the risks in the latest IPCC report). Activist 8 The lost generation of nuclear power by Ian Norris he biggest challenge facing renewables today is intermittency. The wind doesn’t blow and the Tsun doesn’t shine on a given patch of land 100% of the time, but our energy needs can’t just be dialled down when the weather doesn’t feel like providing. Energy storage is a massive unsolved problem that will take decades for us to master, and we just don’t have the luxury to wait. To solve climate change we need to act now, and we need a solution that scales. The rare earth minerals used to make wind turbines and solar panels are among the rarest on the planet. Wind turbines and solar panels don’t last forever; 12- 15 years is a realistic figure for economical lifespan of a wind turbine - intermittent power that needs to The nuclear alternative be backed up with some kind of energy storage or As long as a meltdown is even a remote possibility, nuclear power will always be considered unsafe, but it is in fact another energy source. among the safest energy technologies we have, even beating rooftop solar (by deaths per unit of energy). The US is also buying nuclear weapons from in order to recycle them into fuel, so nuclear energy can actually be a solution to proliferation concerns too. When most people think of nuclear power they think about antiquated technologies used at plants like Chernobyl. However, the Chernobyl plant could not exist today as the various safety mechanisms that failed and led to the disaster were poorly engineered and would fail to meet even a fraction of today’s safety regulations. Today’s reactors are designed with safety first, engineered to prevent the chain reaction from running too fast and the reactor from getting too hot. Newer reactors are ‘walk away safe’, safe even if there is nobody there to operate it. Even so, modern reactors are still built as if these catastrophic failures could occur, with features such as reinforced steel-concrete domes to keep radioactive material inside the core should anything go disastrously wrong. Chernobyl didn’t have this. The Fukushima plant was somewhat better than (Source http://www.eurelectric.org/media/61388/flexibility_report_ Chernobyl but still came from the same era of design. It final-2011-102-0003-01-e.pdf) would be impossible for another Chernobyl or Fukushima- type disaster to happen with modern design reactors. , a supposed flagship of renewables, is burning lignite to back up its renewables, and its carbon output has The new generation of reactors barely been dented by the switch. The capacity factor for The Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR, pronounced wind in the UK is approximately 28%. This means the other ‘lifter’) is a radical new design of nuclear reactor that uses 72% needs to come from elsewhere. Even at 100% efficient a liquid fuel. It is passively safe, immune to meltdowns energy storage you would still need over three times the (because it’s already a liquid), performs under low pressure generating capacity of your peak wind output to meet (and therefore cannot ‘explode’) and can consume existing demand, and that still doesn’t account for long periods of radioactive waste stockpiles from other reactors. The low wind (see graph). To me this makes renewables look a technology is also difficult to proliferate and can produce lot less appetising, so what other options are there? I want important radioactive isotopes used by the medical profession. to focus today on another practical and clean alternative: nuclear power. Activist 9 LFTRs are also (relatively) cheap and quick to build as they do not rely on large pressure vessels that need to withstand immense pressures. The fuel is plentiful, almost free and requires almost no refinement. The US built a LFTR in the 1960s, while and China are exploring Thorium as a power source right now. I’ve heard claims that, with proper funding, we can have our first grid- generating LFTR within five years and mass produced units within ten. If you want a way to solve climate change and get rid of nuclear waste, this is your silver bullet. So, what’s the catch? Funding and additional research. Energy research is an expensive business and, unsurprisingly, a technology that threatens to end the impact of building a dam against the carbon it will razorblade model for nuclear fuel is not popular with offset. By giving these countries nuclear power you can executives within the nuclear industry. It will take outside kill multiple birds with one stone - improve quality of life, influence before this technology is developed into a improve education and cut the birth rates of the fastest commercial reality. growing countries. Another interesting range of reactor designs are the ‘fast Towards a better future reactors’ such as the Sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) The developing world will achieve nuclear power or Lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR). These share similar eventually, but if we can help them along the path by advantages to that of the LFTR. It will also be possible selling them reactors and the expertise to run them, they for smaller-scale reactors to be built in the future at a can use the best technologies now rather than them significantly reduced cost, and there have been some walking the path alone without learning from our earlier really interesting developments in this field very recently. mistakes. However until the technology has been proven I won’t start shouting about it from the rooftops. If we can end up with a surplus in our energy economy we can begin using the extra energy for interesting things like Finally, we have the holy grail of nuclear power: fusion. advanced recycling and carbon capture technologies. We Although a promising technology we are very unlikely to can actually start extracting CO2 from the atmosphere see fusion in production in time to solve climate change. rather than just cutting our emissions. This all requires an There are many more nuclear technologies, but I’ve only increase in our energy usage rather than the adoption of covered a few. So, when, you ask, is nuclear power safe? a strategy that requires a reduction. Well, which one? The future of nuclear power is bright and Nuclear power currently has an image issue, and due to I think it is counterproductive to tar all technologies with the Chernobyl disaster an entire generation of people the same forty year old brush. Personally my money is on lost faith in nuclear power. Think of all the power left un- the LFTR, but we shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket. generated in power plants that never opened because of The case for rising energy usage public outcry. Power that could have displaced our use of fossil fuels. Had we truly embraced nuclear power I don’t So now that we’re on the same page about the technology, think we’d be facing quite the same urgency in resolving let’s see what we can achieve with it. Whether or not you climate change as we do today. believe renewables can meet demand, I’m going to argue that we should be increasing our energy consumption If we are willing to consider all energy research based rather than decreasing it, and we should start with the on its merits I believe our future looks very different. We poorest countries first. can develop more effective recycling processes, and start reversing rather than slowing down climate change, There is a direct correlation between energy consumption allowing us to focus on the other major challenges rather and education. This makes sense because if people have to than fighting over our energy requirements. With surplus walk miles a day to wash their clothes in the nearest river energy we can produce better fertilisers and take us closer it leaves very little time to teach their children or learn to ending world hunger. You never know, it might even something new. Additionally, there is a direct correlation help us become more civilised. between education and birth rate - as people become For more information, the following search terms will be of use: more educated they have fewer children. thorium remix; LFTR; Germany lignite; TED washing. Additionally All these people want a quality of life that we already there are two films ‘Pandora’s Promise’ and ‘Windfall’, both take for granted in developed countries, and they won’t available on Netflix and iTunes. take no for an answer. These countries are going to take I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Please join us in discussion the cheapest route, and that is currently fossil fuels. To on the Green Party forums, and fill out our quick survey: convert these countries to clean energy the solution has http://tinyurl.com/GPNuclear to be cheaper to produce per unit of energy than coal. The only technologies capable of doing this at the price Join the debate and scale needed to displace fossil fuels are nuclear and Note: This article has been published on the members’ website hydroelectric. to open a discussion forum about the issues raised. Share your Hydroelectric is a great technology if you happen to be opinions, thoughts and ideas via the link below located at a suitable dam location, but it can’t be deployed https://my.greenparty.org.uk/node/5963 everywhere. You also have to weigh the environmental Activist 10 Faslane - a suggestion we were able to condemn in the strongest Molly Scott Cato MEP possible terms: “The legality, morality and cost of keeping nuclear weapons anywhere in the UK is totally unjustified. There is no such t was the issue of peace that first brought me into thing as a safe place to store weapons with the ability Ipolitics: when I was just 16 I founded Bath Youth CND. to deliver around 8 times the destructive power of the It was a time when every day was overshadowed by the Hiroshima bomb. Not Faslane, not Plymouth and not fear of the three-minute warning and we really felt the Falmouth. I will do all I can to resist these deadly weapons urgency of the calls for nuclear disarmament. Although I being based in the South West; highly dangerous in have done little in the areas of peace and foreign affairs themselves, they would also make Falmouth a potential in recent years, these have become an immediate focus terrorist target. I will work with my Green colleagues in the following my election to the in May. European Parliament to stop the proliferation of arms and rid Europe of nuclear weapons.” The catalyst for me was seeing a shameless TV interview with Tony Blair, during which he not only failed to take responsibility While I do not consider myself any sort of elder stateswoman, I for the destabilisation of the Middle East as a result of the illegal have to accept that I have now been on the planet, and involved invasion of Iraq in 2003, but actually dared to claim that it was in Green politics, for quite a number of years. My message our failure to bomb Syria that was the explanation for the rise to people who have not lived through the history that I can of ISIL. This apologist for aggression is still the peace envoy actually remember is that we should not let our world go back for the Quartet Group, the only existing international process to the entrenched blocs of the Cold War. The risk of this has two tasked to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East. I tried origins: the incomprehensible situation where we seem to have to introduce an amendment calling for him to be removed forgotten what diplomacy means, and the pressure for conflict during the European Parliament debate on the Israel-Palestine created by the trade in arms. situation but it was opposed by the larger groups. Wool Against Weapons In Ukraine we are trading insults and sanctions but there has My next venture was more fun, although just as serious, and been no attempt to sit the parties down in a room and work to came about thanks to my lovely friend and fellow Stroudie achieve the best outcome for all sides. Soldiers and weapons Jaine Rose. She had caught the country’s imagination with can only delay this stage, so why can’t we cut out the months the idea of knitting a pink wool scarf long enough to link the and years of suffering and death and move to the negotiations? nuclear weapons sites at Burghfield and Aldermaston. So on The EU organises its external affairs through High Commissioner a beautiful sunny August day I was able to join hundreds of for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, who is shortly to be others for a Wool Against Weapons action to protest against this replaced. As Greens we need to argue that the focus of the abomination and remind the crowd that Greenham women are new holder of this vital role should be on peace-building, both still everywhere, but this time they have brought their daughters between our own borders and across the world. This, together with them (and hopefully taught them to knit too). with calling for the removal of Tony Blair as peace envoy and the Although the issue of the future of Trident is being ignored ending of the international arms trade, are vital steps towards by the mainstream media it is a key issue in the debate over making the world a safer and more peaceful place for all the Scottish independence. The Scottish Nationalist Party has made world’s people. it clear that, if the YES side wins, the nuclear submarine base at Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West Faslane will be closed. Earlier this month Royal United Services Institute published a report suggesting that the beautiful www.mollymep.org.uk Cornish town of Falmouth is the most promising site to replace

Good news in the District Council by-election 7th August caused by the election of Molly Scott Cato to Europe. Martin Baxendale, pictured here with Molly, gets elected with a 35% turn out. Green Party: 291 votes, Labour 230 votes, UKIP 75 votes. Activist 11 Talking points - Green Politics What is Green politics? The Green Party has good policies – polices the country needs – but is the Green Party just another technocrat party? One uncontaminated by corruption and fear of the Murdoch press? That would make it the best party! But I don’t think we are a technocrat party. At the heart of Green politics is our concern to preserve the natural world – the rich variety of plants, animals and habitats provided by half a billion years of evolution. And we share this concern with many traditional Conservatives. We also share with Conservatives an appreciation of markets – regulated markets of course Beyond Confrontational Politics – as a way of fostering innovation and avoiding Big Brother. But the Conservative Party is now run by market (or why is the Green Party so left-wing?) fundamentalists – neoliberal extremists who think society To my understanding, Green thinking should be about needs no relationships that are not commercial. It’s also balance in all issues; that is the only genuinely sustainable a mouthpiece for businesses that destroy, not only the way. It is the same with biodiversity and the same with natural world, but the social world in which we live. So political thought. Surely Green political thought is we cannot be Conservatives. the balance that encompasses both ‘left’ and ‘right’ of And preserving is not enough. Greens want to see a better conventional political polemics; thinking that is beyond world which is necessarily a different world. We believe confrontation politics. in peace, democracy, the welfare state and the value of public institutions, especially schools – commitments we For example, if we are to design and develop new green share with the political Left. But the Labour Party forgot technologies that are ‘better’ than what is currently these commitments under Blair and Miliband has yet to available, then this creativity must first start in the restore them. Beyond the Labour Party we see a variety minds of individuals who are ahead of the crowd in their of Marxist sects – committed to obsolete ideologies and thinking. These individuals may be employed or they may their own holy books. So we cannot be a Marxist sect. be private, but they must be innovators who stand beyond So the Green Party shares values with both Right and Left. the current consensus. A society that welcomes and, most Are we then a party of the middle ground? Liberals with importantly, supports such individuals is called ‘right- principles? wing’! An innovator cannot blossom in their work while waiting for the majority to catch up. People are different: Again, no. Green politics is about power – all politics some are ahead and some are not. But this practical reality is – but it is not FOR power. We are not advocates for landowners, businesses or even the working class. Our does not detract from the social need of fairness within ultimate focus is not on relations between people. Instead society, our global society. However, we do simultaneously Green politics exists to establish a new balance between need “fairness” with “better” green technologies, for wind human society and the rest of the natural world. As turbines and bicycles are not the complete answer! Greens we see humanity as one species – but a species To evolve our civilization beyond the confrontational whose very success requires it to confront unprecedented politics of vested interests, left-wing or right-wing, we responsibilities for its own future and that of the living need a higher mind-set that encompasses both polarities planet. We MUST create a world which contains fewer of thinking. The ‘unity’ that contains us all, and indeed people making fewer demands on the natural world. We balances with all the other life-forms of the planet. So need to leave room for nature – for the wild animals that Socialist thinking does not equate with Green thinking, inspire us, the glaciers that feed the great rivers of Asia, but is contained within it - along with entrepreneurial the ocean life that absorbs our CO2, and more. Too much thinking! Recognising the ‘unity’ within any polarity of more to say. thinking is the key to all conflict resolutions in our troubled That is the core of Green politics and the new thing we world, and also also the Tao of Yin and Yang! bring to human politics. David Flint, Enfield Green Party Jameela M Boardman [email protected] Join the debate Join the debate Note: This article has been published on the members’ Note: This article has been published on the members’ website to open a discussion forum about the issues raised. website to open a discussion forum about the issues raised. Share your opinions, thoughts and ideas via link below: Share your opinions, thoughts and ideas via link below: https://my.greenparty.org.uk/node/5960. https://my.greenparty.org.uk/node/5959 Activist 12 The positive alternative to growth

By Richard Lawson Hoogendijk says: Imagine two companies, A and or companies, the imperative that next year's B, supplying the market Fprofits must be bigger than this year's profits with widgets. They are in drives all manner of commercial perversions, balanced competition, each for instance, planned obsolescence. having half of the market. Many Asian manufactured items are little more than Now A takes out a loan and pretend replicas. They consume energy and materials buys some machinery that to create items that look real but are not fit for purpose. drives his productivity up. Screws whose heads give way as soon as any torque is He lays off workers, and applied to them. Cutting tools that cannot take and soon has 75% of the market. hold an edge. B is therefore obliged to take Dr. Richard Lawson out a loan to buy machinery British manufacturing would do well to look at and lay off workers. A and B are in balance again - but producing durable, if expensive, quality goods that now they each have to service a debt to pay interest. They can be repaired instead of disposed of once wear has are therefore obliged to expand into other markets. Debt taken its toll. interest obliges them to grow. Consumption Debt interest is not the only driver of economic growth, Consumption ranges from the necessary to the frivolous. but it is a significant one and it’s good that Green Party As a doctor I can state with absolute confidence that policy acknowledges this fact. consumption of food and water is vital for human life. There are many other aspects to be considered, because Warm (but not overly warm) homes are also vital to economics is a system, and systems are necessarily life. Both of these require consumption. We cannot do multifactorial. As humans we tend to oversimplify, but at without consumption. the same time, it is necessary to hold on to those things After these necessities, we need a variety of tools and that are certain. instruments (in the widest sense, to include things such as transportation). Some tools are vital to support the Positive alternative to growth primary level of function (water, food, warmth, shelter Therefore I would like to reassert these certainties: and waste management), and others are in fact toys to 1) Throughput of carbon and materials is the No 1 play with - such as musical instruments. Play is a vital economic problem that we face. part of human existence. We do need some of these, 2) Growth of this system is the second problem, the icing but at a reasonable level, not the tsunami of perishable on the cake as it were. goods ("stuff") that industry is throwing at us. 3) In making the transition to a zero-throughput, cyclical There is such a thing as natural greed and economy that is structured as if people matter, we can competitiveness, but many millions are spent each promise something near full employment. year on advertising to whip this greed up into a lather of insatiable desire. This money is not committed by the 4) Full employment helps to reduce inequality, since the advertisers just for fun. It is a serious propaganda effort gap in money and self-esteem between workers and the to bend our minds into consuming the item advertised. unemployed disappears. It’s good that we have policy to reduce advertising. 5) Other measures (taxation of the super-rich) will further A need for growth? bring us towards more equitable distribution of wealth, and that means a happier and more healthy society. Why is there a need for growth? Part of it, planned obsolescence, is easy to understand. My sister has a Therefore we can indeed offer voters something positive functioning, absolutely silent refrigerator that was built to look forward to, rather than asking them to vote for the in the 1930s. I think it may be an "Einstein" fridge. If misery of perpetual recession. consumer goods were made to last like that, the market Further reading would soon become saturated, and manufacturers would drive themselves out of business. So things are http://greenerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/banking-system- demands-and-creates.html - (article followed by lengthy discussion designed to need replacement. with Alison Marshall) But why does the market have to grow? Hoogendijk http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/28/ ("The Economic Revolution", Green Print/Jan van Arkel, debunking-chris-huhne-paean-uk-growth 1991) finds one answer in the creation of money through debt. Activist 13 Post-Growth Common Sense

Rupert Read, Chair of the Green House think that awaits us. It is what lies beyond the limits to growth. tank, has written a major new report that The quest for endless new frontiers to turn into ‘resources’ many in the Green Party are finding helpful and commodities, the quest for speculative profit, the and/or provocative. Entitled ‘Post-growth quest for accumulation: all of these can be turned back by a return to living on and in the commons. Large-scale Common Sense’, it is concerned with how one private enclosures no longer make sense as a way to can ‘sell’ a vision of a political economy that organise the world. The commons is the new frame that does not buy into the ruling hegemony of may well come to revive the public and the social. (It ‘economic growth’. connects with sharing, of course, but is not identical to it, because the commons is a new (OLD) long-termist way Find a summary of his report here, in the Ecologist of doing sharing.) http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/ commentators/2397606/lets_build_a_postgrowth_economy_that_ The new common-sense will be as much old and new, works_for_the_99.html and nowhere more clearly than in its appeal to those who To whet your appetite, here are the findings and Dade-Rose call ‘settlers’. Think thrift. Think repair. Think recommendations of the report: local. Think place. We should talk LESS about ‘the economy’. Such talk mostly We should not go along with “it’s the economy, stupid”; we just feeds into people’s stereotypes of what an economy should substitute it with “it’s the , stupid”. is. Fixating on economics simply reinforces belief in the We should also drill down much more into the politics of importance of economics, of economies, of ‘goods’, etc. personal and social life – what is it that the political world Instead, we should talk more about the things that an can do to improve family relationships, grow communities economy is actually FOR: i.e. a better society, quality of and friendship, and even address personal freedom and life, etc. Once one does THAT, and does it properly, then personal values? This is where the values agenda of Tom ‘growth’ drops away as irrelevant/counter-productive. Crompton et al is once more absolutely correct; it’s also So it’s not about seeking ways to communicate a post- where we ought to be talking once more about some growth ECONOMY, but how to communicate post- of the ideas that came from 70s and 80s feminism, ‘the growthism in its actual meaning - which means not personal is political’ agenda. Let’s have more life out of talking about growth, nor even about what kind of work, more fulfilment within it, and let’s foster those economy we want, mostly. The economy needs, as Polanyi personal and social values. articulated, to be RE-EMBEDDED within the deeper This connects with the hugely important ‘well-being’ frames - society and ecology. agenda of Richard Layard, of the New Economics How would this look in practice? Here are some Foundation: see http://www.neweconomics.org/issues/entry/ suggestions towards the content of a post-growth well-being. Less talk of ‘standard of living’, more talk of common-sense and how to frame it: ‘quality of life’. A ‘post-materialist’ life. In this work, we can see how a better quality of life is perfectly compatible In terms of what a non-permanently-growthist type of with, and in fact made more achievable by, a post-growth life might be, which builds in true respect for nature, etc., mentality. the indigenous South American concept of ‘Buen vivir’ seems a very promising ‘case study’. Part of this picture is starting at last to move toward a leisure society. Greens should be wary of putting all We need to build a sense of enough. An end to the their eggs in boxes marked ‘jobs’. Employment needs to materialistic culture of more and more. be shared out, most of us need to work less, and in less Crucial to this and to the points that follow is the alienated settings, and then we can start to live more, in central importance of equality/egalitarianism. As ways that needn’t be commodified and designed to be now is familiar to us all, in the ‘developed’ (sic.) world purchased by time-poor people unable (as so many of us today it’s not absolute, nor even relative level of wealth in Britain are) to see how to grow our own food, share that really matters to well-being on virtually every collective meals, etc. measure; it is how equal one’s society is. Considerations And post-growth common-sense will then provide us with of distributional equity, of genuinely sharing, trump more space for our green and pleasant land, for thinking economistic considerations of allocation and of the size and walking and simply being. of the pie. Want to know more? http://rupertsread.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/post- Thus, we need to talk more about SHARING. We all know growth-common-sense-my-latest.html Go to this link to access Rupert that growthism is a SUBSTITUTE for real fairness, a more Read’s latest report from ‘Green House’, bringing together his ideas on equal society, serious redistribution. (It is what ‘socialists’ the difficult task of how to communicate the Green post-growth vision turned to once they abandoned hope of achieving effectively to the public. ). Let’s start saying so! Let’s abandon the ‘trickle (Also worth visiting: http://www.theecologist.org/search.php?q=rup down’ nonsense once and for all. ert+read&offset=0&submit=Go to see all Rupert’s ECOLOGIST articles conveniently collected together.) Common-sense will in the future become commons- (www.greenhousethinktank.org ) sense. The concept of the commons is an ancient future Activist 14 U.N. Draft Report reveals alarming truth Runaway growth in the emission of greenhouse gases is emissions are being incurred in large part to produce goods for swamping all political efforts to deal with the problem, consumption in the West. raising the risk of “severe, pervasive and irreversible Emissions are now falling in nearly all Western countries impacts” over the coming decades, according to a draft because of an increased focus on efficiency and the spread of of a major new United Nations report. lower-emitting sources of electricity. But the declines are not Global warming is already cutting grain production by several yet sufficient to offset rising emissions in developing countries, percentage points, and that could grow much worse if emissions many of whose governments are focused on pulling their people continue unchecked. Higher seas, devastating heat waves, out of poverty. torrential rain and other climate extremes are also being felt The new report found that it was still technically possible to around the world as a result of human-produced emissions, limit global warming to an internationally agreed upper bound and those problems are likely to intensify unless the gases are of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius, above the brought under control. preindustrial level. But continued political delays for another The world may already be nearing a temperature at which the decade or two will make that unachievable without severe loss of the vast ice sheet covering Greenland would become economic disruption. inevitable. The actual melting would then take centuries, but it The draft report comes a month before a summit meeting would be unstoppable and could result in a sea level rise of 23 of world leaders in New York that is meant to set the stage feet, with additional increases from other sources like melting for a potential global agreement on emissions that would Antarctic ice, potentially flooding the world’s major cities. be completed next year. However, concern is growing among Some areas of the globe are especially vulnerable to rising sea climate experts that the leaders may not offer ambitious levels and inhabitants are being forced to make stark changes commitments in their speeches on Sept. 23, a potential in their lives. continuation of the political inaction that has marked the climate issue for decades. Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, The draft report did find that efforts to counter climate in reduction in snow and ice, and in global mean-sea-level rise; change are gathering force at the regional and local level in and it is extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of many countries. This is especially clear in the , the observed warming since the mid-20th century. The risk of where Congress is paralysed and the national government has abrupt and irreversible change increases as the magnitude of effectively ceded leadership on climate to states like , the warming increases. Massachusetts and New York. The report was drafted by the Intergovernmental Panel President Obama, using his executive authority under the Clean on Climate Change, a body of scientists and other experts Air Act, is seeking to impose national limits on emissions of appointed by the United Nations that periodically reviews and greenhouse gases, but he faces profound legal and political summarizes climate research. It is not final and could change challenges as he seeks to put his policy into effect before leaving substantially before release. office in early 2017. The report, intended to summarize and restate a string of earlier The draft report found that past emissions, and the failure to reports about climate change released over the past year, is to be heed scientific warnings about the risks, have made large-scale unveiled in early November, after an intensive editing session in climatic shifts inevitable. But lowering emissions would still . A late draft was sent to the world’s governments slow the expected pace of change, providing critical decades for review this week. for human society and the natural world to adapt. Using blunter, more forceful language than the reports that Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further underpin it, the new draft highlights the urgency of the risks warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the that are likely to be intensified by continued emissions of heat- climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive trapping gases, primarily carbon dioxide released by the burning and irreversible impacts for people and . of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. The earth has so far warmed by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit The report found that companies and governments had above the level that prevailed before the Industrial Revolution, identified reserves of these fuels at least four times larger and that seemingly modest increase is causing the effects than could safely be burned if global warming is to be kept to already being seen around the world. A continued rapid growth a tolerable level. of emissions in coming decades could conceivably lead to a global warming exceeding 8 degrees Fahrenheit. The warming That means if society wants to limit the risks to future would be higher over land areas, and higher still at the poles. generations, it must find the discipline to leave a vast majority of these valuable fuels in the ground. Warming that substantial would almost certainly have catastrophic effects, including a mass extinction of plants and It cited rising political efforts around the world on climate animals, huge shortfalls in food production, extreme coastal change, including efforts to limit emissions as well as to adapt flooding and many other problems. to changes that have become inevitable. But the report found that these efforts were being overwhelmed by construction of Severe weather events, some of them linked to human-produced facilities like new coal-burning power plants that will lock in emissions, had disrupted the food supply in recent years, leading high emissions for decades. to several spikes in the prices of staple grains and destabilizing some governments in poorer countries. From 1970 to 2000, global emissions of greenhouse gases grew at 1.3 percent a year. But from 2000 to 2010, that rate jumped Continued warming is likely to “slow down economic growth, to 2.2 percent a year, and the pace seems to be accelerating make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food further in this decade. security, and prolong existing poverty traps and create new A major part of the jump was caused by industrialization in ones, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hot China, which now accounts for half the world’s coal use. Those spots of hunger.” Activist 15 Fundraising, events and resources

NEW STOCK THE WHITE CRANE DRAW in the WINNERS AUGUST 2014 1st 139 E. Russ £100 Green Shop 2nd 119 N. Partington £50 On-line shop for all your Green Party campaigning , 3rd 028 A. Jeffery £22 fundraising and election meterials. 4th 196 N. Morgan £22 Donation to Party from proceeds £194 Posters, leaflets, flyers, rosettes, badges, To join the draw print out the form on the members’ website or hi-vis vests... call party office for a copy.

More products are available at the shop including: Downloadable campaign materials Keep Calm and Vote Green posters All current Green Party leaflets, flyers, posters, N ew badges and rosettes etc. can be downloaded for self-printing here: http://shop.greenparty.org.uk/ http://my.greenparty.org.uk/content/campaigns-download-page NEW STOCK http://shop.greenparty.org.uk/collections/products?page=1 Many of these are also available ready-printed from the Green Shop .

Green Group Newsletter A weekly collection of links to Green Party stories in the media Free by E-mail subscription Links to stories about Green Party luminaries, councillors, local parties, press releases and much more . Links to videos and photos. Click on link below or copy address to your browser: http://paper.li/CllrMediaReview/1377242630

Green Party Manifesto on Animal Protection Download a copy from here: http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/04/10/green-animal- manifesto-greens-are-the-voice-for-animals-in-europe/

Northern Vegan Festival Saturday September 13 - Blackpool Live a Better Life Fair Up to 200 vegan, green, fairtrade, and human rights stalls, films, talks, free vegan food and a Green Party stall. 10 mins walk from Blackpool North train station. More info: http://www.northernveganfestival.com/ A July 2014 Oxford University study found that the production of vegan food has a lower carbon footprint than the production of food for any other type of diet, and a 2009 Worldwatch Institute report blamed meat and dairy production for 51% of greenhouse Download Green Party logos here: gas emissions: http://greenparty.org.uk/logos.html http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-014-1169-1 A booklet about Green Party Identity and branding is http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20 here: Climate%20Change.pdf http://issuu.com/lifework/docs/gp_identity_10

Activist 16 Who’s Who in the Green Party

green Party central Office THE GREEN PARTY LEADERSHIP 020 7549 0310 [email protected] NATALIE BENNETT Leader of the Green Party [email protected] The house of commons http://www.nataliebennett.co.uk https://twitter.com/natalieben https://www.facebook.com/ GreenNatalieBennett

SHAHRAH ALI Deputy Leader

CAROLINE LUCAS MP for Brighton Pavilion HOUSE OF COMMONS London SW1A 0AA Cath Miller - Chief of Staff 020 7219 7025 Deputy Leader Jenny Williams - Press Officer07590 050 565 [email protected] [email protected] Twitter: @CarolineLucas https://www.facebook.com/caroline/page The European Parliament Visit Caroline’s website to subscribe to weekly email news bulletins Molly Scott Cato MEP http://www.carolinelucas.com/ for the South West & Gibralta [email protected] The london The Twitter: @MollyMEP https://www.facebook.com/molly. assembly Baroness Jones scottcato?fref=ts of Moulsecoomb Press Officer Andrew Bell JENNY JONES [email protected] Member Jean Lambert MEP Dep Chair Police & Crime Committee for London [email protected] [email protected] Twitter: @greenjennyjones http://www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk http://t.co/BA70H5w5MY Twitter: @GreenJeanMEP http://t.co/6Isc6vT6Zl Facebook: http://www.tinyurl.com/ Office Manager jeanlambert Tom Chance Press Officer Ben Duncan KEITH TAYLOR MEP London Assembly Member Chair of the London Assembly for the South East [email protected] [email protected] http://www.keithtaylormep.org.uk @DarrenJonhsonAM Twitter: @GreenKeithMEP http://london.greenparty.org.uk/ elected-greens/assembly.html Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ Press Officer KeithTaylorMep Ian Wingrove Constituency Coordinator Krysia Williams Activist 17 Who’s Who in the Green Party

National Party Office National Press Office 020 7549 0315 020 7549 0310 [email protected] [email protected] Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street Development House London EC2A 4LT 56-64 Leonard Street Zoe Hall - Press Officer London EC2A 4LT [email protected] Archie Thomas - Press Officer www.greenparty.org.uk [email protected] Twitter: @TheGreenParty 020 7549 0315 www.facebook.com/thegreenparty @archie_thomas Latest news releases here CHRIS LUFFINGHAM http://greenparty.org.uk/news/ Campaigns Director [email protected] Rory O’Keefe TOM BECKETT Leadership Assistant Fundraising & Ops Director [email protected] [email protected] 020 7549 0251 TOM SHARMAN Eloise Shavelar Senior Policy & Comms Officer [email protected] [email protected] Kate Barnett Regional Liaison Officer Finance & Office Manager for Hampshire & Isle of Wight [email protected] Keith Taylor, Green MEP for South East Adam Stacey Membership Admin. Officer www.keithtaylormep.org.uk [email protected] Twitter: @GreenKeithMEP PETER McANDREW Digital Officer [email protected] Target Constituencies & MEGAN HANN General Election Leadership Team Fundraising & Membership Officer Campaign Manager Adam McGibbon [email protected] [email protected] 07712321978 Larissa Hansford Coordinator The campaign to re-elect Caroline in Brighton Pavilion is now well under way. Canvassing is taking place [email protected] weekly. A campaign website will be going live soon. Chris Rose - Election Agent Members are encouraged to attend monthly action days, 01322 838 757 where leafleting and canvassing takes place across the constituency. Join here [email protected] https://my.greenparty.org.uk/civicrm/petition/ Louisa Greenbaum sign?sid=7&reset=1 Conference Coordinator With Brighton Pavilion at No.19 on Labour’s target list for the next general election, and Labour fighting hard to [email protected] attempt to remove the only Green MP in Parliament, it’s TOM HARRIS critical that the entire party is involved in the campaign. Electoral Returning Officer To be added to the “Re-Elect Caroline” campaign mailing [email protected] list, please email : 07966 488690 [email protected] Activist 18 GREEN PARTY REGIONAL COUNCIL (GPRC) Green Party Executive (GPEx) Responsible for keeping under review the general well-being of the Party and Responsible for the overall running and day-to-day direction of the Party. for supporting and advising the Green Party Executive, particularly on matters of Elected biannually by postal ballot of the Party membership. Chair political strategy. Two members from each regional party elected by postal ballot. Richard Mallender 07976 775619 finance GPRC Co-Chairs london Federation chair@greenparty. Michael Coffey Freda Davis and Mike Shone org.uk 07815052762 Jess Lee Secretary: Kevin O’Brien @CllrRMallender finance@greenparty. MINUTES: David Jones [email protected] Facebook: Skype: org.uk Richard_Mallender Internal Communications Peter Barnett Vicky Duckworth vickytoole82@yahoo. Twitter @ Kevin O’Brien Leader PeterGBarnett co.uk Natalie Bennett @VickyDuckworth kev_green_party_ internalcommunications@ (see previous page) Vicky Duckworth- [email protected] greenparty.org.uk Green

INternational Mike Shone North East Deputy Leader mike.shone@ Derek Wall Sandy Irvine btopenworld.com international@ (see previous page) @MikeShone2 0191 2844367 / greenparty.org.uk 0758 2257731 @Anothergreen sandyirvine45@ http://another-green- gmail.com world.blogspot.co.uk/ http://www. Deputy Leader agreenerway.info/wordpress/ AMELIA WOMACK LOcal Party Support South West (see previous page) Emily Blyth VACANT 07743862651 JENNY RUST localpartysupport@ East Midlands greenparty.org.uk Mike Shipley jennyrust@hotmail. Twitter: EFBlyth 01663743120 Campaigns co.uk Howard Thorp sue_mikeshipley@ yahoo.co.uk campaigns@ greenparty.org.uk Management RicKy Knight Twitter: @hgthorp Mark Cridge rickyknight@ blog 07968592550 northdevongreens. Sue Ledger management@ org.uk 01663743120 greenparty.org.uk 01271 371732 0779160971 Elections Twitter: @markcridge @greenknight49 sue_mikeshipley@ Facebook: ecowarrior49 yahoo.co.uk JUDY MACKIE- JOWSKA TRADE UNION LIAISON elections@ greenparty.org.uk ROMAYNE PHOENIX Yorks & Humberside North West romaynephoenix@ GEOFF SMITH EqualitY & Diversity mac.com 01900812210 @romaynephoenix PETE KENNEDY Shan Oakes geoffandhelen@ 01482 862085 or btconnect.com 07769 607710 [email protected] shan@voice- Publications international.net MARTIN COLLINS @shanoakes publications@ Nicole Haydock facebook greenparty.org.uk Freda Davis 0161 7051560 blog 07971 296025 e-mail: haydockbgp@ Jack McGlen freda247davis@ yahoo.com jmcglen_sw@yahoo. gmail.com co.uk @uathindigo 07905678618 Wales GP Leader @jmcglen Eastern facebook Pippa Bartolotti South East pippabartolotti@ VACANT VACANT VACANT walesgreenparty.com @pippabartolotti Wales JILL MILLS External Communications pippa.bartolotti jlsmills@tiscali. Chris Simpson CLAIR PHIPPS Blog http:// co.uk christopher_s@ MATT HAWKINS pippabartolotti.com btinternet.com and Penny Kemp Young Greens Co-Chairs VACANT 07590 046503 Clifford Fleming pennyanne.kemp@ clifford@younggreens. btinternet.com org.uk @penny_kemp @cliffordfleming Blog: Policy CARRIE BOWES Siobhan and MacMahon Sam Riches siobhan@ 07866806512 younggreens.org.uk policy@greenparty. @mac_shivers org.uk Activist 19 COMMITTEES Regional Parties policy working groups The Association of Green East Midlands If you belong to a working group Councillors Campaigns Committee not listed, contact Sam Riches, Policy eastmidlands.greenparty.org.uk Coordinator: Robert Lindsay Peter Allen, Peter Murry, Karl Coordinator:[email protected] Regional Contact H: 01449 741959 M: 07947127693 Stanley, Rob Telford (1 vacancy) David Foster 01332 608977 Jobs and Industry [email protected] Sue Ledger (GPRC) [email protected] Jonathan Essex Twitter: @GPEWCampaigns Press Office Mike Shipley [email protected] Executive 07801 541 924 Conferences Committee [email protected] Chair: John Coyne Ricky Knight (Convenor) Eastern Housing [email protected] Louisa Greenbaum eastern.greenparty.org.uk Tom Chance Vice Chairs: Liz Wakefield [email protected] Conferences Coordinator Regional Contact Alan Weeks louisa.greenbaum@greenparty. Ian Brandon Rural Affairs Treasurer: Susan Murray org.uk [email protected] Mike Shipley Parish/Town cllrs’ rep: Deborah Fink, Stuart Neyton, Press Office James Abbott @derbyshiregreenparty.org.uk John Marjoram Adam Ramsay, Ben Sweeney, [email protected] 07791 640 971 GPRC Rep: Mike Shone Sue Ledger (GPRC) London Energy The AGCis open to Green councillors [email protected] london.greenparty.org.uk Ceri Jones and wannabe councillors. Go to: Regional Contact [email protected] http://agc.greenparty.org.uk/how- to-join.html Disputes Resolution 020 8340 7759 Education Committee [email protected] Richard Clarke Read more about the AGC at: Owen Clarke, Ben Sweeney, www.agc.greenparty.org.uk Press Office Matthew Hawkins [email protected] Bernard Ekbery, Adam McGregor [email protected] Population (1 vacancy) North East Nicky Watson Scottish Green Party [email protected] neengland.greenparty.org.uk [email protected] http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/ Equality & Diversity Regional Contact Animal Protection Green Party in Northern Committee Shirley Ford 01914565464 Caroline Allen [email protected] [email protected] Deborah Fenney, Manishta http://www.greenpartyni.org/ Sunnia, Alan Borgars, Alex Press Office Nic Best TRANSPORT Rendall (1 vac)) 01670 517915, 07878 896292 Alan Francis [email protected] [email protected] Economics http://europeangreens.eu/contact Green World Editorial North West Steve Emmott Board Miriam Kennet northwest.greenparty.org.uk [email protected] European Green Party Committee Laura Burley (Convenor) Regional Contact 07990 590463 [email protected] Emily Heath 01524 380169 00 32 (0)10 41 16 54 Drugs [email protected] Mobile: 00 32 (0) 477 902 318 Nicholas Hales, Thomas Shane Collins Williams, Press Office Andy Donnelly [email protected]. [email protected] Iris Ryder, Nicole Haydock, Mike [email protected] 07952 929 710 Shipley (GPRC), Peter Barnett South East Green European Foundation southeast.greenparty.org.uk Rue d'Arlon 15, B - 1050 , (GPEx) Young Greens Regional Contact International Committee Green Party, 56-64 Leonard St +32 (0) 2 234 65 70 Jonathan Kent 02082499021 London EC2A 4LT Danny Bates, Ray Cunningham, [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] 020 7549 0301 Lucy Early, John Street, Jana Press Office website: www.gef.eu Szczepaniak [email protected] http://younggreens.org.uk/ Greens/EFA Central Members under the age of 30. Policy Committee South West Details about local groups and secretariat Sam Riches (Convenor), Alan southwest.greenparty.org.uk general enquiries contact: Office PHS02C27 Paul Henri Spaak building Francis, Benali Hamdache, Regional Contact Coordinator Daniel Key, Brian Heatly, Rustam Chris Millman 01179688845 Rue Wiertz 60, 1047 Brussels, Larissa Hansford Majainah [email protected] Belgium Norma Sherratt 01179247806 [email protected] website: www.greens-efa.eu Standing Orders Committee [email protected] National Committee Doug Rouxel, Rustam Majainah Federation of Young Press Office Andrew Bell Co-Chairs (convenors) Casper Drake, [email protected] European Greens Ian McCulloch, Matthew Siobhan MacMahon Rue Wiertz 31, B - 1050 Brussels, Wales [email protected] Clark, Moira Dunworth soc@ wales.greenparty.org.uk Belgium Clifford Fleming +32 (0) 2 62 60 72 7 greenparty.org.uk Regional Contact [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Political Committee Ann Were 01600714625 [email protected] Treasurer Charlene Concepcion website: www.fyeg.org (Chair), Pippa [email protected] Press Office Bartolotti, Natalie Bennett, Press Officer Josiah Mortimer Global Greens Jake Griffiths 07752 754537 Global Greens Rue Wiertz 31, B - Jenny Jones, Darren Johnson, [email protected] Caroline Lucas, Richard [email protected] 1050 Brussels, Belgium Mallender, Penny Kemp, Sam West Midlands Non-portfolio members Riches and others... westmidlands.greenparty.org.uk Chris Jarvis Regional Contact [email protected] Green Activist Philip Harrison - coordinator@west- Laura Shepherd midlandsgreenparty.org.uk [email protected] Editor Peter Barnett Fiona Costello Please send corrections, updates, Press Office Scott Redding [email protected] additions to this directory to: 07740 150285 Paul Cohen Green Seniors media@westmidlandsgreenparty. [email protected] internalcommunications@ org.uk Thom French greenparty.org.uk www.greenseniors.co.uk Yorkshire & the Humber [email protected] Maureen Childs, Noel Lynch yorkshireandhumber.greenparty. Young Greens Committee mobile 07979 386683 org.uk online petition: Regional Contact Colin Noble 07825340969 http://www.greenseniors. [email protected] co.uk Press Office Spin Pitman [email protected] Activist 20 Green Activist promoted by Peter Barnett on behalf of the Green Party both at Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT