dannychivers’s Recent Comments

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  See What You Think...

  When mainstream comedy - sadly - doesn't deliver on the environmental front, it's up to campaigners like us to try to fill the gap ourselves. Trying to find the humourous (yes, I'm from the UK) side of environmental collapse is not only important from a communications point of view - it also ties into ideas around self-sufficiency, making our own entertainment, and all that sort of thing.

  This is me attempting to use humour (along with cheesy rhymes, sarcasm and pop culture references) to communicate environmental issues:

  www.myspace.com/dannychivers

  Be interested to know what you all think - and whether other Grist readers have favourite jokes, videos, comedians etc. on a green theme that they'd like to share.

  Danny xOn King of the Hill takes on green posted 1 year ago 16 Responses

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  Offsets Schmoffsets

  It's interesting seeing this debate starting to come to the fore amongst environmental activists in the US. Here in the UK, it's been raging for a while - check out this article by (you guessed it) George Monbiot:

  http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/10/19/selling-indulg ...

  Or, if you're REALLY interested, this special edition of the New Internationalist magazine:

  http://www.newint.org/issues/2006/07/01/

  In my view, whether or not offsetting lulls people into complacency is less important than the fact that it doesn't actually work - at least not in the timescales that we need to tackle climate change. As the inestimable Merrick points out in his Bristling Badger blog:

  "Your emissions happen now. A ton saved today is very different to a ton saved over a few years. The emission is doing damage in the time between emission and absorption. If we keep offsetting a day's emissions over a period of years, we can never catch up.

  "So, if it is to be a real offset, it'd have to save the emissions in the same timeframe as they're released.

  "If we want to offset a return flight from London-Malaga, we could give Climate Care money to dish out low-energy light bulbs in poor areas of South Africa. To offset 0.75 tonnes in the two hours of our actual emission, that'd be about 70,000 low-energy light bulbs. That's about £120,000 for the offsets.

  "When someone comes to me with a receipt of that kind for their flight, then we'll start talking about the injustice of letting the rich do whatever they can pay for."

  There's plenty more of that at http://www.bristlingbadger.blogspot.com/

  All of the research I've done on offsetting has convinced me that it's a huge distraction. It's yet another way of propping up business-as-usual with little real climate benefit, and is delaying the major social and economic shifts that we really need to be getting on with, like, quite fast now, you know?

  Just imagine if everyone who bought an offset instead donated that money to campaigners tackling the root causes of climate change around the world - and didn't pretend that it had somehow made their own carbon emissions disappear. Or better yet, imagine if they reduced their own emissions as far as possible, then went out and campaigned for the economic and social changes needed to get rid of the rest, rather than pretending that they can pay someone else to make them go away.

  Hey, a boy can dream.

  ******

  Danny

  http://adaisythroughconcrete.blogspot.comOn Dueling assumptions posted 2 years, 6 months ago 18 Responses

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  EU Cap and Trade - a Roaring Success

  ...for the polluters, anyway:

  http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2044717 ...

  http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,, ...

  Ho hum.On Discuss amongst yourselves posted 2 years, 6 months ago 8 Responses

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  Don't forget about the locals!

  Interesting thread, but I'd take the issue over land rights a bit further. We need to be very careful that we, as activists in the wealthy world, aren't arguing about what high-level economic policies "we" need to put in place to "save the rainforests" without involving the people who live there. Indigenous peoples' organisations and local environmental groups around the world are already mobilising on this issue, and directly challenging the loggers and plantation companies on the ground;  we should be doing all we can to support their efforts, and ensuring that their voices are included in policy-making on this issue.

  All too often, we fall into the habit of seeing these issues purely from our own perspective, and forgetting that millions of people in the Global South are also fighting the same battles for justice and a clean environment - but in far more dangerous, difficult and immediate conditions. We need to find ways to link up with, and both support and learn from the (often successful) struggles of grassroots activists all over the world. What's going on out there is actually really exciting and is one of the things that gives me real hope for the future. The people are not going to give up their lands and livelihoods without a fight; we should be supporting that fight, because ultimately it's the same as our own.

  You can find more information on local struggles against biofuel plantations and rainforest destruction at: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/

  I met grassroots activists from all over the world at the World Social Forum in January, and then wrote a summary of the main things I learned there: http://adaisythroughconcrete.blogspot.com/2007/04/and-onl ...

  DxOn How to save the last carbon sinks posted 2 years, 7 months ago 14 Responses

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  Getting back to the original subject...

  ...there's a good article by George Monbiot in today's Guardian on this very topic:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2053521, ...

  Check it out!On The innerworkings of it all posted 2 years, 7 months ago 69 Responses