Bibi van der Zee

The Guardian, September 22 2012

Asked to guess the water footprint of the fantastic milky coffee that I am drinking in Leila’s Shop, a cafe and food shop in Shoreditch, London, I hazard a guess of 10, maybe 15 litres? The actual figure – 207L – nearly makes me spit it out again.

The pressure on our global water supplies has been growing alongside a rapidly increasing human population. At present about 41% of the world’s population lives with what Unesco calls “severe water stress”, and that number is predicted to rise to two-thirds by 2025. A 2006 UN report states: “The word crisis is sometimes overused in development. But when it comes to water, there is a growing recognition that the world faces a crisis that, left unchecked, will derail progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and hold back human development.”

But awareness and understanding is still low. “Most of us in the west don’t really think this is our problem. We think we use about 150L of water a day, and that’s that,” says Leila McAlister, proprietor of the shop.

In reality the picture is much more complicated. We may use 150L of “real” water (which is still higher than most countries – in China average daily “real” water use is 86L, and 46 in Kenya). But around 70-80% of accessibly freshwater used by humans is directed towards agriculture. And increasingly experts argue that the water that goes into producing our food and goods should really be included in that total too, in a concept of embodied water known as “virtual water”, or your water footprint.

Using this measurement, our water footprint is actually far higher and has far more impact then most of us realise. At the beginning of his bookVirtual Water, Prof Tony Allen, creator of the concept, looks at the typical water footprint of your breakfast. The numbers are staggering. Allen quotes 140L for coffee, around 80L for toast, 120L for eggs, 240L for milk: coming, in total, to 1,100L, or around three bathtubs of water.

Our globalised agricultural system means that much of that water use is not in the country where the product is being consumed. So developed countries are essentially exporting their water use, just as they export carbon emissions. It’s been estimated by the Water Footprint Networkthat Europe exports 42% of its water footprint.

It was in order to raise awareness of the situation that McAlister teamed up with Allen to create the Wonderwater pop up café (open until Sunday) at Leila’s Shop, allowing Allen’s team to come in and audit her menu, and then to create a new version with the virtual water footprint of every offering beside it.

The eggs fried with tangy, smoky sage? A water footprint of 732L, thanks to the gigantic water footprint of olive oil. The utterly delicious cavolo nero and bean soup? More olive oil means that the footprint is 619L. McAlister admits to having been shocked by the water consumption of the vanilla pods in her damson compote. “They really take up a lot of water. The footprint for that was 994L.”

It’s not really clear, at the moment, what we are supposed to do with this information. “This is all very skeletal form now,” says Naho Mirumachi, who works alongside Allen at King’s College London. “The issue is extremely complex, and we are only beginning to make progress and really understand it. There really is no consumer guidance, but as our understanding develops it will come.”

Though McAlister admits it has been fascinating to “have a team of academics come in and work on my food and tell me things I didn’t know about it”, she has yet to stop using any ingredients. “It has helped me to visualise the issue though.”

September 11, 2012

So it turns out that, up until July this year at least, John Hayes, our new Energy minister, was employing Dr Lee Rotherham as one of his members of staff.

Who is Rotherham? Well, according to the House of Parliament register of interest, he is, besides being a member of Hayes’ staff, “Campaign Secretary, Conservatives Against a Federal Europe. Serves in Territorial Army. Researcher, Taxpayers’ Alliance (political campaigning on public spending)”.

I’m not going to be distracted by the Territorial Army (other than to register a giant eh?!?) but I really am intrigued by this connection between our energy minister and the Taxpayer’s Alliance, a group which proudly describes itself as being in favour of low taxes and small government.

Obviously this does not mean that the Minister himself is signed up to the group that is sometimes referred to as the British version of the US Tea Party.

But Rotherham has worked with/for Hayes since at least 2010. (I am waiting to hear from the ministry whether Rotherham is still there now.) He is also listed by the Taxpayer’s Alliance website on the staff page as a research fellow – he has been there since 2009.

So, just for interest’s sake, now that Hayes is energy minister, let’s sum up the Taxpayer Alliance position on the environment. They want a third runway built, and quickly. They oppose the High Speed rail line. They think wind turbines are “poor value“. They are extremely opposed to anything that can be labelled green taxes… but that is kind of obvious.

Their chief executive, Matthew Sinclair, is the author of a book called Let Them Eat Carbon. The description on Amazon says: “Climate change policies dramatically raise electricity bills; make it much more expensive to drive to work or fly on holiday; put manufacturing workers out of a job and sometimes even make your food more expensive. Climate change is big business. Much of the money so-called green policies cost us goes straight into the pockets of a bewildering range of special interests. Around the world companies are making billions out of the schemes governments have put in place saying they will curb global warming and protect us from the threat of climate change. There is little evidence that those policies are an efficient way to cut emissions. They simply do not represent good value, and the public are right to be sceptical. In Let Them Eat Carbon Matthew Sinclair looks at the myths perpetuated by the burgeoning climate change industry, examines the individual policies and the potentially disastrous targets being put into place by ambitious politicians, and proposes a more realistic alternative.”

So Sinclair is not precisely a climate change sceptic, but he does seem to think there is some kind of climate change business conspiracy going on. And the book comes highly recommended by Lord Nigel Lawson.

Rotherham, to be fair, is more obsessed with the European Union than with the environment. And none of this may throw any light on the attitudes and the policies to come from John Hayes, who has, for sure, his own opinion on these issues. For all we know he loves their tax thoughts, but thinks they’re cranky as hell on the environment. I really really hope so.

Update; DECC have confirmed that they do not employ Dr Lee Rotherham, and have referred me to John Hayes’ office. I have not heard back from them yet.

First column as the Ecologist’s political correspondent (hurrah!); September 5th 2012

Reshuffles work like this. The prime minister and his best mates huddle together for a week or two, reviewing all their ministers and trying to work out who they like, who to drop, and who needs promoting. They then, over the course of a brutal couple of days, carry this out (pity poor farming minister Jim Paice who was axed over the phone as he wandered around the exhibits at an agricultural show in Birmingham).

And then everyone else piles in and tries to infer, from subtle signs (he said she said, etc) and from, obviously, actual established facts what the prime minister and his friends are thinking, and what significance this holds for the next year or so of our lives.

Now, in terms of the environment, the significant facts are these; At the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Caroline Spelman (who seemed to be a bit of a govbot) has been replaced as secretary for state by Owen Patterson. Jim Paice, the afore-mentioned farming minister, has now been replaced by David Heath.

Meanwhile over at the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey, the secretary for state, stays in position, as does climate change minister Greg Barker. But Charles Hendry, former energy minister, has been replaced by John Hayes.
 
Those are the facts. But what is their significance?

There are three issues everyone has leapt on. Firstly, Owen Paterson, the new environment secretary, has a history of opposition to wind turbines and may even be a climate sceptic. Secondly, the shuffling around – like the opening gambit in a chess game – clearly indicates that a third runway at Heathrow is now well and truly back on the table. And thirdly, with the general move rightwards of the whole cabinet, we should perhaps be asking if environmental issues gone that way too?

To my eyes, one of those issues is a complete red herring, one opens up a huge political can of worms (but may actually have far less environmental significance than we think), which means only one is of genuine and significant concern.
 
We’ll begin with Owen Paterson – who has already collected an impressive collection of black marks since his appointment, just 24 hours ago. He doesn’t believe in bureaucracy (bad because environmental issues tend to need regulation rather than “light touch” rubbish), he does believe in shale gas, he’s pro-hunting, his brother-in-law is the climate sceptic Matt Ridley, and there are rumours that he too could be a climate sceptic, although in the Guardian Leo Hickman could find nothing on record. On the plus side, however, he’s at DEFRA not DECC, so he’s not actually in charge of energy or climate change policy, except as carried out by the Environment Agency.

Will he appreciate the need for more sustainable practices in farming? His green paper on fishing was vehemently anti-discard, and reportedly influenced Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s fish campaign. So this one really might not be as bad at it looks to start with.

What about Heathrow? This could be the Jeffrey-Archer-potboiler of domestic politics for the next few years. The Tories have already said that they’re now open to discussing it, and anti-aviations activists will already be dusting off their D-locks.

To add to the fun and games, Boris Johnson seems to have chosen this as the issue to launch his leadership campaign; he’s refused to rule out a by-election and told the World At One that he would lead the opposition if the government u-turned. 
 
But this is what really concerns me. The battle over the third runway has the potential to be the central focus of the environmental movement for the next couple of years, and even beyond.

It’s got glamour (come on, Bojo is kind of glamourous in a weird, confusing, what-am-I-thinking way), drama, political intrigue, and, best of all, it’s lovely and specific. The question is, should it? 
 
Because it’s the third issue that this reshuffle has thrown up that really concerns me.

Over at DECC Ed Davey (the libdem who replaced Chris Huhne) is still in place as Secretary of State; he has a reputation for being extremely green, thankfully. But over the summer Davey has been locked in conflict with Osborne, who has made it clear that he prefers gas and oil to renewables.

Damian Carrington recently wrote that a senior source had told him that DECC was viewed by the treasury as a bunch of “renewable energy fanatics”; it is profoundly worrying, then, that Cameron has now replaced energy minister Charles Hendry with John Hayes.
 
Why? Hayes, it turns out, is opposed to wind turbines. It is not clear what his attitude to other aspects of the renewable spectrum is, but he has stated publically that wind farms have a “detrimental effect on wildlife”.

Hendry, his predecessor, was universally respected by people from all ends of the energy world, and will be very much missed. Hayes? He is an unknown quantity.
 
This is the last thing we need. Heathrow is a problem. But our future energy policy, the formation of the country’s infrastructure, is a far more significant and important problem, in truth. We must set on a course of investment in renewables, and we must do it now, because the longer we leave it the more expensive and difficult it becomes.

Why? Hayes, it turns out, is opposed to wind turbines. It is not clear what his attitude to other aspects of the renewable spectrum is, but he has stated publicly that wind farms have a “detrimental effect on wildlife”.  He also appears to be only lackadaisically interested in climate change, having been absent for several of the votes on the climate change bill (although he did vote for the government to sign up to the 10;10 campaign). Hendry, his predecessor, was universally respected by people from all ends of the energy world, and will be very much missed. Hayes? Is an unknown quantity.

This is the last thing we need. Heathrow is a problem. But our future energy policy, the formation of the country’s infrastructure, is a far more significant and important problem, in truth. We must set on a course of investment in renewables, and we must do it now, because the longer we leave it the more expensive and difficult it becomes. What has Hayes got planned? Until he spells it out for us, we are in the dark. And I’m not so keen on that.

A news round up for Headline Environment, July 23

Prices was what everything environmental seemed to come down to last week. The price of milk. The price of corn. The price of oil (always the price of oil). And the price of our energy bills. The delicate little mechanism that communicates the perceived value of something (our environment, the natural world, the future) to its consumer was under severe strain in all directions. At heart last week’s environmental news was all about the fact that, in reality, pricing the environment is impossible. Which is not news at all.

The price of milk

The UK’s dairy industry has been under breakneck pressure for a couple of decades now. The numbers tell the sad story most clearly; there were 34,750 dairy farmers in 1996, now there are just 14,500, after years of relentless pressure on prices from the supermarket chains. This combines with a supine public that appears happy to buy cheap milk and ignore the social impact.

In The Observer Jay Rayner cited Booths, the northern supermarket chain, which has been selling Bowlands Fresh – a brand of milk sold at a 3p a pint premium that goes back to farmers – for 15 years. It has never been more than 10 per cent of their sales.

And now there’s this latest 2p a litre price cut, despite the fact that the supermarkets are making comfortable profits (up to 17p a litre) themselves. According to Rayner – and other commentators – the supermarkets have behaved with “savage, gross” irresponsibility.

But last week seemed to be the week that the farmers were finally breaking cover, and most sections of the media appeared to give them their full backing. On Thursday and then on Friday again hundreds of farmers blockaded milk-processing plants around the country.

The results, so far, have been interesting; both the Co-op and Morrisons have promised to pay higher prices. But the mood, according to Charles Clover in The Sunday Times, is now militant. “If the supermarkets do not reverse the prices cuts [a farmer told him] farmers are likely to blockade supermarket depots or pour away milk to cause shortages that will hurt the meaner supermarkets… I never thought I would see such desperate measure supported by such sensible men, but these are desperate times.”

The price of corn

On the same theme, but reflecting a different set of pressures, the price of some food commodities reached all time highs last week. A prolonged and still worsening drought in the US has devastated what Bloomberg in its drought monitor report calls the “breadbasket of the US”.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports for the week, according to Bloomberg, indicated that 38 per cent of the nation’s corn crop was in poor to very poor condition, compared to 30 per cent a week ago, and 30 per cent of soybeans were in poor to very poor condition (compared to 27 per cent the previous week). “Fifty-four per cent of the nation’s pasture and rangeland was in poor to very poor condition, which is a jump of 4 per cent compared to [the previous] week and is an all-time high for the 1995-2012 growing season weekly history.”

“For the third time in five years, the world is braced for a food crisis,” wrote Tom Stevenson in The Telegraph. The Financial Times put the crisis on its front page on Friday with a story by Jack Farchy and Gregory Meter, and quoted David Nelson of Rabobank as saying: “Today the disaster is real, whereas to some degree the big run up in prices in 2008 was speculatively driven.”

In other words, this time we really may not have enough food to go round. Environmentalists such as Lester Brown have been highlighting the dangers of our reduced emergency capacity for some time now; it is truly frightening to think that this summer’s droughts in the States may fully expose those dangers in the next couple of months.

The price of oil

An interesting story by Benedict Mander in the Financial Times last Monday revealed that oil prices are causing Hugo Chavez serious problems in the run up to the next election. Much of his political success has been predicated on using profits from the huge oil bonanza currently being enjoyed by Venezuela for social projects. So far so good, in fact; surely this is an improvement on the money vanishing abroad into offshore bank accounts?

Except that it appears he may have become too dependent on oil, and now that the price is gently drifting downwards he is feeling the effects. According to some sums by Capital Economics of London, if Brent oil prices fall to $85 a barrel, the decline in Venezuela’s revenues would equal 2.5 per cent of GDP.

And the price of our energy bills

The battle over our energy bills continues – and will continue for many years, I suspect. The situation is, after all, just like the situation with our food bills. We don’t want to pay the money we need to pay if farming or energy generation is to be done sustainably.

Here, a row between the Treasury and the Department for Energy and Climate Change over subsidies for renewables this week clearly revealed the extent to which George Osborne sits tight in the usual political box labelled “give the punter what they want and ignore the cost further down the line”. Ed Davey wants to prioritise renewables, reported George Parker and Pilita Clark on the Financial Times front page, while Osborne wants large cuts in existing subsidies and a joining up between energy policy on renewables and natural gas. The resulting row, complained CBI head John Cridland, is holding back investment.

Osborne’s thinking on the environment seems to be about as sophisticated as his political strategising. So it was quite entertaining to see another environmental sceptic, Nigel Lawson, basically telling him to stick to economics and dump his role as Tory strategy chief: “I do think it might be sensible to give up the formal role and focus exclusively on his job as Chancellor of the Exchequer which is a tremendously important job,” Lawson told BBC Radio 4, according to the Huffington Post.

Dismissing suggestions that Osborne should be moved to a different role, he said: “I think his last budget was not his biggest success but I think he should continue in that job.”

Chinese wind and American gas

So what is going on with energy? The Chinese segment of the wind industry is growing ever faster (Sinovel and Goldwind are now the second and third largest wind companies in the world) while the Chinese are now in talks with the British government about building us some power stations. “The Chinese have the money and the experience,” a source told The Guardian, whose Fiona Harvey and Terry Macalister broke the story on Saturday. “They see setting up in the UK as an opportunity to show they can operate in one of the world’s toughest regulatory environments so they can then move into other markets in Africa and the Middle East.”

And fracking continues to generate controversy; in the States, Edward Luce wrote in the Financial Times on Monday, IHS Cera has calculated that fracking has created 600,000 new jobs while Obama’s election promises of five million “green collar jobs” appears to have been forgotten. Meanwhile in Japan the anti-nuclear cause is uniting people in protests of a size that has very rarely been seen there; 75,000 people marched on Monday, in a country where demonstrations rarely break into the thousands.

But hey it’s all okay. British Gas will this week announce record profit jumps of 25per cent according Danny Fortson in the business section of The Sunday Times. Yup. That delicate pricing mechanism I mentioned? There’s always one party who seems to do well out of it.

The Guardian, 5th July 2012

You see it as soon as you come over the headland. The 65-metre chimneys rise above the vast silver roofs. The trees around the incinerator will grow eventually, but for now it sits in a scrubby valley of chalk soil, exposed, and still shinily new.

Controversy has dogged the waste incinerator at Newhaven in East Sussex from the start. The small port town itself has a population of just 12,000, but more than 16,000 objections to the plans to locate an incinerator near the town centre were received from the area.

The county council went against popular sentiment and granted permission. Subsequent attempts for a judicial review were rejected, and the decision was chased all the way up to the then secretary of state Ruth Kelly. She ruled in favour. On Wednesday, after more than 10 years of fighting, the incinerator was officially opened.

The new site will be operated by Veolia, which currently owns seven operational incinerators, which they call “energy recovery facilities”, with a further site under construction in Staffordshire. The government says incinerator facilities are expanding rapidly across the country, with 23 operating in England and a further 70 sites at various stages of planning and development.

On both sides in Newhaven, however, it seems the long battle over the plant has been neither forgiven nor forgotten. Outside a small group of protesters held up signs reading “What human rights?”. One local woman, dropping off a friend, said that she wouldn’t be staying. “It’s too late, isn’t it? I can’t bear to look at it.” Pauline Miles, 75, has lived in Newhaven for 46 years and said: “This is the end for Newhaven. Our town has been going down and down and we’re the dregs now. The health risks frighten me. Why is it in a town? Why not up country somewhere? All those trucks!”

Inside, speaking at the launch ceremony, Peter Jones, leader of East Sussex council, referred angrily to the “voodoo science” peddled by campaigners, and talked of “the triumph of fact-based evidence over wilful ignorance” that has led to the facility opening. “It is a great shame that due to the misleading information, the liberal population of Newhaven just won’t engage with this incinerator as they might.”

Incinerators take residual waste – whatever is left over after recycling and compost collections – and turn it into fuel, using the rubbish in place of coal or gas to drive turbines and produce electricity.

At Newhaven the rubbish is trucked in from six different local authorities and tipped down chutes into the vast dump. From the control room, you can peer about 40 metres down into the extraordinary landscape of rubbish; it’s possible to pick out wheel hubs, crisp packets and apple juice cartons, but much of it is shredded or just rotted and unrecognisable.

From here the 15 people who run the entire site use joysticks to control enormous grabbers that mix the rubbish and pick up huge bundles to dump into the furnaces. These run at 1000C, heating water and powering turbines to generate, at capacity, 19MW. By comparison, a large onshore wind turbine can have a capacity of 5MW, while the UK’s largest power station, coal-fired Drax, has a generating capacity of 3,960MW.

Campaigners claim numerous problems with incinerators as a solution to the UK’s waste problems. Shlomo Dowen, of UK Without Incineration Network believes that incinerators are disastrous in terms of climate, cost and efficiency. “There are far more exciting and useful waste disposal technologies coming through now, and incineration is stifling their development.”

He also points out that an incinerator requires a certain amount of waste to keep the furnaces going, so the local community is locked into providing that for 20 years, rather than reducing or recycling.

Richard Kirkman, head of technology at Veolia, sees incineration as currently the most environmentally friendly option. Conceding that waste is a less efficient fuel than coal, he counters that the energy produced is far less carbon intensive, at just 275g of CO₂ per KWh. That compares with about 910g from coal, and 390g from gas according to figures from the International Energy Agency. “Things will evolve, definitely. This may not be the best solution in 20 years. But for now, for the next 20 years, this is the right thing to do.”

On the growing number of incinerators, a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “It is one among several waste technologies, a combination of which is needed for sustainable waste management. The government is focused on energy outcomes in terms of maximising outputs and not specific technology.” The government has a “waste hierarchy”, he said, which places incineration above landfill but below re-use and recycling.

The people of Newhaven remain unconvinced. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat local MP, boycotted the opening ceremony. “This gigantic intrusion into the landscape was forced on the town against the wishes of virtually all its residents by the Tory county council,” he said. “It has damaged the landscape and sent out a message that Newhaven is simply a convenient dumping ground for the rest of the county. There is nothing to celebrate.”

The Guardian, June 1 2012

After 42 years of lawsuits from GM companies, campaigns against nuclear power, and breastfeeding tips, the Goldsmith family has sold theEcologist magazine for £1.

The magazine, which has been solely online since 2009, will now return to print and incorporated into the 45 year old Resurgence magazine. Editor Satish Kumar described the new title, Resurgence & The Ecologist, as “a marriage made in heaven”.

Zac Goldsmith, the Ecologist’s owner and former editor, said: “The Ecologist has spearheaded social, scientific and political ecology while Resurgence has spearheaded cultural and artistic ecology. Now the time has come to bring these two aspects of the environmental movement together by merging Resurgence and the Ecologist.”

Eight to 10 pages of the magazine, published six times a year, will be dedicated to Ecologist content, but “the flavour of the Ecologist will go right through the magazine,” said Kumar.

The magazine was making losses in millions and was financially propped up by the Goldsmiths since its foundation. Discussion for selling the brand began in April and a deal finalised within two months. The Ecologist archive is now being migrated to Resurgence.

The Ecologist headquarters will be relocated to Devon and staff redundancies will be decided after consultation, Kumar said.

He said financial pressure appear to be the reason behind the sale, with Goldsmiths spending £500,000 a year on the magazine. Zac Goldsmith’s personal fortune is estimated between £200-300m.

The Ecologist was founded in 1970 by the visionary Teddy Goldsmith in the midst of the global wave of awareness that led to the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Environment. That year Goldsmith devoted a whole issue to his ‘Blueprint for Survival’ which began: “The principal defect of the industrial way of life with its ethos of expansion is that it is not sustainable”. The blueprint sold thousands of copies and in its wake PEOPLE, the original incarnation of the UK Green party, was founded.

The Ecologist has always retained its serious reputation, and has been involved in some notable campaigns. In 1998 the magazine’s printers pulped the entire run of an edition critical of Monsanto; it was eventually printed elsewhere and became one of their best-selling editions.

In recent years it has run hard-hitting exposés of US mega-dairies and animal rights issues. A recent investigation into links between Coca-Cola and cheap migrant labour in Italy became an international issue. More recently the website ran a special series of articles on breastfeeding around the world. The website was getting about 200,000 unique page views a month.

Kumar hopes the “merger” can bring together the best of bothmagazines.”The spirituality and strength of Resurgence, with the campaigning and politics of the Ecologist,” he said. The first joint issue will be launched in September at a special event featuring Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, economist Richard Layard and environmentalist Jonathan Porritt among others.

Pat Thomas, Ecologist editor between 2007 and 2009, said: “There’s a real sadness about it, although perhaps it will work out in the end. But no matter how you phrase it, it will be a loss. Part of the Ecologist’s strength came from being independent.”

The Ecologist, May 6 2012

After some of the biggest breakthroughs in their history, the Green Party now faces a leadership election;  what happens now? Are the Greens ready to take the next big leap forward?

The mood of optimism and confidence at the Green party conference in March was palpable. Jenny Jones, the mayoral candidate, took the stand in a glittering silver jacket and told the audience: “I think the progress we’re making is so substantial! [cheers]… The BBC has decided that the greens are now in the second tier for media coverage with the libdems [cheers] and I now stand an excellent chance of coming third!” Even more cheers. It really did feel like a sunshine moment.

After all, the UK Greens now had an MP, two MEPs, and minority control of Brighton and Hove council. Membership had been steadily rising (the man sitting on my right had just come over from the Libdems), and so had donations.

Moreover, after a few years of limited political recognisability (the days of David Icke also thankfully long gone) the party had a star. Caroline Lucas’s media profile was rising unstoppably, significantly outstripping all the rest of the new parliamentary intake, except perhaps Louise Mensch. She was managing to operate at an extraordinarily high level as an MP, already serving on the Environmental Audit Committee, the Energy Bill Public Committee and as co-chair of the APPG on fuel poverty, as well as half a dozen others, while also contributing regularly to debates in the house.

Perhaps most importantly however, the Greens could talk about political and economic policies that no other party dared articulate. While Labour and the Conservatives split hairs over the rate of debit reduction, the Greens were boldly calling for a Robin Hood tax, for progressive taxation, for an increase in corporation tax and in capital gains tax and a crackdown on tax havens. And while everyone else spun helplessly in the orbit of the quest for infinite growth, the Greens were in a position, surely, to open up a new, vital discussion about limits to growth and the steady state economy.

But within a couple of hours of Jenny’s speech the mood had soured. The next significant meeting on the agenda was about Brighton and Hove councillors, who had recently ended a long and bitter battle over their budget by voting – all except one councillor – with Labour and the Tories on the amended budget. Here bitter disappointment erupted. “What is the point of being in power if you have no principles and do exactly the same as the Labour party?” roared one member. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” shouted another. Within the next few weeks several members would leave in protest. And soon afterward Lucas would step down as party leader. Were the old problems closing in again?

Founded in 1972 – the year that issues like population growth and sustainability really began to register with politicians and the public – the Green Party (known as PEOPLE to start with) was always supposed to be about a different kind of politics. Attempts in the 80s, 90s and early noughties to modernise the party and move it into the mainstream became battles from which all emerged with scars, but little modernisation. But in 2005 a group of members got together and began to talk about strategy. “Before then the party had mostly been run by people who wanted to do politics differently,” says Brighton councillor Matt Follett, who was policy adviser during the general election. “But to my mind that meant unsuccessfully. It seemed to me that we needed to be a bit more conventional here. It’s all very well to win the argument, but you can still be ignored. But if you take seats and votes then something in the mainstream will really begin to shift.”

The first change that needed to take place, thought the modernisers, was to have one leader in place, instead of the longstanding Green party tradition of joint principals.  Against some fierce opposition (to this day economic spokesperson Molly Scott Cato finds it “disempowering for everyone”) they successfully got the change through. Caroline – “who had been initially nervous about the whole idea” according to Follett – was duly elected leader, and then selected as parliamentary candidate in Brighton where the Greens had made a strong showing in 2005. And then the party began to really focus.

“The only way we could win Brighton Pavilion is by concentrating all our resources on one target,” explains Caroline Lucas, “and that was quite a big ask for everyone else around the country, but we really concentrated on this and that allowed us to do things that we’d never done before like focus groups, hoarding advertising, social media.”

Gratifying election success was the result, followed a year later by a victory that some regard as even more significant; gaining minority control of Brighton and Hove council. A year on, however, the realities of political life have begun to emerge, and are raising, as conference showed, difficult questions for the party that must be answered.

The results of all the work have, for some, been disappointing. I spoke to a couple of members who have left recently, and they cited disorganisation, disillusionment after the decisions in Brighton and Hove, and a sense that if you were going to have to make compromises anyway, you might as well be with a party that has a chance of national election (Labour’s revival after the local elections have certainly been a contributing factor here). Meanwhile some still in the party admit – off the record – to profound disappointment with the lack of strategy and clear thinking in the party since the two election victories. Some feel that Lucas has not been entirely successful in getting more recognition and understanding for green policies. And even the most enthusiastic members admit that they are not exactly sure where the party is headed next.

What, after all, is the plan? Having got this far where do the Greens want to go next? Caroline Lucas – still leader when I spoke to her – outlines thoughts about the collapse of the libdems and concentrating resources on the Young Greens. She then lists the South West, the North West and the East as parts of the country that need to be particularly focussed on. When I ask what the party’s takeaway message is for voters, she says: “We’re working on it, but social and environmental justice – although probably not those words – are probably the key elements.” The plan, in other words, is being worked on, but is not fully in place at the moment.

Is this a problem? Well, surely the Greens should be making headway at the moment; if not now when? But some members, such as Adam Ramsay, point out that the leadership election will be a way to focus on these issues, and members (Greens love a good discussion) see that as a wholly positive thing. “For the last few years we’ve been either fighting elections or we’ve just finished elections,” says Ramsay. “There is a discussion to be had, and I think this is exactly the right moment to be having it.”

Let’s not worry that the elections will turn into an old-fashioned bunfight. In the last few years, after all, the Greens have shown that they have the ambition and discipline to change their parties rules, and then get an MP elected; there is every reason to hope that they will choose wisely, and, as numerous people have been quick to tell me, they have a number of excellent candidates to choose from.

Let’s assume, instead, that the elections proceed calmly and that a new leader is collectively approved. This new leader will head a party with several significant disadvantages. The Greens continue to be short of money, although they now have a professional fundraiser. They are also terribly disadvantaged by the UK’s political system; green parties in countries with proportional representation have made far more headway and Lucas is frustrated by the fact that there is no state political funding here: “I can’t believe we fight wars over democracy but we can’t come up with 50p a year for funding.”.

And there is and will always be a part of the party who are opposed to any kind of pragmatic politicking – because the Green party is supposed to be about a different kind of politics. One ex member was deeply frustrated by the inability of some members to understand that it was not possible to leap straight from the current state of affairs straight to a post-growth ecological economy; “steps and compromises have to be made on the way, but some people won’t accept that”.

But the greens are also at a unique moment in their history, a moment when, if they are wise they can extend their influence further than they ever have, if they continue to be as focussed and clearsighted as they have been up for the last four years. And, as I saw at the conference, the members, committed and passionate one and all, are also the party’s greatest strength. Some may have criticised the Brighton and Hove councillors, but many also leapt to their defence. The discussion of policy motions was calm, organised, and democratic in the extreme.

I spoke to one political activist who said: “When I first got involved with the party I expected to find a bunch of argumentative hippies. Instead I found well-organised, thoughtful people who were making tiny resources go miles.” (He did say a few of them were a bit reluctant to buy their round – but you can’t have everything!) The Greens have a young generation coming through that any political party would be happy to include in its ranks. And they also have an older generation who have spent an enormous amount of time thinking about environmental and economic issues such as a steady state economy and a post-growth strategy (the work in progress by the thinktank Green House on these issues could be crucial in continuing to bring these subjects into mainstream discussion). And studies have shown that, taken in isolation, green policies are more popular with the public than those of the larger parties.

The combination means, potentially, a powerful argument along with the young legs to carry it round the streets; it is a combination that activists love. But can it deliver a great leap forward? Lucas says, with characteristic honesty and thoughtfulness: “I recognise that the trajectory of our political progress, the timeline is well behind where we need to be, in terms of the challenges that we need to address, and I’m trying to find an answer to that myself… We can’t predict if change is going to happen but we need to make sure we’re in the right place…” She stumbles and I suggest: “I suppose what you’re saying is that you’re trying to at least provide some kind of answer if people do decide they want one?”

She nods. “Yes I think that is what I’m trying to say.  I’m trying to get as clear as possible what an alternative route would be for a more sustainable planet into the future.” The answer that the Greens proffer may not be the one we take. But without their contribution the conversation will not be complete.

The Guardian, April 27 2012

Did climate protest go away? It certainly did. By 2009 the UK had a worldwide reputation for climate action, but in the years after the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December of that year it seemed to be melting away.

Climate Camp spent the summer of 2010 up in Scotland, and then decided to not to set up camp at all in 2011. Stop Climate Chaos was stripped down to a skeleton staff, and the head of Campaign AgainstClimate Change admitted that he was exhausted and “running out of money massively”.

Most activists began to work with new groups, either focused on more specific environmental issues like fracking or the tar sands, or on economic issues such as the cuts. With the focus on the general election and then the eurozone crisis, Tamsin Omond, the founder of Climate Rush, admitted a little forlornly last summer that she was starting to feel like the last person in the country still talking about this issue.

But now the Climate Justice Collective has launched itself on the world. Billing itself as “part of the ongoing renaissance of large-scale climate action in the UK”, CJC hopes to reconnect several strands; economic strategy, social justice and, last but not least the environment and climate change.

Its membership, says Robert Davies, is drawn from former Climate Camp organisers in coalition with groups like UK Uncut, London Coalition Against Poverty, Campaign Against Climate Change, Platform and Rising Tide.

CJC has already set up a well-designed website (classic Climate Camp stuff) and is issuing a call-out for a Big Six Energy Bash on 3 May, targeting the Energy Summit taking place in the City of London.

“The way the energy system is run in this country only works to line the pockets of the big corporations,” says Davies. CJC want to highlight issues like fuel poverty. “Tickets to this summit cost £1,000. The big six energy companies are all attending and working out ways to maintain their monopoly over UK energy.”

The action will take the form of four different blocs – Dirty Energy, Robin Hood, Housing, and Fossil-Free Futures – that will all converge on the summit, and then carry a protest in a form that the organisers have not yet made clear. So is climate change protest back? Well, Davies argues that in some ways it never went away, but CJC will hopefully be able to get a national grassroots climate network energised again.

“It’ll be Climate Camp,” says veteran Jess Worth (now founder of UK Tar Sands Network), “but reinventing itself, lighter on its feet and using different tactics. Climate Camp, but without weighing itself down with the unbelievable logistics of organising a camp every year. Without lots of amazing activists finding themselves co-ordinating the kitchen rota.”