Tracey’s Blog

If you’ve been following progress over at the Low Carbon Communities website you’ll know I have a very good excuse for not blogging here recently. The pace of activity is astounding – suddenly everyone wants to hear what communities are saying and doing in response to the threats of climate change.

The most exciting thing that has been happening to me is my involvement with Franny and Clare over at Spanner Films. Franny is the film maker responsible for Age of Stupid, which will be hitting cinemas early next year. I’m convinced this is going to be the must see film of 2009. Not because it’s about climate change or because it stars the wonderful Pete Postlethwaite, but simply because is a great piece of film making, with stunning visuals and a great cast of real people who tell their stories with enormous  passion.

After an NGO screening (watch the clip - but blink and you’ll miss me!) recently  I spoke to Franny about how communities in the UK could support the film and how we could use it to convey the message that climate change is a global threat and that we must all respond in personal and political ways to ensure that we get the kind of robust climate policies we need at Copenhagen in December 2009. It seems other communities feel the same judging by this comment left on the LCCN site.

So, in addition to my work as a freelance trainer, helping to establish the Low Carbon Communities Network, being a Mum, housewife, chief dog walker and pony carer I’ll be blogging regularly about progress as the Age of Stupid gets closer to launching. You can watch the trailer here and find out more about how the film was made and funded on the website.

Next week I’m speaking at the catchily titled “The Economic Impacts of Climate Change Legislation for Cheshire and Warrington Stakeholder Workshop”, running a session  with Paul Henderson from Ruralnet|UK at the CAfE conference in Oxford and spending three nights back stage helping with the village play here in Ashton Hayes – oh and somewhere in between all that I’ll be submitting a funding proposal and putting together an abstract on communicating behaviour change at the grass roots after my two days at the UKERC Meeting Place last month!

Sunnyside Film Festival

Tags: Age of Stupid

What a week – we have just processed our 100th booking for the Low Carbon Communities Conference on 4th October in llangollen, completed 2 case study reports on low carbon communities in the North West, written two articles on low carbon communities,  written a conference presentation,  answered over 200 emails and still found time to walk the dog!!

For the time being I’m saying goodbye to the Low carbon Diary Blog, but you can still keep up with me by checking out the Conference website, reading my posts for the Chester chronicle or following progress on Sustained Magazine’s Staff Blog.  Or you can email me: lowcarbondiary@gmail.com or follow lowcarbondiary on twitter. See you after the conference x

Tags: communities

Finally home after two inspiring days at 2gether08, there’s lots of video footage and comments on the site about the presentations and what we all got up to, so go take a look. I’ll write more later, but before I attack an email inbox that’s not been touched for three days, just a quick thank you to everyone who made the event such a huge success. Count me in for next year!

Tags: communities, techstuff

Yesterday I went to Salford to run a workshop on “Motivators and Barriers in Your Community”.

The day didn’t start well due to trouble with the trains which meant I was late (but fortunately in time to hear Toby Blume from Urban Forum give a very entertaining presentation about Government policy on community engagement).

Then Straight into presentations and workshops without even time for a coffee! Things got worse when I found my room had been set out “theatre style” instead of chairs in a circle  and 2 other workshops were in the same marquee with  what looked like office display boards to screen us from each other. We could hear the adjacent presentation very clearly and some of my participants had trouble hearing what I was saying, I certainly had trouble hearing them.

I had to abandon my plans for a participatory workshop and debate, but we still managed to raise some of the issues which influence successful community projects  (although the lady at the back who sat filing her nails was clearly disappointed).

To be honest, the person who should have been running my workshop was Gerry Stone a resident and chair of the Seedley and Langworthy Development Trust, who put it in a nutshell in her presentation “People are at the heart of what we do”, she’s right. As community development  workers we all know it’s not what we do “to” or “for” a community that leads to success it’s what we do with them that leads to long term sustainable parterships. The most important motivator in any community project is the people and we have a duty to listen to what the community wants or needs rather than imposing our perceptions of what would lead to improvement.

Some people in my workshop had clearly “got it”, but there were others  who openly admitted they still fly because it’s cheap, haven’t take energy reduction measures in their own homes or kicked the standby habit and couldn’t see much point in taking action other than recycling or reusing their shopping bags. I’m left wondering they came to a workshop entitled “Community Action on Climate Change” in the first place?

I decided to walk back to the station and revisit the place where I used to live,  wandering through Seedley  and into Manchester I came home feeling proud of Salford and the people who live there and hopeful that the stories I heard of active community engagement and empowerment can be told to others and that more residents will be inspired to get involved and supported by adequate funding and professional support to make the changes they want to see in their areas.

Tags: communities

Ever since the launch of the Centre for Alternative Techology’s “Zero Carbon Britain” report it seems people keep sending me stuff about zero carbon projects. This website  was new to me though – make your city carbon zero with Zerofootprint. A Canadian based company selling an array of personal and business offsets. If you want to zerocarbon your home you can buy an offset for just $64.00 (US). You can read more about the project here, including a very useful booklet on everything you ever wanted to know about offsets but were afraid to ask. They even sell a “carbon card” which they describe thus:

“Carbon offsets are the perfect gift for any occasion. Each tonne of carbon dioxide you give to your friends or family is a tonne that won’t go into the atmosphere, and won’t contribute to global warming. That’s a tonne of doing the right thing”.

While there are communities that support offsetting projects, Personally I prefer to reduce my carbon emissions and wean myself off my oil dependent lifestyle rather than investing in offsetting schemes as I can’t get my head round how this leads to tangible reductions in emissions. How do other low carbon communities feel about schemes like this? Is offsetting a short term answer to our high carbon lifestyle? Have any communities invested in offsetting projects? If so, what’s your view?

Tags: communities

While I’m busy confirming bookings and speakers for this year’s low carbon communities conference I thought it might be worth sharing some of the highlights from 2007 with you all. Thanks to fellow blogger Sven Cahling we have a record of the presentation Mark Lynas made to the community groups who attended.

If you feel inspired by Mark’s comments why not take a look at our conference website and follow the link to book for this year. I’ll be posting news of our major sponsors later this week. We are still looking for partners who can offer skill or services for this year, so please do get in touch if you think you might be able to help. If you can’t make it this year rest assured we’ll be posting a record of all the presentations and workshops on the website and we’ll be hoping our friends at the Community Carbon Network will be coming up with some innovative ways for us to share the event with you all.

Tags: communities

One of the nicest things about my job is hearing from all the newly established low carbon community / Transition groups as they emerge.

Stewkley Green near Milton Keynes  recently featured on their local TV news in a feature about their aim to be carbon neutral within 10 years. Roger Crews , the group co-ordinator is hoping to come along to our conference in October. It will be great to meet him and find out more about what’s going on.  Dozens of community projects have had similar TV coverage, which goes to show that the media still has an appetite for positive examples of community action. Good luck to Stewkley Green.

Tags: communities

A COUPLE are set to experience the benefits of becoming more energy efficient by having a monitor installed in their home.

Jackie Bird, 69, and Peter Bird, 79, of Bryn Awelon, in Buckley, volunteered to have a “current cost” monitor installed in their home, which will allow them to record, monitor and evaluate the amount of electricity they use over the next two months.

The “Going Carbon Neutral” project in Mold teamed up with the couple and other volunteers from the area, to encourage them to reduce their home energy consumption.

The aim of the project is to supply homes with the monitor for two months, which will show the readings of all the appliances used in the home. Keeping track of the readings will determine which appliances are using the most energy and which ones are wasting the most.

Steve Woosey, from the Energy Saving Trust in Mold, who installed the monitor, believes people can save on their energy bills if they switch off electrical appliances at night. He said: “Energy bills can be cut in half, because we waste almost half our household energy throughout the night. Everything should be switched off, except the fridge and freezer.”

The energy used in homes produces 28 per cent of the UK’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which all contribute to global warming.

By reducing the amount of energy used, each home’s carbon footprint and energy bills can be reduced significantly.

Mr Woosey said: “You could save up to £6 per appliance per year by switching them off when they’re not in use and this can significantly reduce your energy bills.”

Anyone interested in finding ways to become more “energywise” should contact the Energy Saving Trust advice centre office in Mold on 0800 512 012 or 01352 753 902, or email Leanna@nweeac.org.uk for more information.

Last night I had a drink with the Editor of Sustained Magazine (thanks David!), we talked about low carbon living and the ways in which Sustained might be able to support the Low Carbon Community Conference, as well as having a good blether over a lime and soda! David kindly gave me a couple of back issues to look at, and I really enjoyed the interview with Mukti Mitchell. I followed his Low Carbon Lifestyle Tour last year, but haven’t met him yet. There is an archive of back issues on the website so you can take a look at them for yourself.

David and I also chatted to Alison, founder of Chester Freecycle. I might finally get rid of my daughter’s old but in immaculate condition Barbie scooter… Freecycle is a great concept, give useful stuff away instead of sending it to landfill. Lots of low carbon communities support their local Freecycle groups, so take a look and see if there’s one near you.
Today I’m off to talk funding for the October conference, hoping to organise some travel bursaries for community groups. I’ll let you know how I get on

Organising the conference has meant a fair bit of travel, not good for my family life or the environment (not to mention my bank balance), so when one of our group came up with the idea to meet by telephone conference  using mindmapping softwareI was keen to try it (and how obvious – wish I’d thought of it!). Now, anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a complete technophobic. Like the car, so long as everything works I’m happy to leave the technical side to someone else and throw a complete wobbler when all goes wrong – so I was happy to hand over the facilitation to someone who knew what they were doing.

The result was that many people who haven’t been able to participate in the meetings so far were able to join in and I feel the experiment was a success. There were some minor hitches, the software doesn’t like linux, it’s too big to download on a dial up and it’s inconvenient if your phone runs out of credit half way through (mentioning no names

However, we had a constructive meeting, agreed to do it again and the feedback by email has been very positive. So, although it won’t replace face to face meetings entirely it served a useful purpose and we’ve agreed to meet up again in 2 weeks. Next time I’ll be at home so I’ll make sure I’ve got a cup of tea and a piece of cake to hand! All we need to do now is find out if there is a web based tool we can use which performs  the same function as the mindmap software, top up our phone credit and we’re sorted!

Just please don’t suggest video conferencing or everyone will see me sitting in the garden in my scruffy shorts  taking advantage of the sunshine and the wifi…