I met Silverjet as part of our investigation into air travel for the QOL and was less than impressed by their grasp of sustainability. So it’s no surprise to hear that rising fuel costs have brought their plans tumbling down. One can only assume they were as unaware of or unconcerned with peak oil as of the humanitarian crime of the huge climate change impacts resulting from ‘fatcats’ snoozing their way across the Atlantic while the planet burns. Silverjet were also planning to promote their carbon heavy reclining seats as ‘carbon neutral’ with carbon-guilt offsets – another selfish madness (for more on that see May’s edition of the Ecologist magazine). 

This sort of business is just one of the many carbon heavy companies which will and indeed need to die if we have any hope of saving the planet from the consequences of climate change. And those devastating consequences won’t hit the profligate and selfish cross-ocean frequent flyers anything as much as the world’s billions of food and energy starved. The UK has the opportunity and the responsibility to shift its economy to be a zero carbon leading light for a green future. Silverjet and its likes will not be a part of such a proud British future.

There are signs that the public are tired of waiting for central and local politics and business to blink first an act on QOL issues. For my money the most lively and exciting thing happening in the greening of Britain shift (apart of course from the QOL process )! is the Transition Towns movement.  

The Transition Towns movement is a great example of where ordinary people – butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers, teachers and housewives – are taking control back at a local level. This movement which is active in over 30 UK cities, towns and villages (including Ambridge on Radio 4’s The Archers) is a rebirth of local community taking control of finding solutions to issues like peak oil, climate change and food security. Internationally there are 500 such initiatives. These communities have just given up waiting for local or national government to act. They are putting in place exciting and visionary steps towards a low carbon, local food, local currencies, and sustainable way of life. Totnes TT in Devon even has its own local currency – the Totnes Pound.

Kinsale in Ireland was the first TT. Their groundbreaking Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan has been adopted by the Town Council which now has plans to work towards energy independence. Initiatives include community gardens, a proposal to establish the first Community Composting scheme, energy audits for domestic, business and municipal buildings, pedestriansing part of the town, a prototype anaerobic digester for the Town (commercial food waste) and it’s environ (agricultural waste) and a ‘free cycle system’ in which people pass on unwanted belongings for free to others instead of dumping them.

This sort of local grassroots political engagement and democratic participative movement is surely a refreshing innovation and one which central politicians need to listen to and respond to. Its enacting right now the kinds of things we advocate in the QOL report. This shows there is a vibrant appetite from people for the kinds of things QOL have proposed.

A very ground-breaking report has just been put out by WWF raising some fundamental criticism of the extent to which many in the mainstream environment movement are focussing on hitching their wagon to appeals to financial self-interest, or the coincidence of business interest and environmental imperative. I personally think this report is timely and asks some crucial questions of the movement which could define the direction it takes. That this should come from WWF makes it all more interesting. It’s available here  

The report supports a wider debate beginning to emerge in the ‘green movement’ which questions the way it has come to rely on ‘green consuming’ our way out of trouble. The report illustrates issues we raised in the QOL report about the crucial questions ‘what is progress’ and what is ‘a good life’. It investigates the way we have encouraged people to think of themselves as consumers rather than citizens and to become fixated on extrinsic values like image (which reduce our happiness) as opposed to intrinsic values like friendships and community involvement (which increase happiness).

This wider societal shift away from intrinsic to extrinsic values is merely being echoed by the green movement in its calls for people to just change a light bulb or unplug their mobile phones. Such incremental acts of greener consuming merely help to lock people into a mode of life centred on consuming rather than acting as citizens in a wider and deeper sense.

The report has set off a lively debate in the NGO movement and a debate which is timely for the wider sustainability shift that we all - citizens, companies and politicians - are part of.

For a long time people like George Bush have been using the ‘but what about China’ excuse as a reason for us not acting on climate change in the developed world.

Just this week Odin Knudsen, managing director for JP Morgan & Chase has said “Chinais making tremendous progress. It’s in China’s interests and they want to be energy efficient.”

Admittedly Asia’s emissions have grown from 10% to 25% of global emissions in the last 30 years. But on a per capita historical basis Asian and other developing countries are still way behind countries lie the US and UK.

But countries like China see the writing on the wall (no pun intended). The UN calculates that food production will fall by 30% by 2050 in China due to climate change. China is the least resources rich country per capita in the world. Their rivers are almost ‘dead’ and they have terrible pollution and desertification problems.

Now China is leapfrogging many more developed nations to build huge amounts of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

This also bodes well for the successor to Kyoto due to be agreed by the end of 2009. Such a deal will need to include countries like China as well as the US and the word on the street is that this is certainly likely.

This is good news for the world. Its a shame the UK is not at the forefront of environmental technology which countries like China so badly need. Lack of Government foresight and support has left us way behind countries like Denmark and Germany. Perhaps it not too late – the UK has some of the world’s best science and engineering capability and could yet become a global player in the green energy revolution but this will need the kind of policy incentives QOL has proposed.

Politicians and activists from across the pond have long been watching with envy the progress on sustainability in UK politics. In particular QOL have been contacted many times with words of support for our sustainability vision as well as for help in supporting the work of others. True, there are good things happening on a State level in parts of the US, but on a Federal level the direction of travel has been if anything backwards. However, there is now a powerful movement in the US determined to ensure that all three Presidential candidates are aiming high on climate policy.

The President’s Climate Action Project (PCAP) has recently been in contact with the Quality of Life Group to learn from our experience in setting out future climate policy. The QOL group looks forward to supporting the PCAP’s efforts and we are also in contact with a number of right-of–centre parties in other countries who have sought out QOL support in their green efforts.      

We would be delighted to hear from others active on the green political landscape with either suggestions or seeking help in their work.