July 2019 – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Forest 404: A chilling vision of a future without nature

Posted on July 25, 2019April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

Binge-watching of boxsets on BBC iPlayer or Netflix is a growing habit. And binge-listening isn’t far behind. Podcast series downloadable through BBC Sounds are all the rage (with a little help from footballer Peter Crouch). Enter Radio 4’s ‘Forest 404’ – hot off the press as a 27-piece boxset on the fourth day of the fourth month (4 April 2019). This is something I’ve been involved in recently: an experimental BBC sci-fi podcast that’s a brand-new listening experience because of its three-tiered structure of drama, factual talk and accompanying soundscape (9 x 3 = 27).

Try to imagine a world in which not only forests but every last trace of the natural world as we know it has been erased (almost……). This eco-thriller by Timothy X. Atack (credits include ‘Dr Who’) is set in the 24th century following a data crash in the early 21st century called The Cataclysm (404 is also the error message you get when a website is unavailable). The action follows lead protagonist Pan (University of Bristol Drama alumna and ‘Doctor Who’ star Pearl Mackie), a sound archivist who archives recordings surviving from the early 21st century. These include items such as a speech by President Obama’s on climate change, Neil Armstrong’s remarks after landing on the moon and Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy in love’. Pan is merrily deleting them all (useless and senseless). Until, one day, she stumbles upon a recording of birdsong in the Sumatran rainforest that inexplicably grabs her. In fact, she’s left intoxicated, almost falling in love with it. So begins Pan’s quest to understand its origin and purpose – not to mention her mission to reconstruct the meaning of an almost completely eradicated world of nature.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been working on a project with the world-famous, Bristol-based BBC Natural History Unit (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council), exploring wildlife filmmaking over the past quarter-century. We wanted to include and support a creative dimension going far beyond the project’s more strictly academic and historical elements. Something poetic and performative that could take the study of nature at the BBC into new territory, and away from the visual. But the core theme remains the same: the value of the natural world and its representation in cultural form. This haunting drama focuses on that cultural value very closely by exploring an alien and alienating future world without nature – a world where the only memory of its former existence is preserved in Pan’s sound archive.

This is a deeply historical approach that re-unites me with a piece of research I published some time in the journal Environmental History (2005) what I called the strange stillness of the past – how sounds, both human and non-human generated, were overlooked by most historians. ‘Forest 404’ also ties in with another recent AHRC activity led by my colleague, Dr Victoria Bates. The project was called ‘A Sense of Place: Exploring Nature and Wellbeing through the Non-Visual Senses,’ and I participated as a volunteer. It was about immersing people in natural sensescapes using 360-degree sound and smell technologies. The idea is that we can potentially ‘take nature’ to people who can’t go to it for a first-hand experience.

With my partners at the BBC and Arts and Humanities Research Council, I see ‘Forest 404’ as part of an emerging research area known as the environmental humanities. The starting point of ‘enviro-hums’ is the conviction that a scientific perspective, no matter how important, cannot do full justice to the complexity of our many layered relationships with nature.

The humanities and arts have a big contribution to make in helping us to appreciate the value of what ecosystem services researchers call cultural services. This denotes the so-called non-material benefits we derive from the natural world – its aesthetic value (beauty), how it inspires imaginative literature, painting and music, its spiritual significance, and its role in forming cultural identities and giving us a sense of place. Last spring, Radio 3 broadcast a week-long celebration of all things forest and trees, following it up with another week in the autumn. ‘Into the Forest’ was all about how forests have supplied an almost unlimited source of inspiration for creative activity. ‘Forest 404’ confronts us with the brutal possibility of a world not just without forests and trees but even lacking a conception of nature. And it makes us think about how that absence impoverishes us culturally and spiritually as well as the more obvious ecological dangers we face.

Accompanying the podcast is an ambitious online survey devised by environmental psychologists at the University of Exeter and operated by The Open University. Data on how we respond to nature has previously concentrated on the visual. This focus on natural soundscapes will add a fresh dimension to what we already know about how contact with nature benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Give the podcast a listen. Then please do the survey – over 7,000 people have already done so. It takes less than 10 minutes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06tqsg3

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member and environmental historian Professor Peter Coates.

Peter Coates

This blog has been republished with kind permission from the Bristol Centre for Environmental Humanities. View the original blog.

Prospective postgraduate students interested in Peter
Coates’ work have the opportunity to apply for his research project on the
Cabot Institute MScR in Global Environmental Challenges, ‘Fishscapes
and fish as biocultural heritage.’ This
one year research master’s project spanning both humanities and natural
sciences investigates the status of fish as a cultural as well as an ecological
species, occupying individual and collective memory. For more information
about the Cabot
Institute MScR please contact Joanne Norris at cabot-masters@bristol.ac.uk.

Why the time may be ripe for a Green New Deal

Posted on July 16, 2019April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

Image credit: Senate Democrats.

On the 8th July, parliamentarians, researchers and practitioners gathered in the House of Commons to discuss and debate the possibilities and practicalities of a Green New Deal in the UK. Drawing on insights and experience from both the UK and the USA, speakers included Caroline Lucas MP, James Heappey MP, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, and Hannah Martin of Green New Deal UK.

The Green New Deal is a policy concept that asserts the need for wholesale, sustained and state-led economic investment to address the challenges of climate breakdown. Whilst it may often feel that these demands for a Green New Deal have come out of the blue, its entrance into the language of environmentalism can be found in 2007, when those concerned with climate breakdown and environmental problems argued that policies centred on improving the environment had important social consequences also.

2019 is, in many ways, the year where environmentalism has taken a radical step into the popular consciousness. Greta Thunberg, the School Strike for Climate and Extinction Rebellion have all occupied streets and seized the news cycle, raising awareness of (and anger at) the climate emergency.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The result? MP’s have declared a climate emergency, the Committee on climate breakdown calling for ‘net zero’ emissions, and public concern for the environment is at a record high. It is this new and rising awareness that frees up space for a new, wide-ranging policy mechanism like the Green New Deal to take the stage and gain traction.

Adopting the language of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policy response to the Great Depression, the Green New Deal has picked up the most traction in the USA, where Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement have spearheaded a growing movement around this idea, that soon took form in a Congressional Bill and a vision published by New Consensus. Several candidates for the Democrat nominee for President have announced Green New Deal-style policies.

A common criticism of the Green New Deal – evident in the parliamentary discussions – was that it can often take an “overly-ideological” flavour that isolates voters, constituencies and potential supporters. As the partisan-divisions around climate breakdown in the United States show, for a policy as wide-ranging as this to be accepted, it must have a base in cross-party support.

As the Gilets Jaunes in France have demonstrated, to forget the economic costs that environmental policy can impose on those who are already struggling can have profound consequences. Whilst we – as environmentalists – may often be focused on the ‘end of the world’, billions across the globe are, instead, worried about making it to the end of the month.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

This is, in many ways, an issue of branding. The key to understanding the Green New Deal is that it is synergistic – its policies simultaneously address environmental AND social issues. New policies of land ownership and use can be adapted to promote cooperative management, worker ownership and land justice. The wholesale fitting of solar energy panels to homes will also address issues of energy poverty. The application of a frequent flyer levy, taxing people based on how often they fly, will, in turn, represent a fairer system of taxing air travel than the current Air Passenger Duty.

Central under the current calls for a Green New Deal is the call for a global investment of 1.5 to 2.5% of global GDP in environmental policies per year. Available policies include targeted tax incentives and subsidies, land reform, transport electrification, green skills training, the expansion of carbon pricing and the rapid construction of renewable energy infrastructure. Green quantitative easing will also allow for the rapid influx of financial investment into communities, allowing for community-led sustainability projects.

These policies will function as powerful job-creators, with significant gains in employment numbers when compared to the relative numbers of those employed within a continued fossil fuel economy. Furthermore, rather than representing financial costs to be spent and lost, they represent an investment – with the environmental and social benefits of these policies leading to far greater economic returns.

Key, however, is where in the UK these policies will be implemented. Introducing low-carbon public transport will only go part of the way to addressing issues at the national level. Now is the time to implement these policies at the towns and places already left behind by rapid deindustrialisation – the Scunthorpes, the Welsh Valleys, the lost seaside towns. Already suffering from industrial decline, these sites must provide the sites of a new decarbonised economy of green investment.

The week before the parliamentary meeting, Common Wealth set out the numerous forms a Green New Deal can take in the post-Brexit UK. It is highly likely that more will follow, with the New Economics Foundation and Greenpeace both putting their own visions together.

For these policies to be successful, it must be accompanied by a strong policy steer from both Parliament and the UK Government. In calling for such expansive investment (likened to “three Marshall Plans and one Apollo moon landing” by Clive Lewis MP, the Labour spokesperson for the Treasury), it is essential that the plan moves beyond mere decarbonisation and towards a holistic approach to mitigating the climate breakdown and our role within it. For too long environmental policy has spoken of what is politically feasible, not what is scientifically urgent. Now is the time for that to change.
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Ed Atkins, Teaching Fellow, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.

Dr Ed Atkins

Bristol and the Sustainable Development Goals

Posted on July 12, 2019April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

Image credit: @Bristol Design, Bristol City Council

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are often referred to as “the closest thing the world has to a strategy.” The 17 Global Goals, agreed at the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, set out 169 targets to be achieved by the year 2030. These targets cover a wide range of issues, such as poverty, inequality, gender equality, education, health, infrastructure, energy, climate change and more. Underpinning the Goals is an ambition to reduce our impact on the planet and reduce divisive inequalities in society without making anybody poorer or worse off.

Progress towards meeting the SDGs is normally monitored and reported at the national level through the production of Voluntary National Reviews which are presented to the United Nations at an annual event known as the High-Level Political Forum.

However, there has been a surge of interest in ‘localising’ the SDGs in cities around the world by promoting their use, integrating them into city plans and policies, and monitoring progress at the city (rather than national) scale by undertaking Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs). In July 2018, a handful of cities around the world reported on their own progress by submitting VLRs to the United Nations.

Inspired by these city-level pioneers, researchers at the Cabot Institute secured a grant from Bristol University’s UK Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account to produce the UK’s first VLR, Bristol and the SDGs: A Voluntary Local Review 2019

This report was produced through a partnership between the Cabot Institute for the Environment at the University of Bristol and the Bristol City Office. It reflects a whole-city approach to tackling the SDGs and includes information on the activities of 90 Bristol based organisations working to make the city more economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. The report covers all 17 SDGs and includes data from over 140 statistical indicators.

In many areas Bristol is performing well. There have been very significant improvements in the quality of education in the city, particularly in early years attainment. Bristol’s economy has grown consistently in recent years while unemployment has fallen. Energy consumption and local carbon emissions have fallen, and a strong civic commitment to climate action is clear: Bristol City Council was the first city in the UK to declare a climate emergency, followed shortly thereafter by the University of Bristol. While these trends and initiatives are positive, we cannot be complacent. Bristol’s stated ambition to achieve carbon neutrality will require sustained efforts at scale by a wide range of stakeholders across sectors and levels of government.

In other areas Bristol has performed less-well. Child poverty has been rising in the city and food insecurity is deep in some areas. The gender pay gap in the city has barely changed despite rising wages for women. Where it is possible to disaggregate indicators, it is clear that inequalities persist across neighbourhoods, income groups and ethnicities. Poverty, food insecurity and youth opportunities are spatially concentrated. Despite falling mortality rates overall, the life expectancy gap between the most deprived and least deprived citizens has grown. And the unemployment rate among some ethnic minorities is nearly double that of white citizens.

Bristol’s One City Plan, which was developed through extensive engagement with citizens and stakeholders and is mapped onto the SDGs, already reflects many of these challenges, which will not surprise most Bristolians. Fortunately, as our report shows, organisations across the public and non-profit sectors, as well as the city government, are tackling these issues in creative ways, from the neighbourhood scale to the city scale. Many others are seeking to make positive impacts further afield.

In producing this report we encountered a range of difficult questions, data issues and new insights. The functional area of Bristol is much larger than the City of Bristol—the subject of this report. This difference between the de facto urban area and formal administrative boundaries create challenges in both implementing and monitoring the Goals at sub-national level. Beyond this, there is a clear need for an indicator framework that is tailored to the urban scale and suitable across income contexts. We faced a number of data gaps particularly in monitoring poverty, food insecurity, gender equality, domestic material consumption, aquatic life and life on land. A subnational perspective also highlights the importance of disaggregating data if we are to take the ‘leave no one behind’ ethos of the goals seriously. Many indicators showed positive trends at the city level but held hidden inequalities held when disaggregated. If cities are to effectively work towards the ‘Leave No One Behind’ agenda then more ward level data is needed.

Looking forward, cities have an important role to play in tackling global challenges, including influencing how the concentrations of capital in cities are channelled beyond their boundaries. Where and how the capital generated in cities can have enormous consequences on achieving the SDGs within cities and elsewhere and it is vitally important that large investment and pension funds consider how they responsibly use their resources.

But cities cannot do it alone. City governments need support from private sector and non-profit actors, as well as higher tiers of government and international organisations. It will not be possible to achieve the SDGs locally without increased devolution of local powers. The SDGs and the One City Plan both provide the kind of shared vision needed to forge strategic cross-sectoral partnerships to achieve a sustainable future. Cities are increasingly taking the lead in confronting global challenges, but they need support to follow through.

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This blog is written by Allan Macleod, SDG research and engagement associate working across Bristol Green Capital Partnership, Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Allan Macleod

Decarbonising the UK rail network

Posted on July 11, 2019April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Caboteer Dr Colin Nolden blogs on a recent All-Party Parliamentary Rail & Climate Change Groups meeting on ‘Decarbonising the UK rail network’. The event was co-chaired by Martin Vickers MP and Daniel Zeichner MP. Speakers included:

Professor Jim Skea, CBE, Imperial College London
David Clarke, Technical Director, RIA
Anthony Perret, Head of Sustainable Development, RSSB
Helen McAllister, Head of Strategic Planning (Freight and National Passenger Operators), Network Rail

The meeting kicked off with a broad overview of the global decarbonisation challenge by Jim Skea. As former member of the UK’s Climate Change Committee and Co-chair of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which oversaw the 1.5C report published in October 2018, as well member of the Scottish Just Transition Commissions, he emphasized that the net-zero target ‘is humongously challenging’. We need to recognise that all aspects of our land, economy and society require change, including lifestyles and behaviours. At the same time, the loophole of buying in permits to ‘offset’ decarbonisation in the UK net-zero target increases uncertainty as it is unclear what needs to be done territorially. The starting point for decarbonising mobility and many other sectors is nevertheless the decarbonisation of our electricity supply by 2030 as this allows the electrification of energy demand.

The recent International Energy Agency report on the ‘Future of Rail’ was mentioned. It suggests that the rail sector is one of the blindspots for decarbonisation although rail covers 8% of passenger transport, 7% of freight transport with only 2% of transport energy demand. The report concludes that a modal shift and sustainable electrification are necessary to decarbonise transport.

David Clarke pointed towards the difficulties encountered in the electrification of the Great Western line to Bristol and beyond to Cardiff but stressed that this was not a good measure for future electrification endeavours. Electrification was approached to ambitiously in 2009 following the 20-year electrification hiatus. Novel technology and deadlines with fixed time scales implied higher costs on the Great Western line. Current electrification phases such as the Bristol-Cardiff stretch, on the other hand, are being developed within the cost envelope. A problem now lies in the lack of further planned electrifications as there is a danger of demobilising relevant teams. Such a hiatus could once again lead to teething problems when electrification will be prioritised again. Bimodal trains that have accompanied electrification on the Great Western line will continue to play an important role in ongoing electrification as they allow at least part of the journeys to be completed free of fossil fuels.

Anthony Perret mentioned the RSSBs role in the ongoing development of a rail system decarbonisation strategy. The ‘what’ report was published in January 2019 and the ‘how’ report is still being drafted. Given that 70% of journeys and 80% of passenger kilometres are already electrified he suggested that new technology combinations such as hydrogen and battery will need to be tested to fill the gap where electrification is not economically viable. Hydrogen is likely to be a solution for longer distances and higher speeds while batteries are more likely to be suitable for discontinuous electrification such as the ‘bridging’ of bridges and tunnels. Freight transport’s 25,000V requirement currently implies either diesel or electrification to provide the necessary power. Anthony finished with a word of caution regarding rail governance complexities. Rail system governance needs an overhaul if it is not to hinder decarbonisation.

Helen McAllister is engaged in a task force to establish what funding needs to be made available for deliverable, affordable and efficient solutions. Particular interest lies on the ‘middle’ where full electrification is not economically viable but where promising combinations of technologies that Anthony mentioned might provide appropriate solutions. This is where emphasis on innovation will be placed and economic cases are sought. This is particularly relevant to the Riding Sunbeams project I am involved with as discontinuous and innovative electrification is one of the avenues we are pursuing. However, Helen highlighted failure of current analytical tools to take carbon emissions into account. The ‘Green Book’ requires revision to place more emphasis on environmental outcomes and to specify the ‘bang for your buck’ in terms of carbon to make it a driving factor in decision-making. At the same time, she suggested that busy commuter lines that are the obvious choice for electrification are also likely to score highest on decarbonisation.

David pointed out that despite ambitious targets in place, new diesel rolling stock that was ordered before decarbonisation took priority will only be put in service in 2020 and will in all likelihood continue running until 2050. This is an indication of the lock-in associated with durable rail assets that Jim Skea also strongly emphasized as a challenge to overcome. Transport for Wales, on the other hand, are already looking into progressive decarbonisation options, which include Riding Sunbeams, along with four other progressive decarbonisation projects currently being implemented. Helen agreed that diesel will continue to have a role to play but that franchise specification for rolling stock regarding passenger rail and commercial specification regarding freight rail can help move the retirement date forward.

Comments and questions from the audience suggest that the decarbonisation challenge is galvanising the industry with both rolling stock companies and manufacturers putting their weight behind progressive solutions. Ultimately, more capacity for rail is required to enable modal shift towards sustainable rail transport. In this context, Helen stressed the need to apply the same net-zero criteria across all industries to ensure that all sectors engage in the same challenge, ranging from aviation to railways. Leo Murray from Riding Sunbeams asked whether unelectrified railway lines into remote areas such as the Scottish Highlands, Mid-Wales and Cornwall could be electrified with overhead electricity transmission lines to transmit the power from such remote areas to urban centres with rail electrification as a by-product. Chair Danial Zeichner pointed towards a project that seeks to connect Calais and Folkstone with a thick DC cable through the channel tunnel and this is something we will follow up with some of the speakers.

In conclusion, Anthony pointed towards the Rail Carbon Tool which will help measure capital carbon involved in all projects above a certain size from January 2020 onwards as a step in the right direction. David pointed toward increasing collaboration with the advanced propulsion centre at Cranfield University to cross-fertilise innovative solutions across different mobility sectors.
Overall it was an intense yet enjoyable hour in a sticky room packed full of sustainable rail enthusiasts. Although this might evoke images of grey hair, ill-fitting suits and the odd trainspotting binoculars it was refreshing to see so many ideas and enthusiasm brought to fore by a topic as mundane as ‘decarbonising the UK rail network’.

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This blog is written by Dr Colin Nolden, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Bristol Law School and Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Colin is currently leading a new Cabot Institute Masters by Research project on a new energy system architecture. This project will involve close engagement with community energy organizations to assess technological and business model feasibility. Sound up your street? Find out more about this masters on our website.