Tag: European Green Capital

How engaging citizens can help to shape green cities

Posted on by janet.crompton

In order for European territories to be more environmentally and socially sustainable the involvement of citizens is key. Experiences throughout Europe show us that developing strategies to improve the engagement, collaboration and communication with local stakeholders – across diverse realms and thematic domains – is essential to ensure an effective outcome. During European Green Week, a workshop organised by DG Environment, was conducted to showcase some inspirational experiences in terms of sustainable urban development, health and waste management from different European cities.

Speakers included Mauro Gil Fournier (Estudio SIC), Professor Rich Pancost (Director of University of Bristol Cabot Institute for the Environment), Silvia Moroni (AMAT), Paola Robalo (Centro Ciência Viva do Alviela), Sietse Gronheid (Wasted Social Enterprise) and Igor Kos (City of Maribor).

Rich Pancost speaking at EU Green Week. Image credit BristolBrussels.

[Rich Pancost contributed on a variety of issues, largely arising from Cabot Institute and Bristol City engagement, but spoke primarily about the Green and Black Conversation and Ambassadors programme.  He emphasised the importance of engaging with marginalised groups, the fact that they have much to teach ‘established’ organisations, and the fact that inclusion requires far more than good will but hard work and appropriate financial investment.]
There was much feedback from the workshop as to how citizens could help to shape green cities which included:

  • We need to consider different levels of citizens’ involvement: consultation, participation, co-creation. For this reason we always have to consider who is involved and who is excluded from every process.
  • People are involved in topics they care about, so in order to get out of our elitism we need to address issues that really matter to most people, especially those people that are often not actively engaged. This is what was experienced by the Green and Black Ambassadors during the Bristol Green Capital year, where a community radio station with a focus on the local African-Caribbean community (Ujima Radio) framed environmental discussions and training around the perspectives of local community members.
  • Topics such as air quality, circular waste management or water pollution are hard topics to get people involved in, whilst topics such as food or green spaces are often more recognised by people because the feel ‘closer’. For this reason Milan, which is taking part in the Air Quality Partnership of the EU Urban Agenda, is working on developing an Action Plan that will actively address citizens’ involvement through a concrete toolkit.
  • For people to be engaged we need to involve them throughout the process and not just at the end to show the results. This is what has been experienced in Portugal by the Science Centre in Alcanena that is involving the local community in monitoring water quality, polluted by the local industry, in order to understand the roots of the problems and develop together possible solutions.
  • In order to get people involved in long term change we need to deliver short and medium term results that they can appreciate. This is what is being done in Maribor, that is developing a long term circular economy strategy and is creating festivals, schools events and fairs to get people involved and experience some of the changes taking place in the waste, such as for the biological waste turned into compost for community gardens.
  • Participatory processes that really get people committed, beyond a consultation, require people with professional skills of moderation and community engagement, which should therefore also be economically remunerated in order to ensure long term commitment. This is what is experienced by in Amsterdam, where through the Wasted project circular waste cycles are an opportunity to create complementary currencies in partnership with local enterprises.  The same is true for engaging with marginalised groups who have to sacrifice precious time to contribute; we cannot extract free labour from anyone but especially groups that are already marginalised by structural inequities.
  • For environmental and societal transition to take place we need to ensure that it also affects economic and financial models in an inclusive and participatory way, otherwise large parts of our society will keep being left out. This is what has been done in Madrid through the MARES project that develops social economy cooperatives around sustainable mobility and energy production.
  • Skills around social media and communication tools need to be addressed in order to reach out to people, yet they might be more effective tools for consultation rather than co-creation.

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This blog was written by Daniela Patti (Eutropian) and edited by Amanda Woodman-Hardy (@Enviro_Mand) and Professor Rich Pancost (@rpancost) from Cabot Institute for the Environment.

How accurate are the media on climate change and extreme weather events?

Posted on by janet.crompton

I’ve always appreciated the environment, but had previously taken on the role of spectator. I credit this magnificent city of ours with inspiring me to change my passive respect of nature to taking an active role in trying to preserve it. The strong sense of community in Bristol and the green-mindedness of its residents is infectious, and is evident in the number of fantastic projects we have which are led by the people and by our local government.

I craved more information about our environment so started attending lectures and events that are regularly held by the Cabot Institute and various departments across the university. As my insight to the issues we face grew, I realised I needed to increase my understanding and hopefully align my career in a way in which I could have a positive impact. I decided to enrol in a masters in Climate Change Science and Policy so I could appreciate the scientific intricacies rather than relying on what I heard, and what I read in the media.

My course enabled me to learn about climate modelling and the difficulties of implementing environmental policies, not just logistically but in terms of ethics and opinion. It is one thing to be passionate about science and research, it is quite another to communicate that to a non-specialist in a way that the magnitude and seriousness of climate change is realised. A warming climate will affect the entire globe and all sectors within it. Bridging the gap in knowledge between climate scientists and policy makers/society is therefore paramount. People often rely on the media as their main source of information and indeed it can successfully act as an education broker between scientists and the public. The seemingly omnipotent power of the media to mould opinion can be beneficial, but do we really know if what we’re reading is the truth?

I was offered the opportunity to explore this question, and it was the Environment Agency (EA) that requested the answers. Specifically, I conducted my dissertation on the accuracy of the UK media in reporting of extreme weather events. It may seem a rather unusual project to be proposed by the EA, so I shall explain. Within the organisation is a climate change branch, a part of which is the ‘Climate Ready Support Service’. Their objective is to provide advice and support to businesses in order to prevent and mitigate the effects of extreme weather events and climate change. The Environment Agency uses recent extreme weather events to exemplify realistic scenarios that could befall a vulnerable business.

The speed, scope and accessibility of the media makes it a valuable tool, during and immediately after a weather event. The fast-paced nature of modern reporting and social media necessitates that to some extent the EA relies on information from news organisations. Additionally, there are vastly more journalists than there are staff in the ‘Climate Ready Support Service’ therefore media reliance is essential. When the EA republishes this information it must be relevant, accurate and consistent, and it was my mission to quantify the reliability of UK media and to assess the confidence that the EA can have in it.

I was not able to analyse all UK media so I studied a selected sample from the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Mirror. I chose them because they contain a mix of broadsheet/tabloid, political affiliations and demographics. I analysed sixty two articles across three extreme weather events: ex-Hurricane Bertha (2014), the spring floods (2012) and the Birmingham tornado (2005). This provided a range of recent short, high impact events and longer-lasting cumulative ones. I conducted content analysis on each article, breaking the text up into study units that could be verified by official sources such as government documentation, academic journals and weather data. Media accuracy is not as straightforward as being right or wrong, not just the objective facts. Subjective inaccuracies also play a part, and can fundamentally alter the final message or mislead the reader from the truth. I categorised these as omission of information, exaggeration/under-exaggeration, personalisation, sensationalism and general confusion.

The results suggest that overall the UK media is 77.9% accurate. The Guardian achieved the highest overall accuracy (83.8%), followed by the Telegraph (76.2%) and the Mirror obtained the lowest accuracy rate (72.5%). Of more consequence to the EA is objective (factual) accuracy as opposed to subjective accuracy, and, the Guardian is the most reliable of the three publications in this respect (94.3%). Even though it is a broadsheet, the Telegraph was less objectively accurate than the Mirror with 85.8% and 87.3% accuracy respectively. Across all three publications, factual inaccuracies such as measurements, geolocations, timings, names etc. were most prevalent with 30%. This was followed by omission/addition as the next most common error (27%). Exaggeration was also significantly evident in the press accounting for 17% of the total inaccuracies.

What does this mean for the EA? This research hopefully clarifies which publications are worth relying on most heavily when obtaining their information. I would still recommend the agency continue to conduct their own internal fact checks because evidently there are still errors. Additionally, it was a one person study, with only one perspective and a limited sample size. As with any research, there’s always more that can be done to validate the findings and as this was the first study to investigate media accuracy of extreme weather events, more is warranted before sweeping conclusions can be made.

What I found interesting was that of the sixty two articles analysed only four of them mentioned climate change within the content. It is the EAs aim to embed climate change messages within all aspects of their organisation, and with the projected increase of such events I would have expected more linkage in the media. After interviewing some journalists a lot of them agreed that climate change should be associated with not just extreme weather stories, but all topics such as education, health and finance. There are practical limitations in achieving this but perhaps in the future, climate change will always be considered in all aspects of our global society. For now we should remain hopeful that we make some significant steps forward after the United Nations Climate Summit in December, and that Bristol continues its European Green Capital ethos into 2016 and beyond.

It was a great experience knowing that my work might have a real world impact and my contacts in the Environment Agency were really helpful throughout the process. I am now working within the Sustainability Department here at the University of Bristol with the aim of reducing our environmental impact by implementing the S-Labs Initiative (Safe, Secure, Sustainable Labs).

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This blog is written by Anna Lewis who recently graduated from the Climate Change Science and Policy MSc at the University of Bristol.  As part of her course she undertook a Cabot Institute pilot project called Community Based Learning which connects postgraduate students with organisations in order to help them solve a real-world problem.  If your organisation would like to get involved in Community Based Learning with the University, please contact cabot-cbl@bristol.ac.uk.

Anna Lewis

Anna now works at the University implementing sustainable laboratories throughout the institution.

New Year’s message from the Director of the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute

Posted on by janet.crompton

At the start of a new year, I wanted to acknowledge the achievements of our colleagues at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute over the past year and to summarise our priorities for 2016.

Cabot Institute members celebrating Cabot’s 5th birthday at the University of Bristol.

2015 was a genuinely historical year for the Cabot Institute and for Bristol. I do not use that term lightly.  During the year in which the Institute celebrated its 5th anniversary, many of us worked extensively with the City to host the European Green Capital and contribute substantively to the Paris Climate summit. We raised our profile both in the city and internationally, directly showcasing Cabot Institute research to over 100,000 people – and far more if we include coverage in the national and international press.

This was happening against a background of collaborative activity that included the funding of UKCRIC (UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure & Cities) and the launch of Bristol is Open; new initiatives in Anticipation, sustainable livestock, Global Insecurities, urban pollinators, and flood forecasting; and new investment in a radiocarbon accelerator, the Nuclear Hub, and high performance computing. Collectively, these efforts and the Green Capital engagement served as the platform for solidifying the University’s relationship with our city.  It is clear that a strong partnership with a thriving and global city will be essential for UK HEIs in the coming decade, and we are proud that so many members of the Cabot Institute have contributed to that.  We have partnered in events, served on strategic working groups, consulted, advised, fostered debate and provided research that is currently being used to frame the city’s strategy and policies.

All of that occurred alongside Hugh Brady’s arrival, joining as the new Vice Chancellor (VC), and the University-wide strategic review. I cannot stress enough how impressed our new VC is with all aspects of our environmental, risk and sustainability research as well as the quality and ambition of our partners and the leadership (at all levels) in the city.  It seemed that every new initiative was followed by a new award (and particular kudos to the volcanologists! And to Eric Herring and Somalia First!  And to many others!). All of that required a huge amount of effort from many of you. Thank you and well done!  And of course, special thanks to the entire Cabot team, who achieved this while helping the university manage personnel reshuffling and while directly contributing their time to the Strategic Review.  Cabot has emerged as a central component of the University strategy and its vision; that derives primarily from the excellence of the academics working in the Cabot space (and rightly so!) but also the incredible flexibility and hard work of Hayley Shaw, Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Amanda Gray, Philippa Bayley, Mike Harris and Caroline Bird.  Thanks gang!

Arising from that, all of us will have exciting new opportunities in 2016 and beyond.  We will support Hugh and our City. We will consolidate the partnerships initiated during the Green Capital year – not just with Bristol City Council but with numerous other local partners. Crucially, we will use this as a platform to raise our national visibility.

Having said that, we will be less ‘event-focussed’ in 2016 and put more effort into supporting Cabot’s academic community and key partners proposals and initiatives.  We did that last year, but it was impacted by the plethora of Green Capital activity; our support of your ideas will receive renewed focus this year.  This is one reason why we are so excited to have been able to keep Hayley on the team upon Philippa’s return and that we were able to extend Mike’s contract. Both will be in place to work with you to develop proposals, host visitors and secure partners.

We will also be putting renewed effort into building connections across our community. We will be building the Global Development working group and working with the other URIs to host workshops around inequality and resilience. We will be working even more closely with our Theme Leads – especially with John Beddington and a reconfigured Advisory Board – to stimulate new discussions and identify the areas where we can best support our members.

Finally, as Cabot contributes to the implementation of the new University Strategy, we will spend more time consulting our members, ensuring we are properly representing your priorities and making the most of the opportunities arising over the next decade.

We have learned a lot and built a very strong Institute over our first five years; we intend to use 2016 to explore Cabot members’ needs and opportunities so that we can grow the right way over the next five years.

These are exciting times in the University and we are proud to represent areas of great research strength. It is clear that the suite of environmental, risk, sustainability and future cities research that Cabot comprises will be at the heart of the University’s research strategy over the next decade – but also part of its institutional, international and teaching strategy.  We are all looking forward to working together to achieve this.
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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol. 
Prof Rich Pancost

COP21 daily report: While the politicians negotiate, the science does not stop

Posted on by janet.crompton
Cabot Institute Director Professor Rich Pancost will be attending COP21 in Paris as part of the Bristol city-wide team, including the Mayor of Bristol, representatives from Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership. He and other Cabot Institute members will be writing blogs during COP21, reflecting on what is happening in Paris, especially in the Paris and Bristol co-hosted Cities and Regions Pavilion, and also on the conclusion to Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital.  Follow #UoBGreen and #COP21 for live updates from the University of Bristol.  All blogs in the series are linked to at the bottom of this blog.

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I am on the train from Bristol Temple Meads to Paddington and then on to Paris. It seems appropriate leaving from a station that was built by Brunel, a symbol of the industrial revolution but also innovation. Tomorrow, I will be joining George Ferguson, Stephen Hilton of Bristol City Council, Amy Robinson of Low Carbon Southwest and others at the Sustainable Innovation Forum. I appreciate that addressing climate change means changing some aspects of how we live, but it also requires some fundamentally new technology; I am excited to see where the cutting edge thinking is.  Meanwhile, over a relatively calm weekend, the draft accord has been made public – there have been some significant advances but also a ways to go.  Negotiations will be continuing in earnest!  More on all of that tomorrow (I hope – it will be a long day).  



Today, however, my attention is elsewhere as our postgrads, research fellows and academic staff make their final preparations for the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).  The science goes on – as it must and will, regardless of the Paris negotiations. We still know far too little about the complexity of this magnificent planet, how to best live on it sustainably, and the imminent and the longer-term impacts of climate and wider environmental change.  
In my own research group (the OGU), my colleagues will be talking about increases in extreme rainfall during a past global warming event that is potentially analogous to the warming of today (see Matthew Carmichael’s research); the latest reconstructions of how carbon dioxide concentrations have changed over the past 3 million years (see Marcus Badger’s research); and the long-term controls on the hydrological cycle of the Mediterranean region (see Jan Peter Mayser’s research). All of them are collaborating with climate modellers in BRIDGE. Others in BRIDGE will be discussing how to improve the next generation of Earth System models, how to forecast land use impacts on the atmosphere, and examining the biological consequences of past ocean acidification events.  Anita Ganesan and Matt Rigby are both presenting talks on methane cycling and monitoring – a reminder that CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas and that cars and cities are not the only cause of global warming.  Our glaciologists are exploring the future of the ice sheets and glaciers. Our civil engineers and geographers are presenting the latest research on all aspects of the hydrological cycle: improved models of catchments; better flood and drought forecasting; and better understanding how land use change has affected the chemistry of our rivers.  


Through all of this, there is a persistent and recurring theme of constraining uncertainty as well as understanding uncertainty in the context of decision-making. Scientists, industry and leaders must develop better tools for navigating environmental uncertainty, a focus of the Cabot Institute in 2015 and for which the need has been aptly demonstrated by Storm Desmond’s impact on Cumbria.
It is a remarkable variety of research – and that is just a sample from the University of Bristol.  
I’m never apologetic about promoting Bristol achievements and activity – it is what I know best, it is world-leading and it is my job!  Here, however, singling out these Bristol-centric contributions makes a stronger point; the above are just a few examples of the research conducted in just one institution.  Some 20,000 scientists will attend AGU!  There is profound and diverse effort devoted to understanding our planet and improving how we live upon it.


A fantastic example of some research being led by our colleagues will be on display in London on Monday as part of a Royal Society Discussion Meeting on the Biological and Climatic Impacts of Ocean Trace Element Chemistry. The event is co-convened by our Oxford friend, colleague and frequent collaborator, Gideon Henderson. Chatting to Gideon a few days ago, he emphasised the importance of the ocean in regulating our climate: ‘The oceans consume 27% of the carbon we emit, after all, and the ocean biosphere naturally consumes 11 Gtonnes of C per year.’ This is a huge issue. Currently, the ocean buffers the atmosphere against human action – but it is unclear how long this will continue.  Moreover, the ocean does so at a cost:

 

  • As the ocean absorbs energy, it warms. 
  • As the ocean absorbs this carbon, its pH declines. 
  • As marine phytoplankton assimilate this carbon and sink, they change the chemical state of the ocean, from top to bottom, creating oxygen dead zones and transforming the redox state of trace but biologically vital elements.   

 

This research is an important reminder that the issues associated with rising greenhouse gas concentrations encompass more than just the weather – greenhouse gases are changing the chemistry, physics and biology of our planet, with unclear consequences.  Their full synergistic effects, through these complex biogeochemical systems, remain difficult to anticipate. Their consequences difficult to predict. 
 
And so, as the negotiations continue, we continue our research.  On the oceans and the tropical rain forests; the deserts of the Sahara and the Arctic; the peatlands and permafrost; the soils and the bedrock beneath; the atmosphere and the cryosphere.  On the plants, animals and microorganisms that coexist with and co-regulate these ecosystems.  And of course, the people dependent on them.
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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.  For more information about the University of Bristol at COP21, please visit bristol.ac.uk/green-capital
Prof Rich Pancost

 

This blog is part of a COP21 daily report series. View other blogs in the series below:
 
Monday 30 November: COP21 daily report
Tuesday 1 December: Setting a more ambitious agenda – Bristol’s Transformative Action Plans
Wednesday 2 December: Reflecting on the science of climate change
Thursday 3 December: The politics and culture of climate change
Friday 4 December: Be brave, work together and involve the next generation

COP21 daily report: Be brave, work together and involve the next generation

Posted on by janet.crompton
Cabot Institute Director Professor Rich Pancost will be attending COP21 in Paris as part of the Bristol city-wide team, including the Mayor of Bristol, representatives from Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership. He and others Cabot Institute members will be writing blogs during COP21, reflecting on what is happening in Paris, especially in the Paris and Bristol co-hosted Cities and Regions Pavilion, and also on the conclusion to Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital.  Follow #UoBGreen and #COP21 for live updates from the University of Bristol.  All blogs in the series are linked to at the bottom of this blog.
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Scene from COP21

The first several days of COP21 have seen a flurry of announcements, propositions and commitments.  Just within the Bristol/Paris/ICLEI tent, numerous new ideas have emerged as city after city has stepped forward and proposed its Transformative Action Plans. Despite the diversity of propositions, the key themes are emerging: Leaders must be brave and adventurous; we must all work together in new and innovative partnerships built on trust; and engagement with the next generation is crucial.

These are not terribly surprising!

The challenge for leaders to be brave was the key message from the Mayors of the past and future European Green Capitals. Speaking after the panel, Katarina Luhr, Vice Mayor from Stockholm, said:

“My message to the politicians negotiating at COP21 is to look to the future and be brave.”

I could not agree with this more.  Going ahead, as we face increasingly difficult challenges, navigate contentious compromise, or try something new and unknown, this bravery will become even more important… and more complicated.  Populations will have to empower leaders to be bold and leaders will have to earn that right by building trust.

The Cabot Institute has been discussing this with our colleagues and partners (including the University’s new Brigstowe Institute) over the past year – and we are certainly not alone in this. We will report more on these issues in the coming months, but one emerging theme is how trust can be built through partnership. (See my blogs on the importance of University of Bristol partnerships here and here).

Few challenges, whether it be tackling climate change, resolving inequality or building a sustainable health service as our population ages, can be solved by a single agent acting alone.  Appropriately, George Ferguson and Cllr Daniella Radice, Assistant Mayor for Neighbourhoods, including Environment, emphasised partnership as they opened the discussion on the first day of the Cities and Regions Pavilion. And of course, the Pavilion itself is the product of partnership between Bristol, Paris and ICLEI, itself a partnership of >1000 local and sub-national organisations.

Partnership is necessary.  Diverse contributors with diverse perspectives and expertise must work together to solve the climate change crisis.

And partnership is hard. It requires a deep and long-term commitment and a willingness to share, compromise and trust. It is at the heart of the University of Bristol’s ambitions , including how we work with our city, but we also recognise that that requires long term commitment. We’re trying but we’re not going to pretend we have it cracked.

One great example of successful partnership is Bristol is Open, a joint venture between the University of Bristol and Bristol City Council but designed in a way to be open to a variety of new partners from business and civil society. BIO is a combination of state-of-the-art, publicly owned fibre-optic infrastructure, environmental sensors, 5G wireless technology, the university’s high performance computing and programmable city models.  It could enable a new type of smart city in which traffic, flood, emergency, and energy services are managed in real time to achieve efficiency, sustainability and resilience.

But that is the future of BIO.  What it is now is a city-wide laboratory that will be open for experimentation and innovation.  It is an invitation to partnership.  And one of the first steps in that invitation was the 18 November Festival of the Future City launch of the Data Dome, the UK’s first 3D, interactive dome for data visualisation at At-Bristol. The purpose and value of the smart, programmable city can be difficult to grasp – it was for me!  The Data Dome, similar to the Playable City initiative, is a way to share and explore the potential of this technology while learning about our city. [And the Bristol Brain, one of Bristol’s Transformative Action Plan propositions discussed on Tuesday, will also be central to this.]

Another truly exciting arena for partnership is the recently announced UKCRIC programme, led in Bristol by Professor Colin Taylor, also the theme leader for the Cabot Institute’s Future cities and communities research theme.  We will be discussing this much more in the future, especially as we launch the Collaboratory component of it, which will bring investment to the centre of Bristol to support even further collaboration and innovation.

Of course, one of the most exciting and successful examples of partnership that I have seen in Bristol or any other city is the Bristol Green Capital Partnership (BGCP), which was key to winning the European Green Capital award and remains dedicated to building momentum for climate action. Gary Topp, Development Director for the Partnership and Honorary Fellow in the University of Bristol, was part of the team showcasing Bristol’s ambition on Tuesday in Paris, where he outlined its work involving over 850 organisations committed to creating ‘a low carbon city with a high quality of life for all’. For other Green Capitals, creating a partnership was a major success; we started with one. And it is now the largest of its kind in the world.

One of the things I am most proud of in the Cabot Institute has been our support of and work with the BGCP (which predates my current role by several years).  Our Manager Philippa Bayley was the directly elected co-Director of the Partnership in 2014 (with the amazing Liz Zeidler of Happy City, about which I could write a whole extra blog!), and we have several ongoing projects. The Partnership is now gearing up to be a central and sustainable part of the 2015 legacy, serving as a uniting, empowering and vocal participant in the future of our city. On 26 November 2015, working with Crowdfunder UK, they launched their most recent initiative, the Better Bristol campaign to find new ways to support exciting and potentially transformative projects.  The largest such partnership in the world, the BGCP will play an essential role in ensuring that Bristol continues to be a place where grass roots projects thrive.

Mayor George Ferguson emphasised this principle in his concluding comments, noting that while targets and technology were important, the European Green Capital award was about people and partnerships among civil society, with schools, businesses and other cities. “Recognising that we cannot work in isolation,” he added, “is absolutely vital. We need to shape our cities in partnership, finding common links to suit everybody, provide confidence to deal with the unknown and take control of our destinies.”

A final example of this Partnership came later in the day, when our former Cabot Institute colleague Professor Andy Gouldson (now at Leeds) shared his research in investment in a sustainable future for Bristol. It revealed that over the next decade, such investment could save Bristol up to £300 million on its energy bills and create up to 10,000 jobs.  The report ‘The Economics of Low Carbon Cities: a Mini-Stern Review for the City of Bristol, was commissioned by the Cabot Institute and funded by the University, and uses a robust model to assess the costs and benefits of low carbon projects to accelerate Bristol’s progress.  A similar initiative, STEEP, involving Cabot Institute academic Mike Yearworth, showed how Systems approaches could also bring about city-scale energy efficiencies.  Both are underpinning Bristol’s consultation around its Climate and Energy Security.

So enough patting ourselves on the back.  These are some nice emerging success stories.  But we can do better.

Partnerships work best when everyone benefits, but we must put more effort into building deeper and more powerful trust so that partnerships create room for compromise.  Or even temporary sacrifice. Perhaps more importantly, we recognise that many people do not feel included in these ‘partnerships’. This requires more thought and reflection than a few paragraphs in a single blog.  Therefore, allow me to simply note this challenge and trust me to return to it; and I will finish by focussing on one of our most important partners.

The youth of our city and our planet

As an educational institution, we must make a strong commitment to prepare the next generation. Our offer should be imaginative, distinctive and innovative – and it should prepare our students to be global citizens, committed to a sustainable and just future, and inspired to be creative and enterprising.  These concepts are intrinsic to our ongoing Strategic Review, being led by our new Vice-Chancellor Hugh Brady.

They are also being embedded at an earlier age through one of Bristol 2015’s flagship successes. On 24 Nov, the city launched the Sustainable Learning programme, shared with thousands of Bristol children and  underpinned by the award-winning Shaun the Sheep app.

We must prepare the next generation to live in a more volatile and unpredictable world.  The University of Bristol is committed to that.

We must also prepare the world for them.  This is not about solving all the problems for them; nor is it just about giving them the education to solve problems.  It is also about creating the social, economic, legal and infrastructure framework that leaves room for them and their ideas and their creativity.  I think all policies, regulations and treaties (or their removal) should be tested against a central rule: does this create options for future generations or take them away.   The next generation must inherit a world where creativity and innovation are allowed to thrive. The Cabot Institute is committed to that.

But we must be equally committed to working with them now.

Young people at the Bristol Climate March this year.

George Ferguson emphasised this in Paris: “We all recognised the importance of putting our young people first and foremost; involving them in how we plan for their future… those young people often come up with ideas and solutions that are better than those of their older counterparts. Building cities for the future cannot just be for youth, it has to be with them”.

I have written (and tweeted) about how deeply impressed I am by our Youth Council and our Youth Mayors, several of whom were just nominated by RIFE Magazine as 24 Influential People under 24. They are brave!  And smart and informed and passionate.  They have ambition for themselves and ambition to make the world a better place and we would be fools to simply wait for them to become future leaders. They have much to offer now.

But that involves more than just inviting them to the meeting; it means letting them set the agenda.

Are we brave enough to do that?



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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.  For more information about the University of Bristol at COP21, please visit bristol.ac.uk/green-capital
Prof Rich Pancost

 

This blog is part of a COP21 daily report series. View other blogs in the series below:
 
Monday 30 November: COP21 daily report
Tuesday 1 December: Setting a more ambitious agenda – Bristol’s Transformative Action Plans
Wednesday 2 December: Reflecting on the science of climate change
Thursday 3 December: The politics and culture of climate change

Delivering the ‘Future City’: engaging or persuading?

Posted on by janet.crompton

In Bristol’s European Green Capital year, the University of Bristol and its Cabot Institute have been working with the Bristol Green Capital Partnership and its members to convene a series of four conversations between Bristol academics and city ‘thinkers’ from across public, private and civil society exploring how Bristol delivers the ‘future city’ –  what capacities it needs to be resilient, sustainable and successful and how it can start to develop these in times of changing governance and tightened finances. The conversations will be reflected in a series of four blogs (the third below) and then brought together as a policy report for the Festival of the Future City in November.  You can read the other blogs from this series at the bottom of this post.

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In this third conversation we considered how the range of civil society in the city is or could be effectively engaged in the future of the city. Our earlier debates (on governance and austerity) have suggested that a limited range of the spectrum of thought in the city is really engaged in shaping the future so how can engagement be widened in a way that brings people in because they want to be involved. But first, are we asking the right question in seeking new forms of engagement when maybe we don’t sufficiently value what is already happening? After all, isn’t everyone engaged in some way? What would be different in Bristol if the contribution of every individual, group and community was celebrated, connected and valued? If they felt they had both a stake and a role and were already part of delivering a better future? Would there be different questions asked, or different projects, processes and policies designed for the future?

Utopia and dystopia

A strand of discussion that captured the collective imagination was the idea of utopias – not as an impossible goal but rather as a method to help us move beyond the immediate issues of what we know now. Particularly in the current economic and environmental crises, the use of visions of utopia as a method for imagining a better world and alternative futures is a great tool – although we can also imagine the opposite, the dystopian vision of social disruption in an overcrowded, overheated world fighting for limited resources.

Dystopia. Image taken from PlayBuzz.
We have set an important, ambitious target for combatting climate change: that by 2050 we must have an 80% reduction in our carbon emissions; and we’ve been talking about the profound inequality in the city and the lack of social mobility for years – neither of these will change with incremental efforts. The Utopian approach allows us to imagine beyond what we know now, to think further ahead. Continuing to work in 5 year cycles is only tweaking when what is needed is system change – we can wait for the ruptures or be bold in addressing the big problems. We know that the city will be very different in the future, that the potential is there for dystopia if we don’t act.

‘We need to start thinking about how we best plan for the type of world we want, because if we just carry on the way the current narrative is playing out, it feels more like dystopia than utopia’. 

Could we try to imagine out of that dystopia what the possibilities are? To use a great phrase from Seamus Heaney, we need to ‘make space for the marvellous as well as the murderous’, the utopian vision coming out of crisis. But of course there are tension between what we think will happen and an imagined ideal future and we need to work with the first to get the second – and work out what will make the difference in what we end up with.

Utopias are liberating: an imagined goal to work to
Visions are constraining: just limiting variations of now 

Spaces of encounter and trust

Living in cities allows us to collaborate and survive better. But cities also allow anonymity (for better and worse) and non-participation, creating boundaries between different communities and the segregation that many perceive, generationally and culturally and within and across communities. How could the infrastructure be changed to allow the creation and connection of neutral spaces in order to facilitate interaction? Could a city be designed to actively help people to get to know each other? A city designed to break down barriers between differences, and that values and perceives diversity in all its guises to be a ‘fantastically wonderful, magical, absolutely life-enhancing, collaborative opportunity’.

We do know how to do some of this this, but it’s not happening and more needs to be done if a city’s infrastructure, services and technologies are to make positive contributions to building trust across communities, cultures and generational groups. Infrastructure could then be an enabler of bringing people together, creating spaces for encounter and reasons for interaction and discovery, celebrating and sharing stories and creating connections.

In overcoming intergenerational barriers, there are great examples from around Europe: ante-natal care in old peoples’ homes in Switzerland or co-housing students and older people in Amsterdam. The class and ethnicity barriers seem to be harder to crack – children in schools work together but increasing segregation occurs after age 16, so understanding why and what could be done to build trust and communication between communities is needed.

Trust came up strongly in the conversation, the need to build networks of trust to start to erode boundaries, having conversations to build lasting relationships, finding and using ways for neighbours to know each other. Across Bristol, neighbourly gatherings are building local encounter – like street parties and Playing Out.

Playing Out grew out of discussions amongst friends and neighbours with
young children, living in a built-up, residential area of south Bristol.
Image taken from Playing Out.

Looking further ahead, should we start with envisioning how would we all want to be with each other and treat each other in 50 years’ time in order to have society that works? Can this help to create a Utopian image of human relationships and forms of engagement to work towards?

Who are ‘we’ and are we right?

There’s a danger with all these good intentions that what we really think is that all that needs to happen is everyone else should think like ‘us’. Is there therefore a risk that engagement is really more about persuasion? There are many forms of engagement and many people are engaged in different ways. It is important that we celebrate and value different contributions so that everyone feels like they have a role. For example, surely someone supporting a kid’s after-school basketball club in Southmead is engaged – they’re helping young people to learn leadership and team working skills. They’re encouraging low-carbon, high-community activity (rather than playing sedentary electronic games or engaging in other more antisocial behaviour). They are actively and directly community building and, although they might not use these words, they’re engaged in Future Cities too.

Are certain types of engagement the only valid ones? What about the new political engagement that the Scottish referendum brought about for example, through harnessing new places and by engaging young people more successfully. Riots are also a form of engagement, bringing people together and making something happen – in Bristol, the St Pauls Riots of 1982 resulted in change – this type of engagement is more profound than elections but it’s also messy and disruptive. Mob engagement, civil disobedience, communities collaborating to be exclusive, these are all forms of engagement… are we then talking about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ engagement?

So perhaps everyone can coalesce around the common human aim of having a better future for us and ones we love with human (and environmental) flourishing at the core of everything, tackling issues of equity and justice and not forgetting the climate imperative that might force us to act more decisively together.

Politics, democracy and big institutions

We talked in previous debates about who has the power. Here we also discussed democracy and the democratic mandate of the big organisations that have power in the city. The city council of course has a democratic mandate through its elected councillors and mayor but other major ‘anchor’ organisations do not. These still have the ability to shape and influence policy – organisations such as the universities, health services, travel providers and big businesses in the city.

However, even where there is a democratic potential, not everyone exercises their rights to participate in democracy. For example in the last mayoral election, around 12% voted in parts of south Bristol, compared to over 55% in the more affluent northern areas, leading to a huge democratic deficit which demonstrates that current forms of engagement in the running of the city are not working. There is something about the current idea of politics which is not engaging so, as we’ve reflected above, new engagements which address building trust, inclusion and the embracing of diversity are necessary.

The large institutions in the city do have power but they are seen as impenetrable, unaccountable and not good at democracy and yet they have the resources to do much good where the city council is constrained by its bureaucratic processes and lack of resources. Grassroots activities should also have a role in the formal democratic processes, allowing power to be diffused and giving more communities agency, influence and a voice.

People involved in Green Capital have been described as the ‘emerald city’ and they are just a small group within the overall population of over 400,000. But how many ‘degrees of separation’ are there to reach the whole city? How can we, as a future city, build on the levels of engagement and ambition for resilience and sustainability started in this Green Capital year, working through all the networks and across the separations?

In conclusion

In this third session we talked about engagement through the ideas of Utopia (and dystopia), spaces to facilitate encounter, and the necessary building of trust. We questioned what is meant by ‘engagement’ – whether we’re missing valuable contributions by holding onto a narrow definition and that what ‘we’ might really mean is more akin to persuasion. Some forms of engagement are messy and disruptive but sometimes ruptures are needed to force the radical change that isn’t happening through the routine tweaking of the familiar. The exercise of imagining the future opens up a conversation about what to do tomorrow in seeking a better future for us all, making ‘space for the marvellous as well as the murderous’. It should be less ‘we engaging them’ and more ‘us all co-creating’ a thriving city for now and in the future.

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This blog is written by Caroline Bird, Future Cities and Communities Knowledge Exchange Manager at the Cabot Institute.
Caroline Bird
 
Other blogs in this series

Blog 1: Delivering the ‘Future City’: does Bristol have the governance capacities it needs?
Blog 2: Delivering the ‘Future City’: collaborating with or colluding in austerity?

Change Agents UK: Empowering people to have a positive impact on the world

Posted on by janet.crompton

One of our more exciting and inspirational collaborations this year has been with a fantastic charity called Change Agents UK.  This group works on developing a network of change agents; people empowered to live and work in a way that makes a positive impact on the world around them.  During the European Green Capital year, the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute has collaborated with Change Agents UK to support an EU programme called the Green Capital European Voluntary Service.

Change Agents UK coordinated the programme to host 30 young volunteers from across Europe to volunteer on activities related to Bristol European Green Capital 2015 for two months in the summer of 2015.  Cabot Institute Manager Hayley Shaw helped to form the programme around their visit during which we connected volunteers to:

  • Naomi Oreskes, a prominent climate change scientist. The Change Agents went to see her film ‘Merchants of Doubt’ and met with her beforehand.
  • Andrew Garrad, Chair of Bristol 2015 and Cabot Institute Advisory Board member with a special meeting before his Cabot Institute lecture on renewable energy.
  • Cabot Institute’s Withdrawn art event by the famous artist Luke Jerram.

By helping them to connect to local activity and intellectually interesting events, the volunteers were taking part in valuable experiences to earn their Change Agents Certificate of Achievement. The Cabot Institute also sponsored Change Agents final event which celebrated their fantastic achievements with their host organisations, host families and others from the Bristol Green Capital Partnership.

This project has been really successful and has helped to contribute to the objectives of the Bristol Green Capital programme by providing enthusiastic and capable volunteers to act as Bristol Green Capital ‘change agents’ in projects across Bristol.  This has increased capacity and raised the profile of local projects that are making a positive impact on sustainability in the city.  You can find out more about the positive experiences of Change Agents in Bristol in the brilliant video made by one of the project partners, Chouette Films, below.

The programme is now over for this year and everyone has taken their wisdom earned to their home countries. The organisations are currently exploring funding opportunities to run similar programmes in the future.

If you would like to find out more about Change Agents UK, please visit their website.

http://www.changeagents.org.uk/

Follow on Twitter @changeagentsuk

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This blog has been written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications Officer at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute.  Follow @cabotinstitute and @Enviro_Mand.

Amanda Woodman-Hardy

European Green Capital 2015: How student projects are engaging the city

Posted on by janet.crompton

We had great success with the Cabot Institute pilot of the Dissertation Partnership Scheme that saw seven students working with local community partners in Bristol to answer a real world problem as part of their dissertation on the Environmental Policy and Management MSc course at the University of Bristol.

Two projects that stuck out were a study on how to improve biodiversity in Bedminster and an investigation of Green Deal delivery by local authorities.  Both these projects produced some great findings which should be of value to the organisations that they worked with, as well as forming part of their academic work.

Feedback from all partner organisations who answered a follow up survey were very positive finding it a ”rewarding experience”.  Outcomes for partners working with students included being able to ”feed experience into the academic world” and obtaining a “different perspective” on their work; they also felt that the ”enthusiasm of the student energised different partners they interacted with”.

This academic year the Cabot Institute and the Centre for Public Engagement who have run previous pilots in Engineering and Social Policy have teamed up to expand engaged learning as part of the University of Bristol’s commitment to European Green Capital. The Environmental Policy and Management MSc has just allocated 15 students to partners including local, governmental, international and consulting organisations.  The scheme has also been rolled out to the Climate Change Science and Policy MSc also in the Geographical Sciences department and to the Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health MSc based in the School for Policy Studies.

A slightly different scheme is underway in the International Development MSc in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies.  Students on this course can undertake a unit where they create a business plan for an NGO or small business.  In the past, organisations have been taken from a database of past examples or have been fictional.  We sent a call out for real organisations that have a need for a business plan but not the capacity to create one and 20 organisations requested student support – way more than the course had the ability to undertake.  11 groups involving 43 students are about to meet with their organisations.  At the end of the unit students present their business plan and this will be recorded and sent to the partner organisations.

The hours students put into these partnerships will contribute to the University of Bristol pledge to provide 100,000 hours of student engagement with the city in partnership with the University of the West of England as part a HEFCE grant to encourage student involvement in Bristol during its year as European Green Capital.  We are also looking for volunteering opportunities for our talented students.

If you are an organisation with a research question you would like answered or a volunteering need, or an academic interested in engaged learning, please do get in touch.  It’s an exciting time to be in Bristol!

This blog is by Hannah Tweddell, Sustainability and Engaged Learning Coordinator at the Cabot Institute, University of Bristol.  More about Community Based Learning at the Cabot Institute.

The Fog Bridge and the Coming Storm?

Posted on by janet.crompton
Fog Bridge. Image by Freya Sterling.

This year, as part of its contribution to Bristol 2015, European Green Capital, the In Between Time Festival commissioned the Fog Bridge  by internationally renowned artist Fujiko Nakaya. She shrouded Pero’s Bridge in fog, eliciting a combination of delight and introspection – as well as befuddling the occasional commuter.  The Fog Bridge stimulated debate, criticism, celebration and interest. The most interesting of those debates, that I hope are only starting, revolve around its impact. Like all great art, Fog Bridge should be and is a bit dangerous, in that it causes us to consider – if even for a while – some alternatives to our perspectives.  But who saw it and engaged with it?  Has it affected belief systems and values?  Has it changed behaviour and, if so, of whom?  And is that all a bit too much of a burden to put onto a single piece? 

Nonetheless, it certainly stimulated discussion and that was its primary aim. It was my good fortune to be asked to reflect on Fog Bridge and be involved with an event of this stature.  Some of those conversations contributed to the themes explored during the Festival: Enter the Storm, including a focus on living with uncertainty.  And part of that was my participation in the Festival’s Uncertainty Cafes (see more here).  I was asked to throw out ideas – some well informed and some more adventurous – and then partake in the fascinating conversations this artwork had stimulated.  In that spirit, I share the following unabridged transcript of what I spoke about at the Uncertainty Café on 13 Feb

Our world has always changed.  I have spent over 20 years studying the history of our planet’s climate and environment, and one of the most recurring themes is that on long enough timescales, change rather than stasis is the norm. But the coming changes to our climate, arising from our lifestyles and consumption, are distinct in their speed.  They are nearly unprecedented in Earth history and they are certainly unprecedented in human experience.  The Earth is warming, the oceans are acidifying, sea level is rising, droughts and floods are becoming more frequent – and we as a people are being challenged to adapt to these changes.  One of the most profound challenges is not the higher temperature of more frequent flood but the uncertainty associated with those.  Change, almost by definition, imposes uncertainty and we must discover how to live in this increasingly Uncertain World.

We live our lives informed by the power of experience: the collective experience of ourselves, our families, our communities and our wider society.  Our weather projections and crop harvesting, our water management and hazard planning are also based on experience: tens to hundreds of years of observation that inform our predictions of future floods, drought, hurricanes and heat waves. Now, however, we are changing our environment and our climate, such that the lessons of the past have less relevance to the planning of our future. As we change our climate, the great wealth of knowledge generated from human experience is losing value every day.

Fog Bridge.  Image by Freya Sterling.

This is how I am provoked by all of Fujiko Nakaya’s art and especially  her wonderful Fog Bridge.   Yes it makes me think about our changing weather. Yes, it serves as an enigmatic warning of the Coming Storm. But more, the image of fog, the obstruction of our vision, the demand for a more careful navigation over a bridge that is normally one of our most reliable paths, makes me think of an Uncertain World.

Fog Bridge. Image by Freya Sterling.

Uncertainty is a challenge.  Uncertainty makes it harder for us to live with our planet and with each other. But there is something gentle about the uncertainty evoked by the Fog Bridge that invites alternative perpectives. Is an environmental disaster the only possible outcome of the path on which we walk?

Fifty years ago, between 1962 and 1966, J. G. Ballard wrote a trio of seminal environmental disaster novels: The Drowned World, The Burning World and The Crystal World.  That is why one of the Cabot Institute’s themes this year is The Uncertain World. But there is a more nuanced lesson from Ballard when it comes to change: ‘I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring.’  In many ways, that statement, like the Fog Bridge, challenges the idea of uncertainty being solely negative. I think much of what is embedded in that statement is reflected in Ballard’s post-disaster novels – from Crash to High Rise to Cocaine Nights, all dealing with the tedium of late 20th century, bored lives, gated retirement villages on the Costa del Sol, manicured lawns, 99 channels with nothing on.

And what a tragedy that is for our species. Our most unique and exceptional characteristics are adaptability, imagination and creativity.  Most of our achievements and many of our sins are a direct consequence of our incredible ability to adapt and create.  We can live in the desert, in Antarctica, in space.

If we return to Ballard’s environmental disaster novels with this perspective, they take on new shapes.  The protagonists in those novels – and especially the Drowned World – are not destroyed. Nor do they overcome.  They are awakened and they are transformed.  And in the end, they embrace those transformations:

“By day fantastic birds flew through petrified forests, and jewelled crocodiles glittered like heraldic salamanders on the banks of the crystalline river. By night the illuminated man raced among the trees, his arms like golden cartwheels, his head like a spectral crown.”   – The Crystal World, J.G. Ballard

Catastrophic change can be beautiful and it can startle us out of complacency, it can challenge us, it can demand of us that we embrace the entirety of human potential.

But there are limits to this train of thought.

Taking that perspective towards global environmental disaster is the rather unique luxury of the upper middle class, privileged western European.  Those who might die in floods or famines or whose way of life is not changed but obliterated by rising sea levels will have a different perspective.  Let us never forget that those bringing about climate change and those likely to suffer most from it are not the same.  That is true globally and it is true in Bristol: if the price of food doubles, I will grumble; others will be unable to feed their families.

And in that is a deep and unsettling irony.  Those of us who perhaps would benefit most from embracing the challenges we face are profoundly reluctant to accept any change, whether that be to our sources of energy or food, to our way of lives or to our growth-based economy. And our inability to envision societal change is imposing potentially catastrophic environmental and climatic change on others – those who are most poor and most vulnerable.

That is why the Green Capital conversations must focus on issues of inclusion, empowerment and social justice. We must avoid unfair, unequal, unethical change. But if we can do that, then maybe change can be a catalyst for something fresh and exciting.  Fujiko’s Fog Bridge is beautiful. Fog is beautiful.  A storm is beautiful.  This does not have to be a Disaster Story.  We can change how we live, thereby mitigating the most dangerous aspects of climate change.  And when we fall short and change does come… we can fight it a bit…. But we can also embrace it.

And what might that look like?

We must be radically resilient. If radical uncertainty is on the way then our response must be radically flexible. Our buildings and roads must be able to change.  Our railroads and our health service. Our laws. Our jobs.  Our economy.  Our businesses.  Ourselves.

Our response must be fair and equitable. Those who can barely afford the rent or who work two jobs to put food on the table have less capacity to be flexible. Some of us will have to bear more of the burden of change than others.  Ultimately, I believe we will have to achieve a more fair and balanced society: It is difficult to imagine how grand challenges of resource and planetary sustainability can be achieved if billions are held back by poverty. [NB. This paragraph was the most difficult to express in only a few words during the Uncertainty Café and I want to expand on this here. I believe that everyone in society has great assets of imagination and creativity.  All communities and all individuals can make a positive difference and should be encouraged to do so – and supported in doing so. And in the future, as throughout history, some of the most exciting ideas will come from some of the poorest on our planet.  But overall, I think that poverty steals time and lost time means lost ideas. And that is a tragedy at a time when we need a proliferation of new ideas, and especially those that run counter to ‘conventional wisdom’.]

And we need political inclusion.  If difficult choices are to be made – if our sacred cows are to be sacrificed or compromises are to be made – then we must rebuild a universally owned political system.  We will not weather any storm by hectoring and lecturing nor if mired in apathy and cynicism. I sincerely hope a new platform for more inclusive decision making is a major outcome of Bristol 2015.  It is certainly the ambition of the Green Capital Partnership.

If we share these risks and the costs, then perhaps we can collaborate with our changing planet to achieve something exciting and new – lifestyles that embrace rather than stifle the very best of our creative, dynamic and resilient nature. Maybe we walk across the Bridge a bit more slowly, maybe we don’t cross it at all, maybe we just stop and stare. I don’t know.   Nor do I know if we will make such dramatic changes. But I know that we can.

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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.

Prof Rich Pancost

Environmental comms: The power of emotion, non-stories and…Air Wick?

Posted on by janet.crompton

Communicating is what I do in my job, I’m the Cabot Institute Coordinator and I have a responsibility for looking after the website, blog and Twitter account, creating the weekly newsletter and running the Cabot Press Gang – a group of postgraduates at the University of Bristol who are keen to improve their communication skills in the context of environmental research by blogging and writing press releases.

A week ago I had the pleasure in attending Communicate, an environmental communications conference run by Bristol Natural History Consortium.  I always look forward to attending Communicate and this year has to be one of the best years yet proven by the emotive tears, the curious addition to the goody bags and some excellent talks by some of the best environmental communicators in the UK.

The non-story of climate change

George Marshall.  Image credit Rutgers

One of the first speakers to take to the stage at Communicate was George Marshall, a fantastic speaker and co-founder of the Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN).   George said that we need data, graphs, numbers and logic to help demonstrate our social values, metaphors, experiences and stories.  Stories are socially conveyed and climate change is conveyed by members of the public from narratives that they have heard.

However there is the idea of a non-story, stories we haven’t perceived to be stories, but they exist in their own right.  Climate change is full of non-stories as it is a subject that is outside the boundaries of what is appropriate to talk about.  If you mention climate change to Joe Bloggs on the street, how long does that conversation last for?  Probably not that long.  George pointed out examples like people who have children are less likely to talk about climate change and young women are less likely to talk about it than young men.

George asked how we challenge the non-story or ‘the silence’?  Unfortunately climate change narratives compete with each other. Climate change is the perfect problem as it is distant in time and place, uncertain, costly and unprecedented.

One of the things that stood out for me in George’s talk was when he asked if the perfect problem is a generated narrative? When looking at a list of who or what will be harmed by global warming, people always put themselves at the bottom of the list and put future generations and plants and animals at the top.  George said that climate change is cognitively and emotionally challenging so we generate and share narratives that enable us to reject it, ignore it or shape the issue in our own image.

Image from Collateral Damage

George also pointed out that the most compelling stories contain enemies with intention to cause harm.  For example, if you put North Korea as the sole causers of climate change we would look at this issue very differently.  The story of climate change is in search of an enemy.  Environmental organisations are guilty of blaming ‘enemies’ such as oil companies and Rupert Murdoch for climate change.  But climate change doesn’t have an enemy, we’re not deliberately setting out to destroy the planet, we just want to ensure we can live and our families can survive.

George asked if we could write a new narrative and stated that we need stories about empathy and cooperation, positive visions, reinforcing shared values, identity and most importantly love.  Doing something for the love of it is a valuable lesson in environmental comms.  We may not love the same thing but we have a shared value of loving. So we should probably target audiences based on the things they love and care about most.

Emotive tears – when communicating gets personal

After hearing George’s talk about the importance of love and empathy and personalising an environmental message in communications, I was reminded again of this importance during a very special talk by Steve Micklewright of Birdlife Malta and the very brave Ruth Peacey, who has worked on a variety of nature programmes for the BBC but had travelled to Malta to film a campaign against spring bird hunting.

During their talk titled the ‘Massacre of Migration’ they showed several films, featuring Chris Packham, of the devastating effects of hunters on Malta who shoot down migrating birds.  The films were heartbreaking and those involved with the films were brave when up against some very threatening behaviour. One film featuring Chris Packham crying because he was so distressed at the awfulness of the situation he had found himself to be in, was so emotive that the whole conference room started welling up.  Even the chair of the conference shed a tear as he too was touched by this emotively communicated message.

We all felt something in that room, because we all love nature and the environment.  We were all touched by Chris Packham’s tears because he was communicating about something he loved.   Ruth summed up the talk by saying that there is always an excuse not to do something and sometimes you have to be brave and take a risk when communicating.  She also pointed out that there are lots of media channels out there to get your message across including TV and online and not to limit yourself to the big four (BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4).  What I learnt was to communicate with heart and soul and I hope we can start to embed some of this into some of Cabot’s communications outputs during 2015 when we celebrate Bristol as European Green Capital.

The curious incident of the Air Wick freebie

The Air Wick in my goody bag…

One last thing that really stood out at the conference was a peculiar freebie in my goody bag.  An Air Wick.  I was perplexed.  I looked at this and my first impressions were ‘well that’s not very environmentally friendly is it!’.  What was this plastic container of chemicals doing in my bag?  It was a good icebreaker at the tables, we all came up with theories ranging from ‘maybe we smell’ to ‘it must have something to do with National Parks’.  That last comment was as close to the truth as we could have got.  Kathryn Cook of National Parks UK took to the stage and told us it was their Air Wick product.  So how and why does a nature based organisation team up with a big brand?

Kathryn explained that collaborating with brands can help raise money to do the things that will help the environment.  Engaging with brands who are already affiliated with what you do only lets you target your usual audience.  However, engaging with new brands helps you to reach new audiences who don’t engage with you normally.  Kathryn found it challenging to convince her Board to link with a brand and that it was also difficult to manage expectations; adopt a truly collaborative working process; and keep up with the pace of working with a commercial company.

By working with Air Wick, the National Parks UK have had an income valued at £100,000 and outreach has been three quarters of UK adults who would have seen the TV ad campaign amongst other communications outlets.  Since working with Air Wick, numerous organisations have approached them to collaborate including Halfords, Biffa, Esso, BP, Cotswolds and Disney but whichever organisations they choose to work with must convince them that they meet up with their ethics and be as sustainable as possible.

Kathryn finished by saying that environmental communicators won’t speak to new audiences through fluffy nice organisations because they don’t communicate to other larger audiences.  Kathryn felt that you need to engage with the more corporately inclined companies to reach those new audiences who won’t usually engage with you.

Although I wasn’t sure how I felt about National Park’s affiliation with a chemical group, I was impressed by their bravery and tenacity to do something a little bit different to save themselves and the natural beauty of the UK.

One quote stuck in my mind during that conference.  Environmental comms guru Ed Gillespie said that if we’re not p*ssing anyone off then we’re not changing anything.

Too true.

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This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Cabot Institute Coordinator, University of Bristol.  Follow @Enviro_Mand

Further reading

You can read more about George’s thoughts in his recent book Why are our brains hard-wired to ignore climate change.
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