David Leonhardt writing in the New York Times recently called for a new climate narrative. Reacting to President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, he asked: “What would a more politically persuasive message about climate change sound like?” This is a good question. And the answer might come from a surprising source.

In the 1940s a famous salesman named Elmer Wheeler made what Time magazine called “a handsome living” by advising US businesses “don’t sell the sausage – sell the sizzle!” Wheeler knew that the big secret to successful selling is that you don’t advertise the sausage itself – because actual sausages are made from intestine, fat and the bits of pig that are only fit for grinding up. Instead, it’s the sizzling sounds and smells which get the juices flowing and the people buying. This is the secret to sales.

And right now, climate change is the pig gut. It doesn’t sizzle.

Which isn’t surprising when the most common message on climate change is that we’re all going to hell. That’s what climate change looks like when you get right down to it: rising seas, scorched earth, failing food supplies, billions of starving refugees tormented by wild weather. And hell, simply doesn’t sell. Although these Armageddon climate scenarios might be eye-catching, they haven’t changed attitudes or behaviours nearly enough. Threats of climate hell haven’t seemed to hold us back from running headlong towards it. So, what if we looked at climate change not as a scientist’s problem – but as a salesman’s problem?

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First, we need to stop the angry climate porn. The gratuitous and guilt-wrenching images of a planet in meltdown. Even if the fear of the climate curse keeps you up at night. Even if you’re bloody furious at Trump. Even if you want to shake people by the shoulders and scream “don’t you get it, we’re going to lose everything on this gamble!” Remember Shakespeare’s quote: “the nature of bad news infects the teller”.

Instead, we need to take a deep breath and find another way. At Futerra we like to sell the sizzle. We believe in a climate narrative that changes hearts, minds and even behaviours. An approach needed now more than ever before. And it’s the opposite of climate hell. Because what people want now is to imagine better. And better is exactly what we’ll get if we start to properly tackle climate change.

Because almost everything we must do to solve climate change happens to solve something else. Cutting down on air pollution will cure so many health problems, especially asthma in our children. Moving towards renewable energy will make countries energy-independent and avoid oil-induced conflicts and wars. Solar panels cut carbon emissions and, better than any other type of modern fuel, they can bring light and hope to the poorest or most isolated people. Green energy isn’t just green; it’s now cheaper to source in many places in the world.

What if we looked at climate change not as a scientist’s problem – but as a salesman’s problem?

Building a new climate-friendly infrastructure is a massive task and will mean millions of new jobs and even entire new industries. In our own lives, we know that saving energy saves money. Electric cars cut oil use and cost much less to run (while accelerating like a jet). The Lancet medical journal has even published a series of papers over the last decade proving that a ‘low-meat and high-vegetable’ diet would radically cut the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. It also happens to be exactly the diet they recommend to protect your heart, slim your waistline and add years to your life. So, from our health to our homes and jobs, taking positive action on climate change, be it large or small, seems to come with big practical paybacks.

This reward message could even work for Trump followers by promising jobs and ways to secure communities’ future. The climate action message is ultimately one of independence, freedom and happiness.

But this isn’t only a political message, it’s also a personal one. In 2006, UK research group ESRC reviewed more than 100 studies of how people change their behaviour for the better. They found that the least effective behavioural motivator was fear or regret. Which is why leaders like the former UN chief climate negotiator Christiana Figueres call themselves ‘stubborn optimists who will never give up’.

She’s one of the new climate optimists. Like Richard Branson who calls climate change ‘the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity of a generation’. This is a growing community of people who don’t just believe we can win. But that winning comes with the promise of a better future.

What people want now is to imagine better

A whopping 81 per cent of Donald Trump’s supporters think life has worsened in the past 50 years. Among Britons who voted to leave the European Union, 61 per cent believe that most children will be worse off than their parents. So, the promise that fighting climate change comes with built in rewards might change more than just policy, it could change politics itself.

The new story of climate change is a story of adventure. Our chance to overcome a great monster, and snatch our reward from its jaws.

Image: Frank McKenna

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The post ‘We should replace angry climate porn with a positive message’ appeared first on Positive News.

How did Permaculture magazine begin?

When Tim and I published the first issue of Permaculture magazine it had a tiny readership of 800 people, mainly Permaculture Association members, our national education charity and students of permaculture design courses, but we had a vision that permaculture could go mainstream and so we started supplying shops and other outlets from day one. Today we have about 100,000 readers, are found in shops all over the world, and even have a North American specific edition of the magazine.

What changes have you seen in the movement since you started the magazine?

Back in 1992, permaculture in Britain was a very alternative scene. Yet to come was the understanding of low impact development in English and Welsh planning law thanks to people like [woodsman, coppicer and natural eco-builder] Ben Law and Tony Wrench [author of Building a Low Impact Roundhouse] respectively. Internationally, permaculture people were found in pockets all over the world, but there were only a few charitable foundations and a limited network.

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Over the years we have seen permaculture activists working in disaster areas, such as Haiti after the earthquakes, building sanitation systems and providing clean water. Permaculture has become part of the national curriculum in East Timor and a recognised approach to sustainable agriculture, good nutrition and regenerative land management in Malawi. It has become a tool for teaching agriculture and horticulture and training for refugees from Afghanistan and the Middle East. It forms the basis of Gaia Education’s ‘ecological key’, endorsed by The United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and UNESCO.

At the last inter-governmental climate talks in 2016, Baroness Patricia Scotland, the secretary-general of the Commonwealth, referred to permaculture as one of the key approaches to regenerative development to reverse (not just adapt to) climate change. Permaculture is emerging from the alternative fringe to take its place within a portfolio of holistic design solutions.

Tim and Maddy Harland established Permaculture magazine in 1992. Photo: Gail Harland

What has been most challenging about 25 years in publishing, and of what are you most proud?

The most challenging thing is publishing a magazine that is fundamentally opposed to unconscious consumerism. As you know so well at Positive News, we need to sell a certain number of magazines to survive and it is not possible to play the conventional commercial game to get those sales (by corporate advertising sales for yet more consumer disposable products). We rely on our readers’ discrimination and the magnetism of good news, positive, practical, tested solutions and a vision of the future that is regenerative, not degenerative.

Tim and I both love the passion, intelligence, generosity and inventiveness of our writers, advertisers and readers. We love the small team we work with who work so hard on the magazine’s growth and development. We love the emerging vision of the future, a mosaic of many people’s understanding and insights. We can almost hear this future breathing, to use the words of author Arundhati Roy.

Tim and I are proud to be producing a book, Fertile Edges: regenerating land, culture and hope to celebrate our 25 years in print. It is a collection of my editorials over this time contextualised by world events, permaculture happenings and personal biography. We are proud because this collection demonstrates how cutting-edge the permaculture movement has always been and this collection gathers together in one volume so many beautiful ideas, stories and practices that have inspired us both and our readers over the last quarter century.

Why is permaculture particularly relevant now?

The permaculture movement is all about its people. We have specialists in regenerative agriculture who can transform barren lands in all climates. We have people working with refugees teaching skills that will create greater self-reliance and help heal some of the terrible wounds of exile. We have urban permaculturists working with people who feel left behind, people working in developing countries transforming food security, teachers pushing the edges of people care and helping groups to work more effectively together. We have people working on cultural emergence, finding the patterns that will allow new ideas to coalesce and be developed.

Permaculture is a holistic design system based on natural principles. These can be used in so many different contexts. Perhaps the most interesting one to emerge will be a planetary permaculture design using all the tools and strategies we know are effective to lock up carbon in the soil and biomass and reverse climate change. The science says it is possible (read Paul Hawkins’ book, Drawdown). What is required is a deepening sense of urgency coupled with a political understanding that such a design will be regenerative – it will provide food, energy and wellbeing – and not sap it from the system.

But it will also require a step change in the world. I’ll be speaking more of that on Sunday at the London Permaculture Festival.

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Where do you see permaculture heading in the next 25 years?

I see permaculture becoming a key strategy in climate stabilisation. We need regenerative designers in all areas of life if we are to survive. Permaculture provides a framework to train the next generation in Earth repair. I would urge any young person to find their passion, educate themselves as best they can, and go out into the world with the intention to learn as much as they can for the benefit of their fellow beings, and not just the human ones.

Why are get-togethers such as this weekend’s London Permaculture Festival so important?

The London Permaculture Festival is a key event. It is always packed with great workshops and events so is a prime opportunity for learning new skills and being exposed to new ideas. It is wonderfully diverse – as London is – attended by people of all ages and cultures. Social inclusion is really important for me as it indicates the good health of an organisation or society, and social justice is the compassionate and intelligent way to live. It is also a celebration. There is nothing quite like meeting other social change activists.

We can all spend too much of our time feeling on the edge of society because we think differently and do not buy into the conventional narrative we are sold from birth. The festival is a chance to be with people of like minds, go urban foraging, make new friends, eat excellent food, and breathe in that positive, regenerative future world we all want to create.

The London Permaculture Festival. Image: Chris King

Maddy Harland is founder and editor of Permaculture magazine – practical solutions beyond sustainability. Her book, Fertile Edges: regenerating land, culture and hope will be published in September by Permanent Publications.

The London Permaculture Festival takes place at Cecil Sharp House in Camden, London, on Sunday, 30 July.

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Thousands of refugees remain stranded at Calais. Many more are embarking on treacherous sea voyages to Europe to escape the disasters unfolding in Syria and beyond. Yet despite media portrayals of refugees, which have often been negative, people have taken it upon themselves to help.

According to the Charities Aid Foundation, one in three Britons has contributed in some way to the refugee relief effort, and more than 1.8m households in the UK would offer a refugee a room. People have also driven from all over the country to deliver supplies to Calais, including shelter in the form of caravans and tents.

It is a similar story across the rest of Europe. In Germany, Flüchtlinge Willkommen (Refugees Welcome) has provided an online platform that works like Airbnb, linking people with spare rooms to refugees who need accommodation. It has since spread to eight other European countries, although not yet the UK.

With winter upon us, these temporary forms of shelter are vital for protecting refugees from the cold.

They show that another way of living is possible, practical and desirable

But is there a longer-term, sustainable response to the refugee crisis? One that also fosters meaningful work for UK citizens, rehabilitates degraded farmland, generates a return for ethical investors and demonstrates that we can create a more peaceful, prosperous world?

‘Sustainable safe havens’ is an idea that takes welcoming refugees to the next level by integrating them into a supportive community and offering fulfilling livelihoods. Such an approach could, for example, concurrently tackle the refugee crisis, sustainability issues and youth unemployment by creating a social enterprise that employs young people and refugees to grow food.

Undervalued farmland could be borrowed or rented and transformed into prototype ecological live-and-work communities that produce surplus food. Income could be generated by selling produce, running cafes, courses and events, producing arts and crafts, and showcasing cutting-edge, appropriatescale green technology alongside ecological restoration.

It sounds far-fetched, but this is a proven idea. Eco-villages with social purpose are springing up around the world. In Sólheimar eco-village in Iceland, people with or without special needs live and work together growing food and creating art. In the UK, The Severn Project is a social enterprise run by ex-offenders that generates income from growing salad ingredients. In the process, it helps its employees reintegrate into society. Such a model could be used to help refugees and restore ecological health and community to damaged UK countryside.

A perfect storm of climate change, ecological deterioration and ongoing militarism is driving a global crisis. This will continue until radical systemic change shifts us to a new course. Sustainable safe havens offer a positive alternative to detention, while also showing that another way of living is possible, practical and desirable.

If we can show that people of different nationalities, backgrounds and religions can sustainably live rewarding, creative lives on neglected land in the countryside, arguments claiming that our country is full up, fall flat. We are not in a doomed race to consume our dying world. We can make things better.

Photo: Reuters/Bernadett Szabo

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Britain is in the midst of a housing crisis. The average house in the UK now costs £253,000 – more than nine times the average salary and 44.9 times higher than in 1971, when a typical house cost £5,632. To put that in context, according to the charity Shelter, if the price of everyday items had risen at the same rate of inflation, a dozen eggs would now cost £10.33 and a jar of instant coffee £33.69.

Yet house prices continue to rise. Data from the Office of National Statistics show that prices are rising at their fastest since June 2010, up 9.1 per cent in the year to February 2014. Prices in London are up 17.7 per cent, the biggest jump since July 2007. It’s no surprise people are struggling to get on the property ladder.

But cost is not the only factor involved. Inadequate housing stock means there simply are not enough homes to go around. There were some promising figures for 2013, when around 122,000 new homes were started according to government figures – the most since 2007 – but the number of completed house fell by five per cent compared to the previous 12 months, and this is against a need for 250,000 new homes to be built each year, according to experts.

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And of the homes we do have, not all are in use. In 2013, the total number of empty homes in England fell to the lowest level ever recorded, according to the independent charity Empty Homes. However, it estimates that 845,000 homes remain empty homes across the UK, 300,000 of which are long-term empty.

What or who is to blame for the situation? Some point fingers at Margaret Thatcher, who despite giving council tenants the right to buy their homes, did not allow councils to spend the proceeds on building more houses. Others lay the blame at the door of banks, which stopped lending to first-time buyers during the 2008 recession and are only now beginning to do so again. Buy-to-let landlords come under fire frequently, blamed for hoovering up stock before others can get a look in, while some media claim an influx of immigrants has resulted in too many people chasing too few homes.

But there are now 4.5 million people in housing need throughout the UK, so attributing blame is perhaps futile when this is a crisis which demands attention now. Here, key organisations outline what can be done, and what they are doing, to address Britain’s escalating housing problem.

Steve Turner, Home Builders Federation
‘Government should support an increase in housing supply’

All commentators now accept that we have an acute and deepening housing crisis. We have been undersupplying new homes for years.

In her seminal report on housing for the Labour government in 2003, economist Kate Barker suggested we needed to be building more than 200,000 homes year. We estimate that in the decade since, we have missed that by a total of more than a million homes. The implications are stark; 1.7 million families are on local authority housing waiting lists while first-time buyer numbers collapsed.

The main short-term problem has been a lack of affordable mortgage lending. People just cannot afford the deposits of £20 to £30k that have been required to secure a mortgage [the Council of Mortgage Lenders says the average deposit for a first-time buyer is between 17 and 19 per cent of the property value].

If people can’t buy, builders can’t build. In the longer term the planning system has been the biggest constraint with not enough land coming through for the number of homes we need.

The Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme is addressing the demand issue. It means people can buy a new build home with a five per cent deposit. Its extension to 2020, announced in the budget, gives housebuilders longer-term confidence and we are seeing big increases in house-building activity as a result.

The new localism based planning system [designed to give local communities more power over planning in their area] adopted by this government is starting to bed down. But government needs to ensure it monitors its effectiveness closely and adapts it where required as it still takes far too long to get planning permissions.

Delivering the homes we need will provide significant social and economic benefits. As we approach an election, it is vital all parties commit to policies that allow the increases in supply required.

More information: www.hbf.co.uk

Katharine Hibbert, Dot Dot Dot
‘Use empty homes for community benefit’

Dot Dot Dot lets people who do great voluntary work live in houses that would otherwise be vacant, turning them from a burden into an asset. By doing this, we help everyone involved: providing a vital security service to property owners, giving our residents cheap accommodation and making a meaningful and measurable contribution to communities, as well as helping them to avoid the antisocial behaviour and crime which empty property attracts.

The shortage of secure, affordable, decent housing close to where people want to live and work might be the biggest problem facing communities in the UK today. If everyone has to work constantly just to pay the bills, they don’t have time to help their friends, family and neighbours, to give time to charitable projects or simply to enjoy life. We aim to relieve that pressure on the people we accommodate – letting them save money so that they can carve out more time and energy to help with worthwhile projects.

All of our residents live in London for between £35 and £70 a week – between a quarter and a third of what they’d pay to rent an equivalent property privately – and all give at least 16 hours a month to charitable projects, and in many cases far more. They are helping out with a huge range of good causes – from manning RNLI lifeboats to supporting survivors of domestic abuse; from mentoring kids from difficult backgrounds to befriending isolated older people. On top of that, they are great neighbours – keeping an eye out for those who live nearby and simply being friendly faces in corridors and on the streets.

Filling empty homes isn’t a whole solution to the housing crisis – we desperately need to build more places for people to live.

More information: www.dotdotdotproperty.com

Angus Hanton, Intergenerational Foundation
‘Make the housing market fairer’

“How can we turn the current crisis in private housing around?” invites the question. “What crisis?” For the wealthy retired there is no crisis. For many in that generation the housing market works. It has escalated in value over past decades thereby providing an asset, the profits from which can be realised for nursing home or social care costs, lifetime gifts to relatives, spent on themselves or finally passed on as inheritance. Increasing house prices have also allowed owners to borrow against their asset and gain access to the buy-to-let industry, thereby providing a comfortable retirement income on top of their pension.

But for first-time buyers, home-ownership is becoming an unaffordable aspiration, even for those lucky enough to have family help with deposits.

The issue also affects those consigned to renting. Lack of housing supply and ever-higher property values simply increase rents.

We need one million new homes, but a building programme on this scale takes time to plan and implement, so here are a few immediate fixes:
1. Get Britain moving: reward downsizers who move, with stamp duty holidays [where the cost of tax on home purchases is waived in certain circumstances].
2. Rein in the buy-to-letters: remove annual tax subsidies of £5 billion and ban interest-only buy-to-let mortgages.
3. Force land-bankers to build on or give up land.
4. Reform planning controls so affordable home building makes business sense to developers.
5. Share more: increase the rent-a-home tax allowance so it pays to share space.

More information: www.if.org.uk

Bill Nicol, Owenstown
‘Build cooperative settlements’

In recognition that there is a real need and considerable scope for original and progressive thinking, a new model has been developed by the Hometown Foundation, a Scottish charity established by a small group of philanthropic businessmen. Owenstown is a pioneering proposal to address the housing crisis through the creation of a new settlement, or a series of settlements. The approach represents a holistic, exciting and practical evolution of the Garden City model [urban planning that creates self-contained communities surrounded by green belts], but then incorporates refreshed ideas from social reformers such as Robert Owen and contemporary cooperative theories, in order to make greater steps towards a better and fairer society. This recognises the value of ownership, horizontal democracy and active citizenship.

Unlike most conventional private and public sector led approaches, the proposal is to advance a local, democratic solution and to build a cooperative settlement, which will be self-contained, self-funded, self-governed, self-owned and built by popular consent. The aim is to build a community that is greater than the sum of its physical parts. That the new settlement will be developed and delivered without the need for any public sector support makes the model a viable answer to increasing housing demand.

More information: www.owenstown.org

Christine Haigh, Let Down
‘Tighter controls on rent and letting agents’

Too many people in the UK are stuck in expensive, insecure and poor-quality housing. Many of them rent from private landlords – but now renters are fighting back. In London, there are now no fewer than nine private tenants groups organising locally, supporting each other and campaigning for better alternatives. Last year these groups set up a campaign called Let Down, highlighting the problems faced by people who rent from private landlords and demanding change.

At the moment, letting agents can get away with charging extortionate fees and discriminating against potential tenants if they receive housing benefit. They are also not properly regulated. We want the rest of the UK to follow the lead set by Scotland, which has outlawed fees for tenants, and aims to end to all discrimination. We’ve already seen some improvement in the way letting agents are regulated, but there’s still more to be done.

Two of the biggest issues we face are high rents and insecure tenancies. To tackle these, we are calling for the introduction of rent controls and secure tenancies for all tenants, whoever their landlord is. And since most of us would prefer not to be private tenants, we’re also calling for much more social housing, which is more affordable, better quality and more secure.

More information: www.letdown.org.uk

Simon Ross, Population Matters
‘Reduce population growth’

The housing market, like all markets, is governed by supply and demand. On supply, we can build more, though losing green spaces and the green belt affects health and quality of life. We can also build smaller, though smaller homes can lead to stress. However, it will always be difficult to satisfy continually rising demand. The UK population has risen by four million in the last ten years and this trend is forecast to continue.

England already has Europe’s highest population density. We are living longer and more people are living alone. We lead Europe in large family prevalence and a high birth rate and also have high net migration.

Reducing and reversing our population growth would relieve pressure on the housing market, as well as on transport, services and resources. We can do it in three ways. We can improve sex and relationship education and family planning services to reduce our high rate of unplanned pregnancies. We can promote the benefits of smaller families for individuals, society and the environment. And we can move back to the balanced migration position Britain has had throughout its history.

More information: www.populationmatters.org

Sanford Housing Co-operative, London, outreach team
‘Create more housing co-ops’

A housing crisis is nothing less than a life crisis. I used to live in a private rental flat and it cost me almost every penny of my mindless full-time job to pay the rent on a home that never felt like mine. My social life was spent on a credit card. I’ve never been so depressed – and I was told I was lucky.

I now live at Sanford Walk Housing Co-operative, which gives me the two things that the private rental model never could: affordable secure housing and autonomous freedom in a home that feels like home.

I am no longer a cash cow for a landlord. Neither am I a forgotten council tenant. I am both tenant and member of a co-operative housing community. As a tenant I pay rent to the co-operative and, as a member, I help decide how we spend that money.

The co-operative is not just a model for housing, but a model for a flourishing home life. Most importantly, it works. Despite charging rents about half the market rate, we regularly have an annual surplus of more than £50,000. That’s money we can spend on ambitious projects to improve our lives and our community. Over the past ten years, members have built a high-capacity bike shed, reduced our carbon emissions by 60 per cent and created an orchard where there was once only wasteland.

We know that people are desperate to live in co-operatives: at Sanford, demand for rooms outstrips supply by about ten to one. Why, then, are there so few? In the UK, co-operatives make up just 0.1 per cent of the housing stock; in Sweden, the proportion is 17 per cent.

More information: www.sanfordcoop.org

Social media debate:

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The future of the economy, environment, media and personal change will be discussed at an interactive conference on 27 March, titled Embrace the Change.

Experts in their fields will present their vision for a better future to audiences both online and in studios at Southampton Solent University. The event is being produced by Global Documentary, a project dedicated to sharing ideas and solutions for a sustainable future.

Editor of Positive News, Seán Dagan Wood, will be sharing his vision for a more constructive and balanced media. Other speakers include Kate Raworth of Doughnut Economics, who will be proposing a new ecnomic model; Alice Hooker-Stroud from the Zero Carbon Britain project, which sets out what a low carbon world would look like; and Tim ‘Mac’ Macartney of Embercombe, an enterprise that seeks to inspire committed action for a truly sustainable world.

A variety of other experts, including senior lecturers from Southampton Solent University, lawyer Polly Higgins, and author Charles Eisenstein, are among those joining the discussion as panelists in the studio and via Skype.

Kate Maple, creative director of Global Documentary, told Positive News that the organisers were motivated to create such an event because they realised that many people believe change needs to happen in the world but don’t know what can actually be done.

She said: “What we fundamentally feel we need to do now is move the conversation forwards, from problems to solutions, to creatively find ways to navigate our way through the current issues towards a better future.

“This event seeks to be part of that process, by linking people together on a global scale, and hopefully empowering people to come away from the event full of ideas and inspiration as to how they personally can get involved.”

Embrace the Change will be broadcast live online between 7pm and 9pm on 27 March at www.globaldocumentary.org. Tickets to be part of the studio audience have sold out.

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Last year, Sunrise: Another World festival was a washout but the weekend of 30 May – 2 June 2013 brought golden sunshine and a new site, Thoulstone Park near Chapmanslade on the Wiltshire border. This was heaven-sent, as solar panels were an important part of powering the event, which this year claimed to be the first festival in the UK to have a renewable energy smart grid.

At the heart of the festival was the idea of developing a micronation; to imagine itself as an independent state that invites its citizens to co-create their society, while having fun. Close to 7,000 Sunrise dwellers received visas on entry with the opportunity to participate in activities that earned them a Sunrise passport.

The 150-acre former golf course was split into regions, like the Underworld with its kaleidoscopic décor and dance music focus, the mythical Storyland for children, or the peaceful wellbeing area with wood-fired hot tubs by the site’s small lake.

One of the pillars of the micronation was its ethical trading policy. 80% of the food and drink sold at the festival was organic and on Saturday night we even enjoyed a five-course banquet sat on hay bales at long communal tables in a pop-up restaurant, The Elderflower Kitchen. From the nettle and wild garlic soup to the homemade raspberry and rose ice-cream – all with ingredients sourced locally in the Blackdown Hills – greasy festival burgers this was not.

In addition, local currency the Bristol Pound was accepted at all stalls across the site. There was also a noticeable lack of branding and advertising at the festival.

Jon Cousins, a trustee of Sunrise’s charity The Natural Communities Foundation, explained that the idea of building sustainable community through festivals, is being increasingly absorbed from Sunrise: Off-grid, a smaller 5-day event in August.

“The sanctity of matter, the interrelationship with the planet we live on – this is at the heart of Sunrise philosophy,” he told Positive News.

“All festivals should be about celebrating and showing the creative, positive possibilities of a better world. There is still some tweaking to be done, but this year we are smaller, more authentic, and truer to our philosophy,” he said as we sat in The Shire, an embodiment of the village green, where children and adults played games in the sun and craft makers wove and carved their wares.

With the London Orchard Project offering us freshly pressed pear juice and the air filling with the sound of gypsy swing from the Spit ‘n’ Sawdust stage, there was a feeling of much joy, freedom, and unity. Coming to such events and meeting people that live what they preach can really change your view on alternative culture and how festivals can be run.

The Cat’s Cradle Green Talks Dome held inspiring talks, with the backdrop of a ‘hanging garden’ – plants with their roots and soil netted in tights and suspended from the dome roof. Saturday afternoon offered a panel discussion with Resurgence & Ecologist editor Satish Kumar, environmental lawyer Polly Higgins – who dared us “to be great” on behalf of the planet – and the Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett.

“We’re pushing to transform the British economy, to bring manufacturing and food production back to Britain,” Bennett told Positive News, and said that Sunrise festival complimented this.

“People getting together, sharing ideas, sharing experiences – that’s important because it energises people, it informs and educates them, and it sends them away with a new energy to get out and actually act … The knowledge that’s here can spread around the country.”

But let us not forget the music. We heard blends of dub, hip-hop, folk, psy-trance and drum ‘n’ bass. The Sunrise Pub was a hub of entertainment as the scorching days rolled into chilly nights with performances from the likes of Babyhead and activist band Seize The Day.

Dub Pistols closed the main stage on Saturday with an energetic performance that included guest appearances from Rodney P and Roots Manuva, drawing in the festival’s biggest crowd. We also enjoyed bouncing around in the sunshine to the Inexplicables on Sunday afternoon, who paid homage to Roni Size with their mix of sax, guitar, vocals and beat box.

But for me, it was the Tribe of Doris programme in the Global Village area that stole the show. They consistently brought people together with drumming, dance and singing workshops, exploring rhythms and colours from around the world.

“People getting together, sharing ideas, sharing experiences –  it energises people, it informs and educates them, and it sends them away with a new energy to get out and actually act”

Up in the Ghetto Funk area with a boat for a DJ booth, we loved the mesmerising laser lights, the xylophones made from recycled materials and the treetop children’s play area. Just beyond was the Earth Circus café, which hosted powerful poets such as MC Angel and Sirena Reynolds from London’s all-female hip-hop collective, Lyrically Challenged.

“This is the first festival of the year and a nice start to the summer,” lead singer Daniel of the south London reggae band, The Drop told us, after their upbeat main stage performance. “It’s relaxed, not too hectic and has a diverse mix of people. Our music has a conscious message about positive change; we’re trying to be aware of the injustices of the world and it definitely ties into a festival like this.”

Inevitably for an event pushing the boundaries, Sunrise didn’t always reach the mark. Some citizens chatted with us about whether the music ethos fitted the festival’s manifesto, for example, or how it would have been useful to see more information around the site explaining what the micronation is.

But feedback like this will be vital to the Sunrise Moot, a new forum that citizens of the micronation can take part in. As one of the festival directors, Alex Lepingwell explained: “The moot is an ancient concept where issues are thrashed out among the community. In our online and physical moot meetings over the coming year, micronation policy will be developed… We really want input from our citizens on everything to do with our development, from which bands to book, to evolving our micronational stance on nuclear power.”

Sunrise: Another World is an evolving concept. The organisers want to build the event as a physical meeting point for a growing community that can celebrate through culture, music and laughter, while responding to social and environmental issues and exploring a positive vision for the future.

It’s been great to see their philosophy put into practice and be part of it, and I hope they continue, as spoken word artist Sirena Reynolds put it, to “step fearlessly into the new dawn.”

The post Sunrise: Another World 2013 (review) appeared first on Positive News.

With no previous environmental activism behind him, Rossano Ercolini, then a 37-year-old school teacher, seemed like an unlikely candidate to begin championing the destruction of incinerators and promoting the zero waste message across Europe. But a 20-year journey of challenges, successes and prestigious awards says otherwise.

Today, Italian-born Rossano is recognised as the European winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize – the world’s largest prize for grassroots activists – for his significant work in tackling Italy’s mounting waste crisis and spreading a message of sustainable living across the globe. Thanks to his efforts, regions in Italy are achieving remarkable rates of recycling where once politicians had all but given up on the issue, such was the extent of dumping, fly-tipping and landfilling.

His zero waste journey began in 1994, when the council in his hometown of Capannori announced plans to build two waste incinerators just two kilometres from the school where he taught. Incineration was a popular method of waste disposal at the time, billed as a ‘sustainable’ alternative to landfill and backed by messages of innovation and efficiency left over from the 80s.

“But there is more to incineration than that,” Rossano tells Positive News. “The incinerators pump out harmful smoke and carbon dioxide, and it is a waste of materials that could be recycled and used again.”

With overflowing landfills, poor waste removal management and allegations of corrupt mafia dealings surrounding the waste issue, simply ‘incinerating the problem’ was an attractive proposition for many officials. But Rossano felt differently.

“Zero waste is not a destination, it’s a journey. We won’t complete it tomorrow, that’s obvious, but we have to start today”

“I felt a duty to get involved with these important issues,” he says. “So I started to organise small information meetings around Capannori, progressing to bigger meetings. We would discuss the harmful emissions from incinerators, as well as the alternatives – namely separated recycling collections [where materials such as glass, card and metal are separated out of general rubbish].

“It soon became clear that the community felt the same way as I did about the plans for the incinerators. Of course, the problem came in convincing the politicians.”

Such was the trend for incineration at the time, Rossano struggled to find support from the scientific community. “The politicians would say that the incinerators weren’t dangerous, or at least weren’t as dangerous as older incarnations of incinerators, and we needed back-up to prove this wasn’t true.”

Eventually, Rossano and his team were put in touch with Dr Paul Connett, an American professor and activist whose work in the field of incineration and waste management has won him numerous awards and citations.

“We invited him to speak at a very large waste conference in Lucca, and such was the weight of his argument that our victory quickly became very apparent. In 1997, the incinerator project was scrapped.”

It wasn’t just an environmental argument that won the battle, either. Both Rossano and Dr Connett advocate the economic benefits of recycling in place of incineration. Recycling creates up to 20 times as many jobs as simply burning waste does, and plays a major role in helping councils achieve EU-imposed targets on waste – failure to do so will mean hefty fines. Then of course, in a world where resources are becoming increasingly scarce, councils are able to capitalise on the princely sum they can command for their salvaged materials.

“Capannori was the first council to adopt a ‘zero waste’ approach, and now boasts an excellent 80% rate of recycling. Before this, it was just 11%,” says Rossano, whose programme of waste education and awareness has resulted in 124 other councils in Italy developing their own zero waste strategies.

Next on the agenda for Rossano is Naples, arguably the most rubbish-ridden area of Italy. “Naples has always been a challenge because of the politics there,” he says. “But in 2011 the new mayor Luigi de Magistris arrived and made the waste issue a priority. We helped shape a waste strategy for the city and rolled out a door-to-door collection model, which will be expanded to a further 500,000 inhabitants in June.

“Currently Naples is at a 30% recycling rate. We hope to get it to 50% by the end of the year. If it’s possible in Naples, then it’s possible anywhere!”

Rossano is also involved in a number of other waste minimisation projects, including working with UK director Candida Brady on her new environmental docu-film Trashed, and teaming up with leading Italian coffee brand Lavazza to develop an alternative to their single-use coffee capsules.

“I noticed that a lot of rubbish bags in Italy are full of this coffee packaging,” says Rossano. “So I contacted Lavazza and they responded immediately, wanting to work together to find a solution to the problem. This is encouraging, and shows that people are generally aware of the issues and want to do something about it.”

He adds: “Zero waste is not a destination, it’s a journey. We won’t complete it tomorrow, that’s obvious, but we have to start today.”

The post Zero hero appeared first on Positive News.

In the late summer of 1983, scientists such as the physicist Fritjof Capra and biologist Francisco Varela joined spiritual leaders such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama and zen master Baker Roshi at a pioneering event in Austria.

By the end of the five-day conference, which was called Other Realities and took place in the village of Alpbach, it was hard for me to distinguish the scientists from the mystics. The conclusion of all the assembled wisdom was that spirituality without science tends to be self-obsessed and weak, and that science without spirituality was mechanistic and inhuman. There needed to be a fusion of the beauty of science and the blissful nature of spirituality.

In the decades that followed, dialogue grew between scientific researchers and those with a spiritual vision for a better world. This lead into new fields of thought and understanding about the nature of reality. Central to this in the UK was the founding of the Scientific and Medical Network in 1973, which felt that science was often guilty of leaving out consciousness and purpose, and which tried to apply scientific rigour to its investigations into consciousness. The Wrekin Trust charity also ran a series of conferences similar to the Austrian event.

The historical perspective is important because over the last three centuries western civilisation has turned away from the natural world and become more and more absorbed in the material world. It is generally accepted that science has brought major advancement and improvements in our lives, but with the acceleration of technology and communications, human activity has become more frenzied and damaging to the planet.

Yet there is an emerging vision of science that places life within an overall process of great complexity and which has led us to an understanding of the web of life, not only on our planet but also in the extended harmonies of the universe. Our minds and consciousness are part of this harmony.

Within this new model, matter, as it was previously understood, is disappearing as the fundamental feature of reality, as the notion of energy replaces it.

One of the great breakthroughs from science would be an acceptance that we are so much more than our physical bodies. Scientists now admit the reality of etheric matter, but acknowledging the ‘etheric body’ supporting the physical would bring a huge step forward for humanity and its understanding of our place in the cosmos.

In his book Harmony: A New Way of Looking At Our World, the Prince of Wales writes of a “golden thread” of perennial philosophy that will reconnect us with the natural and spiritual world. He quotes Marcus Aurelius: “All things are linked with each other and bound together with a sacred bond.”

Prince Charles draws on examples from farming, architecture, medicine and contemporary science where this idea is beginning to be put into practice, and he outlines how our fast-changing societies can break through to new and harmonious ways of living.

Here is where science has to revolutionise itself. At the same time, research into consciousness and concepts such as healing has to become more scientific and rigorous.

One of the voices from the Austrian conference, biologist Rupert Sheldrake, notes in his latest book, The Science Delusion, how science has hardened its attitude towards unorthodox ideas and is stifling the scientific spirit of enquiry. He also points out that “the power unleashed by scientific knowledge is causing the mass extinction of other species and endangering our own.”

There is a now a strong call from those like Sheldrake and others in the scientific community for a recognition of a wider transpersonal consciousness. If this breaks through into the broader world of science, it would offer a new way of thinking about the world, which could enable us to truly live sustainably.

Paul’s recommended reading:

– Changing Consciousness, David Bohm and Mark Edwards (Harper Collins, 1991)

– Third Millennium: The Challenge and the Vision, Ervin Laszlo (Gaia, 1997)

– Harmony: A New Way of Looking At Our World, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales (Blue Door 2010)

– The Science Delusion, Rupert Sheldrake (Coronet 2012)

The post It’s time for harmony between science and spirituality appeared first on Positive News.

The Halloween decorations hadn’t even made it back into their boxes before the first not-so-subtle signs of Christmas appeared, and now fairy lights, glittery garments and super-duper one-off deals are everywhere.

But at the same time, Extra Ethical, a new initiative to promote ethical consumption and sustainable buying habits, is setting up shop too. Its founder, Oliver Sylvester-Bradley, is keen to buck the trend this festive season.

“People seem to go just a little bit crazy at Christmas, both in terms of spending and buying things they – and others – don’t really need,” he says.

So crazy, in fact, that a staggering 60% of the UK’s annual retail turnover occurs at Christmas. And yet last year’s GoodBrand survey found that, despite the recession, ethical consumption was on the rise. Consumers concerned with recycling, Fairtrade, shopping locally, buying organic and vetting companies before purchasing from them made up 55% of UK adults. There is certainly an appetite for change.

“It is a growing phenomenon, definitely,” Oliver admits. “But at Christmas lots of people’s principles and values can fly out the window. Now seems like the perfect opportunity to remind people about the need to be more sustainable, more thoughtful about where they spend their money.”

So how easy is it to walk into a high-street store and buy an ethical gift? “The big brands like M&S… they’re making an effort,” says Oliver. “But, in actual fact, you can make a bigger difference by spending your money in a charity shop. Or with a small brand that doesn’t have such a large global impact and isn’t importing things from all over the world.”

Oliver is a big believer in consumer power. For him, currency is a vote, one that can wield real change outside of the piecemeal progress of rumbling corporate social responsibility packages. “Every penny that you spend is a vote for the company you’re spending your money on,” he says. “It’s your greatest power as a consumer – to shop with the brands you believe in.”

With this in mind, he has set up the Extra Ethical advent calendar to encourage a more sustainable Christmas by offering free prizes and tips throughout advent.

Prizes from some of Britain’s best-known eco-stalwarts will be handed out each day from 1-24 December, including Fairtrade teas from Clipper, 100 rental vouchers from WhipCar, handmade Christmas cosmetics from Lush, £1,000 in clean energy investments from Trillion Fund, and even ethical holidays from Responsible Travel.

People who share Extra Ethical with their friends will receive reward points and could make it on to a leaderboard, where they will be in with a chance of winning a grand prize on Christmas Eve.

The post Dreaming of an ethical Christmas appeared first on Positive News.