         
Welcome to the July issue of the ClimateXchange update. As usual it’s a collection of upcoming events, snippets of news and resources both locally and nationally. The Natural History Museum in Oxford, recently host to the amazing CIAO Ark project, is now adorned by the Ghost Forest installation by local artist Angela Palmer. Do check it out. Upcoming events are below, including the launch of a new local group, Low Carbon Oxford North, and the Big Lunch. Enjoy the summer, and if you have news, resources, opinions you’d like to share about climate change, do send them to jo@climatex.org .
Tags: news Welcome to the July issue of the ClimateXchange update. As usual it’s a collection of upcoming events, snippets of news and resources both locally and nationally. The Natural History Museum in Oxford, recently host to the amazing CIAO Ark project, is now adorned by the Ghost Forest installation by local artist Angela Palmer. Do check it out. Upcoming events are below, including the launch of a new local group, Low Carbon Oxford North, and the Big Lunch. Enjoy the summer, and if you have news, resources, opinions you’d like to share about climate change, do send them to jo@climatex.org . Contents
1. News1.1 ** Climate unit 'did not hide data' **Climate scientists emerge from third inquiry with their reputations for honesty intact but with a lack of openness criticised. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/science_and_environment/10538198.stm 1.2 GreenerGlastonburyFor a greener side to Glastonbury, see the ‘greening Glastonbury’ video featuring Catherine Bottrill: http://www.euronews.net/2010/06/29/everything-s-gone-green-at-glastonbury/ 1.3 Scottish Low Carbon Community wins top prizeThe excellent people on the Isle of Eigg in Scotland have won the top UK 'Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy'. They generate 90% of their electricity from the renewables, and have agreed a voluntary energy cap: every household voluntarily limits consumption to a peak of 5Kw (use any more and your supply cuts out!)” www.isleofeigg.org 1.4 Committee on Climate Change 2nd ReportThe Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is an independent body established under the Climate Change Act to advise the UK Government on setting carbon budgets, and to report to Parliament on the progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Their second report came out last week. They point out that we need to move from less than 1 GW new wind capacity added in 2009 to over 3 GW on average annually (mostly off-short) in third budget . The report, along with a useful technical powerpoint, is at www.theccc.org.uk/ - see the LCCN site for more links. (from Low Carbon Communities Network newsletter) 1.5 'Lighter Later' Bill to be debated in parliamentAfter months of campaigning and lobbying MPs, that there will be a bill in Parliament backing Lighter Later. Pushed by 10:10, it’ll be debated in December. Find out more, and put pressure on your MP here: www.lighterlater.org 1.6 Equitable Billing CompanyRecent feature on local firm EBICO: How green is your recession? Well, very, according to the managing director of a Witney electricity and gas supplier who set up in business 11 years ago with the specific aim of fighting fuel poverty. http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/business/8222209.Equitable_Billing_Company/
2. Resources2.1 GORILLAZ ARE NOT THE ONLY APES, AS DIZZEE RASCAL, BOB DYLAN, GREEN DAY, COLDPLAY, WYCLEF JEAN, GROOVE ARMADA, FRANZ FERDINAND, AND KT TUNSTALL JOIN THE REVIVALFeaturing some of the brightest stars in music, ‘Revival’ is a new offering from Rhythms Del Mundo (RDM) in partnership with the widely-respected Artists Project Earth (APE), a UK NGO focusing on disaster relief and climate change mitigation. With each of the tracks given the trademark RDM Afro-Cuban twist, ‘Revival’ offers several musical surprises while supporting relief efforts in Haiti, Chile, and Tibet following the recent catastrophes in these regions. www.rhythmsdelmundo.org www.myspace.com/rhythmsdelmundorevival www.apeuk.org 2.2 New Green Jobs reportIPPR's latest report on Green Jobs: 'Green and Decent Jobs; The Case for Local Action' analyses the results of a new survey of 450 organisations working across the UK to understand the appetite for more partnership working at the local level on this agenda. The paper is also available as a free download from the ippr website; www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports. (from Low Carbon Communities Network newsletter) 2.3 CARBON ACCOUNTINGOxfordshire County Council, as part of its commitment to help businesses reduce their carbon emissions, has developed an on-line carbon foot printing tool called Carbon Accounting. Use this free tool to help measure your carbon - the first step to reduction at: http://www.carbonaccounting.org.uk EiE has been appointed to promote the tool and offer further environmental support. Users of the tool are eligible for a low cost energy and waste consultancy that identifies realistic savings through resource efficiency, at a fixed price of £440+VAT. We will refund your money if the report can't show you how to save more money within a year than the consultancy costs. EiE is a non-profit group based at Oxford Brookes University; we have carried out energy and waste consultancy for over 1000 Oxfordshire and area businesses. For more details contact EiE at: Tel: 01865 483 299 . Email: eie@brookes.ac.uk http://www.brookes.ac.uk/eie 2.4 A Changing Climate for Business – 3rd edition now out.UKCIP has published the third edition of its business publication 'A Changing Climate for Business'. This is an introduction to climate change impacts and adaptation for a general business audience. As well as inclusion of information from the new UK Climate Projections, updates include a section outlining the business case for adaptation and some advice, illustrated with case studies, on becoming a well-adapting business. It is available to download at http://www.ukcip.org.uk/images/stories/Pub_pdfs/Georgina.pdf
2.6 Beyond the Tipping PointA provocative new film, ‘Beyond the Tipping Point?’ explores how we imagine the future in the face of impending environmental crisis and how this affects the way we respond 2.7 New online tool helps civil society to ‘get legal’Get Legal www.getlegal.org.uk : a website signposting charities, social enterprises and co-ops in the right direction. An online tool to help charities, social enterprises and co-ops make informed decisions about their legal form launches today. Get Legal – www.getlegal.org.uk - was developed by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), with support from law firm Bates, Wells & Braithwaite. More info 3. Communities
3.1 Low Carbon Communities Network newsletterThis is an excellent resource for community groups. You’ll notice a few items from this newsletter are from the LCCN mailing, so if you’ve found them useful do sign up directly with LCCN hello@lowcarboncommunities.net / http://lowcarboncommunities.net/ 3.2 Save the date: Sat 13th Novemberis the (nearly finalised) date for the follow up to last year’s Big Climate Event. Provisionally called Oxfordshire Climate Communities Event (suggestions for a better name more than welcome), it’ll feature the combined excellence of all the groups in Oxfordshire, plus a whole heap more. More details coming soon. 3.3 Big Society? Low Carbon Communities? It will not have escaped your notice that the new government is putting a lot of focus on community engagement through it's 'Big Society' initiative. This is something that LCCN is watching closely at a national level and may be something your group should consider engaging with locally - a good way to build links to other groups and there might even be some funding.... get up to speed on this by checking the following links: 3.4 Community Central infoCommunity Central is a new web tool aimed at community groups, to enable sharing and collaboration across groups and sectors. To help you navigate around the tool, they’ve organised some webinars (online seminars) - so please take a look at the forwarded email below, and sign up directly with them (not me!). Community Central is a service dedicated to making it easier for community leaders like you to engage with their members and achieve their sustainability goals. Unlike any of the other existing networks it will: 1. Significantly reduce the time it takes to administer your community group by giving you easy to use communications tools and a document library housed within your own private space on the Community Central platform 2. Make the sharing of ideas and discussions within your group easier and more productive through online discussion forums 3. Help you to recruit more members (so you don’t have to wear out your shoe leather!) 4. Enable you to engage with other community groups, commercial partners and local authorities to share best practice, gain tips and insights and find solutions providers that are right for you 5. Deliver to you and your members a distillation of all the best in green editorial and content on the web, full of ideas and suggestions 6. Help you communicate to your members your calendar of events, as well as see what is going on elsewhere through our comprehensive regional calendar. 7. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we will give you the very best in advice on how to make your community group investment ready, and how to raise that investment for the projects that are important to you. To make benefiting from Community Central as easy as possible, they will be running a series of online training and familiarisation sessions that you can take part in from the comfort of your own home. If you’d like to take part in one, contact Ashley Blackmore Communities Director ashley@black-more.com 07860 290200 Monday July 12th 7.30pm Tuesday July 13th 7.00pm Wednesday July 14th 6.30pm Wednesday July 21st 7.30pm Thursday July 22nd 7.00pm Friday July 23rd 6.30pm 3.5 Inspired by CreationA little patch of earth. A quiet spot to reflect. A view that stops you in your tracks. Where do you encounter God through creation? During September the Diocese of Oxford will be running Inspired by Creation. A chance to share with others how creation inspires you. Inspired by Creation will give you the opportunity to win prizes by entering a photograph and/or a poem/prayer that captures the place where you encounter God through creation. Register now by filling in the form here. http://www.earthingfaith.org/inspired/ Then use the summer to take a photograph or write a poem/prayer that is inspired by the place where you encounter God through creation. In September you will get a reminder to come back to the Earthing Faith website, when you will be able to enter your photograph and/or words into the competition. Do pass it on, you can download fliers and further details from the website http://www.earthingfaith.org/inspired/ 3.6 Community Adaptation Toolkit to be launched.The Greening Campaign will launch of their Community Adaptation Toolkit on July 20. This is aimed at helping organisations to improve their resilience to climate change, and to take up the opportunities that climate change will bring. Speakers include representatives from Defra, Global Environmental Social Business, Farming Futures and the Sustainable Development Commission, and there will be a number of parallel workshops. For more information, go to http://www.greening-campaign.co.uk/TCAT/TCAT_Conference.html 3.7 Mapping OxfordshireWe’ve created a quick google map of Climate Community groups in Oxfordshire , which you can find here: http://climatex.org/articles/lo-carb-communities/oxfordshire-ground-communities/. At the moment we’ve linked to your website only, but if you’d like to add more info, please send it through to jo@climatex.org. If you run a website for your community project, please do link to it. 4. Eco-renovation
4.1 Saturday 31 July DO YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW TO INSTALL A GREEN ROOF?Volunteer and learn for free! Barracks Lane Community Garden will be installing a green roof on Saturday 31st July and needs around 16 volunteers (doing 2-3 hours each) interested in learning how green roofs are installed to help out. Normally people pay for a workshop to learn how to install a green roof – so this is a great opportunity to learn for free! It will be hard physical labour but with the promise of seeing what has been put in place to support the roof, and bedding the meadow turf, at the end of the day. Kay and Gareth who are supplying the substrate and turf, and who have worked on the overall design, are some of the UK's leading experts on green roofs, and very enthusiastic and willing to share their considerable knowledge, and will be there all day. If you can help out, please contact Kate Jury on: katiejury@mac.com or 01865 201 882 4.2 Open Eco-Homes this yearOxfordshire ClimateXchange and COIN aren’t organizing the Eco-homes open days this year, but there will be a number of eco-renovated homes open as part of the national Heritage Open Days from 9-12th August. Check their website here: http://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/ for more details – and if you’d like to take part, register online – and better still, join the Old Home Superhome Network 4.3 Old Home Superhome NetworkThe network currently has 56 members and is increasing all the time. We are joining together a group of enthusiastic and dedicated homeowners who have all renovated their own properties to achieve carbon savings in excess of 60%. These are mainly older properties which do not have cavity walls (it is easier to achieve a 60% saving in a solid walled property as the insulation makes such a huge difference). The homeowners benefit from the network by being linked with other like-minded individuals and are invited on a regular basis to attend SuperHomers meetings which provide an open forum to discuss issues and achievements and usually have an expert speaker to present on good practice etc. We are often asked to provide case studies or exemplars for press articles or government departments and usually send an email to relevant SuperHomers. Finally, we are able to pay a small ‘upheaval fee’ each time you open. This is up to £100 for the first three openings (minimum of three hours) and up to £80 thereafter. Up to a maximum of £1,000 per year. We ask SuperHomes to open two to three times a year, but some open on a more regular basis. For more info contact Gabby Mallett, Head of Communities, The National Energy Foundation tel: 01908 256903 gabby.mallett@nef.org.uk http://www.sustainable-energyacademy.org.uk/
5. UPCOMING EVENTSMore events on the online calendar: http://climatex.org/whats-new/ plus a full list of Environmental lectures available here: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/oxfordenv/index.php If you’d like to add you own event, please do so via the link under the events calendar: http://climatex.org/whats-new/ 5.1 Monday 12th July Henley in Transition presents: Dave Hampton: Carbon Coach
Doors 7pm. Start 7:30pm King's Arms Barn 5.2 Thurs 15th July First public meeting of Low Carbon Oxford North.Join us on Thursday July 15th at 7-9 pm, Ferry Centre Annex. For more information, see www.lcon.org.uk 5.3 Sunday 18 July THE BIG LUNCH 2010Big Lunch is an Eden Project initiative. Read about it at www.thebiglunch.com. Gather your neighbours together to plan for the biggest Big Lunch that Oxfordshire has ever seen! CAGs are keen that the lunch should be made from locally sourced or home grown foods with as little or zero waste as possible. Or join in a local lunch at http://www.thebiglunch.com/map/find-a-big-lunch.php 5.4. July 17th Transition Eynsham Area:Hanborough/Freeland film show/ discussion. Long Hanborough Recreation Hall, Witney Rd. 7.30-9.30pm 5.5 19-20th July: Introduction to Permaculture Design CourseDo you want to make our community more sustainable and resilient to changing climate? Do you want to develop your practical skills so you can grow your own food and begin to ecorenovate your home? Why not come to our new 2 day introductory permaculture design course and find out how? The course will include theory and practical sessions. 5.6 22nd July ‘Artopia’ at The Corn Exchange, Witney 5.7 Thursday 29 July 10am - 4pm Environmental fun dayWitney Corn Exchange Learn how you can help save money and the environment with fun activities, stalls and advice. Come along and: • Let the kids enjoy the energy bus and bike powered energy stall • Find out about the council’s new households waste and recycling service starting in November • Bring your energy bills to find out how being green can save you money • Meet local environmental action groups • Keep your costs down by saving water, energy, petrol and reducing waste • Refreshments available and lots, lots more! 5.8 4- 5th September 2010Wallingford Green fair at the BunkfestWebsite: http://www.bunkfest.co.uk Venue: Wallingford, Oxfordshire Contact: Catherine Somerville: somecath21@virginmedia.com This is the first Sustainable Wallingford Green Fair held as part of the BunkFest. The Green Fair provides an opportunity to find out more about how to reduce energy consumption through a combination of presentations and trade stalls. Wallingford BunkFest is an annual festival promoting Folk, World and Roots music and dance for all ages. The Festival takes place at many venues in Wallingford, an attractive market town on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire. BunkFest is a mix of ticketed and free events, designed to appeal to the widest possible audience; in 2009 it attracted around 15,000 visitors over the 3 days, with roughly an even mix of local people and visitors from across the country. 5.9 Sept 11th Transition Eynsham Area:Part-stall at Hanborough Show.
**** For further info and to get involved, contact info@climatex.org Email upcoming events to info@climatex.org or upload them yourself: http://climatex.org/whats-new/ Subscribe to this update by sending a blank email to: climatex-subscribe@climatex.org Article by
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