Minutes of Crag meeting at the Climate Camp, 15th August

Guy S

website team CRAGger Islington

The dates sound ok to me. They fall directly after I finish my contract, so could be problematic getting up to somewhere like Leeds for the Friday evening if I’m still finishing work etc (! hopefully all will be done and dusted by then) but otherwise it’s good. Any later and would be eating into time I hope to be taking off to travel in (woops – more carbon) ;)

Also re the agenda, it would be good to discuss in some detail how people want to take forward Crags, including the more ambitious ideas of trading across groups etc.

As a CRAG newbie, I’d like to express my concerns about the comment “I hope to be taking off to travel … (woops – more carbon)”. I offer these comments in a constructive spirit to all CRAGgers; I hope no-one is offended by them. I recognise the friendly community spirit of this forum, but I’m very concerned about the impression this phrase conveys and how this could be used. I want CRAGs to succeed and be seen to succeed!

Last Monday (20 August), BBC Radio 4’s “PM” news programme had a discussion between George Monbiot and ? double-barrelled named journalist about the success of the Heathrow Climate Camp. One of the things that really struck me was that whilst the latter had not been to CC, she had trawlled through Facebook, and reported, as her trump card, numerous instances of people on F saying, from exotic locations [?Malaysia? Madagascar?] “Sorry I can’t be at CC cos I’m on holiday in Blah, but good luck and I hope you manage to create a lot of chaos” or words to that effect. i.e. CC was the work of a bunch of well-off hypocrites, and thus climate change is not an urgent issue etc etc…

In this context, phrases such as “Woops – more carbon” are potentially very damaging. If we believe that climate change is the urgent issue it is, then both our behaviour AND language needs to demonstrate that powerfully and consistently. I would therefore like to suggest that we all be very careful about how we express ourselves around CRAG issues here, in addition to our CR behaviour – any slip up will be gleefully grabbed and used by climate change deniers.

As I say, I hope no-one is offended by this comment – it’s directed at all of us, for those who weren’t previously aware of this issue.
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david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

I totally agree that our demeanour and behaviour is important, Anna – good point. I always find it difficult, though, to strike the right balance between over-zealousness and being understanding, especially talking about flights, and especially where there’s family involved. I guess the only way is to put the facts on the table.

The CRAG angle on this, I’d say, is that people are free to take the trips they chose as long as they stay within their overall budget. Of course, it’s difficult to tell if someone’s busting their allowance, because they are not yet clearly declared – but that’s something we’re working on!

Jamie

CRAGger Hackney CRAG Wychwood

Hi Anna,

I completely agree with you. I work for Torchbox, and we’re behind http://beta.thecarbonaccount.com, and if you enter your energy and transport use into the Carbon Account, along with any flights, you can see how easily any flight takes you over even a quite generous budget of four tonnes (of direct emissions, with the rough average UK footprint being 5 tonnes of direct emissions, and another 5 of embodied emissions).

Short-haul flights do not result in as much carbon as long-haul flights, but obviously the rail alternatives are so straightforward that it makes sense not to fly to Europe in terms of saving your carbon allocation for other things, like heating your house. Long-haul journeys by plane will inevitably take you way over your carbon budget, and to convince yourself that long-haul flights are somehow ‘more necessary’ because it’s hard to get around the world without flying, is basically just denying the figures.

I similarly do not want to cause offence to any CRAGers, but if this was a normal green forum, rather than one that is specifically looking at what is possible with a given sustainable budget of CO2, then I would hold back. As it is, I’m pretty staggered that denial of the facts of climate change has penetrated this far. Citing ‘families’ as a reason to go easy on people who fly is pretty ironic given that we’re five minutes away from a massive global catastrophe.

I was at the Camp for Climate Action, and I agree there needs to be far more consistency in how ‘our’ views are expressed, given the massive inconsistencies. I had a conversation that went along the lines of: “Isn’t it great that people dressed as red herrings and then tied themselves to Climate Care’s offices?” ... “I’m flying to South America”. It’s a pretty ridiculous position to moralise about how bad offsetting is, and then at the same time continue to fly.

Sorry for the rant. By the way, I am starting a low carbon travel company, Loco2. Please get in touch if you want to get involved, the website is www.loco2.co.uk.

Guy S

website team CRAGger Islington

Hmmm. Well, I agree that if people assess Craggers solely on their words and not their actions, then saying ‘I’m off travelling… woops, more carbon’ might sound a little hypocritical. The fact is, people who are involved in Crags are amongst the most dedicated of environmentalists: they are trying to embed environmentally beneficial behaviour into their every habit. I absolutely agree that presentational issues are important – and am not offended by this being pointed out. But when considering our public acceptance, I fear more that Crags will come across as too austere, rather than hypocritical. If even humour must be expunged from a low-carbon world, then it ain’t gonna be much worth living in…

Jamie, to say that you are ‘staggered that denial of the facts of climate change has penetrated this far’ seems a bit bizarre to me. Should we ignore the fact that familial ties are the reason why many people fly? To do so ignores an important reason why simply telling people not to fly – “No! Never! Thou Shalt Not!” – does not sink in. Rather than rail against people’s desire to see their loved ones, we must try to figure out how to reconcile that with low-carbon living. We have a member of Islington Crag who has chosen not to fly to see her close relatives in Malaysia for the next year, and probably for the year after too. That is selfless behaviour, but few in the UK would do the same as yet. One option we are looking at at the moment is allowing individuals to save up carbon credits over a long period (beyond a year) for occasional flights, so as to incentivise making cuts now in other areas of your consumption. If greens focus solely on doom and punishment, rather than allowing for incentives and aspirations in our policies, then we are easily pigeonholed as ‘the new puritans’.

Jamie

CRAGger Hackney CRAG Wychwood

Hi Guy,

I’d like to correct my last post re. ‘families’... I had taken the original family reference to mean ‘people with families should be able to fly to take their kids on holiday’. The issue of love miles is obviously far more tricky, and so I apologise for my confusion if that was what the original post was talking about.

I think the option for allowing the saving of credits over a number of years is a good one, though possibly a little premature given how difficult it is to get to a sustainable level of emissions without flying or driving. My concern is that during the design of a PCT scheme people will continue flying thinking ‘the issue is in hand’ and then we will reach 500 parts per million and positive feedback will kick us into touch. We need to focus on constructive solutions right now rather than continuing to design for the future. Essentially, that means stopping flying and embracing other forms of transport until (we hope) aircraft technology becomes clean enough for its emissions to form a feasible part of a carbon budget.

I’d hope that people involved with CRAGs would be past the point of letting things ‘sink in’ and that’s the only reason I’m writing so candidly about it in this context. Generally speaking, far from focusing on ‘doom and punishment’, I explicitly point to the benefits of slow travel (I’m writing a ‘slow travel manifesto’ with Ed Gillespie of www.lowcarbontravel.com and Laura Burgess of www.ecoescape.org) and I’ve started Loco2 to focus on the positives of other types of travel. My sister, the founder of Loco2, has just started a three-week cargo ship voyage to Central America.

Again, sorry for the rather charged outburst but I think it’s important to get these issues out in the open.

:-)

My comment seems to have stimulated some lively exchanges, but I think what I was trying to say has been largely misunderstood in ways that suggest we really do need to be more careful in how we express ourselves, both so that we pass external scrutiny and so that we don’t bicker destructively.

My comment was explicitly and solely about the use of language on the forum and nothing else. Since the original comment made mention only of “travelling … oops more carbon” and I don’t know the author personally, I had no way of knowing the type of travelling that was being described, and thus I neither could nor did make any criticism about that author flying. I did have an immediate interpretation of that remark, but on re-reading the whole comment, decided that I had no evidence to support that interpretation alone. [Additionally, my understanding is that most current forms of travel result in carbon dioxide emissions.] However, on careful reflection, my concerns about the use of language remained. I did wonder about including a comment to the effect that I was not making a criticism about flying in the original comment, but decided that it might be read as being archly sarcastic which was not what I wanted to achieve.

Given that I made no explicit criticism of any member of this forum for flying in that comment, it is therefore very interesting that two other readers of this forum have interpreted what I said as being just that. One of those readers may [from my impression at the recent Climate Camp workshop] know the author of the original comment, the other may not. This demonstrates that what is understood is a product not only of the original author’s skill in communicating, but also the knowledge and purposes of the receiving audience. It’s very difficult to communicate clearly [particularly in written forms] to a large varied audience, which, I suggest, further underscores my original point that we need to be very careful about how we express ourselves here.

In response to the remark “If even humour must be expunged from a low-carbon world, then it ain’t gonna be much worth living in…” I think this comment highlights the difference between private discourse and public political discourse. My impression is that this forum was started by a smallish core of passionately concerned CRAGgers who mostly knew each other pretty well i.e. this forum was set up by a group of friends. [Hooray and thank you!] In this sort of context, jokes will work OK. However, as the CRAG movement expands, this forum will become increasingly a public political space [because membership will be based on shared political concerns first] rather than a chatty board for pre-existing friends with similar political concerns. This process might be difficult for the founders of this forum to recognise. In an expanded context, written jokes on this forum will be far less easily shared but instead are more likely to cause misunderstandings and arguments.

Thus, we really do need to be careful so that what we write here cannot be used as a stick to beat us with, and so that we can communicate effectively with each other.

Thinking overall about the nature of the exchanges on this thread, focused around the issue of flying, I sense a conflict between feelings of frustration and feelings of defensiveness about which I would like to make some suggestions. I shall start a new thread about that however.

Best wishes

Anna

Guy S

website team CRAGger Islington

Anna, thank you for your considered reply. You highlight very clearly the problems of internet forums in general for communication, where participants can seldom be sure of the identity of the people they speak with, and can make mistakes about the tone of what is written etc. Apologies, too, if my reply sounded a little defensive – I truly hate forums where participants lay into one another, often simply over misunderstandings. The Crag forums tend to encourage much more tempered debate – and if this is the closest we’ve come to a heated exchange yet, then we’re still doing well!

More specifically with regard to the issue you discuss about the make-up of the Crag ‘constituency’, certainly it began as a group of individuals with a shared interest in tackling climate change (although not all were friends beforehand). As Crags have sprung up in different places, that constituency has changed and, hurrah!, expanded. Whenever I get involved in a campaign or community enterprise, I’m concerned that it will be led by just a handful of people who may either stifle the group, and / or cause it to collapse when they leave. So ensuring there is an open, rather than closed, circle of interested participants is always a concern for me. The fact that new people join the forum each day is therefore excellent. Equally, you’re right to point out that basically anonymous comments posted in public spaces can be used to stitch up an organisation / group. No more in-jokes in future, I promise! :)

Guy S

website team CRAGger Islington

Jamie, thanks for this. We’re clearly thinking on the same page. I think I’ve come across your slow travel manifesto before in fact and completely agree with your aims (and choices of transport!). Measuring my carbon footprint for this year, it’s been frightening how quickly car travel ratchets up my impact compared to public transport. It remains difficult to sell ‘restricted mobility’ to people, though, so looking for ways of making this attractive – improving public transport networks, for instance, and proving that savouring a journey is just as satisfying as jetting off to a beach (as your line of work shows) are good ways forward here. Keep it up.

Jamie

CRAGger Hackney CRAG Wychwood

We are indeed reading from the same page. The main thing I want to try and show with Loco2 is that exciting travelling adventures are possible without flying, though they do, as Anna says, also include CO2 (how much is currently pretty unclear). What we need to do is keep pushing the debate forward and show that there’s a demand to really thrash out all the issues, and not leave out long-distance travel just because it’s the most tricky to address.

vey_straker

CRAGger Hereford

Would be well up for that! (though a hike on foot might be a bit more sociable than a bike ride?).

angelaraffle

CRAGger Redland Bristol

thanks for posting the meeting notes, v useful, and thanks for all the work that you guys are putting in to the network/ website etc.

the Leeds convergence plan sounds good. Tend to agree with the post about a hike being more inclusive than a bikeride – unless theres a route you have in mind and a bike hire place? if people are coming from all over england, though in theory bringing bikes on trains is supposed to be dead easy it isnt always. Can the venue be near the train station? Angela
Bristol
www.sustainableredland.org.uk

john ackers

website team CRAGger Islington

Eva, the model we are using is based around the Personal Carbon Allowances scheme that we hope and expect the government to introduce. I would be very impressed and amazed if some people could establish a working CRAG that included income adjustments.

Reevesie

CRAGger Leicester

Those dates are fine with me – sounds really exciting. I think there’s plenty of themed discussions that we could add to the agenda too, and I think there’s a lot of potential for it to be an event that could draw in a lot of people who currently aren’t involved with CRAGs but want to find out more about carbon rationing – that’s if we want to open it up that broadly, though I think i’d be in favour of that. (we could always have some sessions that are for existing CRAGs only and some that are open to all, if needs be..)

- R

I really like the term “carbon debt” rather than “fine” – the latter sounds punitive, and doesn’t convey the idea of overconsuming a limited precious resource. Even so, robinsco reports reluctance to pay carbon debts.

I was a bit surprised to learn at Climate Camp that carbon creditors in Leeds CRAG [?] were setting their credits aside or that the CRAG was buying carbon credits with the money left at the end of the accounting period. Those possibilities hadn’t occurred to me.

What I’d thought of was each accounting period’s money being re-allocated within the CRAG for carbon-friendly measures [ie energy efficiency measures – domestic applieances, loft insulation etc depending on funds]. [I note Mayer Hillman’s criticism of energy efficiency, but I still think this is worthwhile, especially for CRAGgers who really are actively reducing their carbon footprint.] Thus the debt becomes an investment for the future. In order for this to work, you’d need to agree some principles first – such as a prioritised list of such investments, or a prioritised list of behaviours [consistent low carbon living or largest carbon reduction over accounting period? If the latter, I’d suggest the largest sustained carbon reduction over two accounting periods, so that you don’t invest in people whose behaviour change is a one-off] and rules for people to access that money [eg debtors who haven’t paid their debt can’t get access to the resources]. You might also need some startup contribution(s) into the fund so that you’ve got some real finance to work with – I’d be happy to do this myself [I’ll see what Zaria and Simon, fellow Peckham CRAG starters, think when we meet]. You’d also need to increase the next carbon reduction target proportionately for those who benefitted from such investment.

I can see that there are all sorts of different ways of CRAGging, but what I like about this approach is that it demonstrates to everyone the benefits of low carbon living – and provides an incentive to do better. Carrots generally work better than sticks! In my dreams, I see this as a potential way to get not-very-green types involved…

I really do think we need to get away from the idea that we pay carbon fines in CRAGs, and instead see what we do as a vital investment in our common future. Perhaps if people saw that they could really benefit directly – reduced personal expenditure as a result of energy efficiency – in the not-too-distant future – they would behave differently with the payment of carbon debt?