The art of applied hope

David Orr has recently published an excellent essay, 'On Climate Change and Applied Hope' on the Centre for Ecoliteracy's website, which makes an important contribution to the call for action. Orr advocates a new rigour of leadership:

"that those who purport to lead us, and all of us who are concerned about climate change, environmental quality, and equity, treat the public as intelligent adults who are capable of understanding the truth and acting creatively and courageously in the face of necessity — much as a doctor talking to a patient with a potentially terminal disease. Faced with a life-threatening illness, people more often than not respond heroically. Every day, soldiers, parents, citizens, and strangers do heroic and improbable things in the full knowledge of the price they will pay. Much depends on how and how well people are led. Robert Greenleaf, one of the great students of leadership, put it this way: "It is part of the enigma of human nature that the 'typical' person — immature, stumbling, inept, lazy — is capable of great dedication and heroism if wisely led."

The Do Lectures and our work at EcoSapiens is centered on the principle of sharing enough contextual information with people in communities, business and government for them to know whats happening, then support the development of the quiet, strong leadership that's needed to make change.

Authority for change

Spent an interesting day in Cardiff - my second this week in the capital of one of the world's fastest moving countries on climate change. Day one was great, catching up with Steve Garrett from Cardiff's Riverside Market, Helen Northmore from Energy Saving Trust Wales and the folks at Cynnal Cymru before a reception to say farewell to the delightful Adrian Piper on his retirement as the Bank of England's Agent for Wales.

Day two, today, was even better - six hours of action planning with around 50 leaders from Local Authorities in Wales; speaking with Arup's Peter Head, top politico Jane Davidson and Tim Peppin from the Welsh Local Govt Association before moving into an afternoon that saw excellent distillation of ideas into action, facilitated by colleague Steve Bather. Now is the time to turn 'smart' goals into 'Do' verbs and make change happen - and if we can make this happen on the scale talked about this afternoon, a seismic shift would be possible. Steve, the WAG team and I will make the declarations public so that we can all play a role in giving our politicians the space to lead.

Key targets:

1. Replace oil our economy by 2050
2. Reduce CO2 emissions by 40% by 2020
3. Get into 'carbon descent' within the next 1000 days.

Ecoplay - TYF on Countryfile

A couple of weeks back, the BBC's Julia Bradbury spent a day with the TYF Adventure team to film a piece for BBC's Countryfile programme, which screened on Sunday night. The footage they've put together gives an excellent overview of this wonderful sport, invented by us in St Davids 23 years ago. Click here to watch - the TYF coasteering is the last 5 minutes

Happy Planet

I've had the pleasure of working with nef's Nic Marks a couple of times this year when we co-delivered a workshop on sustainable communities to two audiences of senior decision makers from local government. Nic has just released the next Happy Planet Index, which, as always, makes interesting reading:

nef (the new economics foundation) is pleased to announce the release of the Happy Planet Index, the second global ranking of the ecological efficiency with which the world’s nations deliver long and happy lives for the people who live there. The report reveals a surprising picture of the relative wealth and progress of nations:

• Latin America tops the Index with Costa Rica the ’greenest and happiest’ country. Nine of the ten highest-scoring nations are Latin American
• The USA, China and India were all ‘greener and happier’ twenty years ago than today
• The World’s richest plummet from 1960s to late 1970s, with scores still lower today than 1961
• The UK comes 74th, USA 114th out of 143 nations surveyed.

The new Index is based on improved data for 143 countries around the world, representing 99 per cent of the world’s population. By stripping the economy back to its ultimate outputs (lives of varying length and happiness) and fundamental inputs (the Earth’s finite resources) the HPI is the definitive efficiency measure. It provides a clear guide to what matters to us and what matters for the planet.

We hope you enjoy studying the index and would encourage you to share this email with colleagues. We believe that the multiple crises we face provide a unique opportunity for societies around the world to speak out for a happier planet, to identify a new vision of progress, and to demand new tools to help us work towards it. The HPI is one of these tools. But if it is to be effective it must also inspire people to act. Please join the Soil Association, Friends of the Earth, the World Development Movement, Onehundredmonths, 38 degrees, the Gaia Foundation and others by signing nef’s Happy Planet Charter to start this process of change

The full report and data are available for free download at the accompanying web-site: www.happyplanetindex.org

24% and counting

Today was one of those days. Sat in a meeting with a couple of dozen people for 8 hours. Just as well it was a board meeting with my excellent colleagues at CCW, where one of the agenda points was to set a target the CO2 emissions reductions for the next three year. There was unanimous support for a 24% drop in the next three years, which is of the order that's needed across Wales, the UK and far beyond. Details to follow soon.