Glastonbury Festival Climate Conversations

I asked a number of people at the festival what they were doing in their own lives to tackle climate change and also what they found the most difficult.

Sharia - Greenpeace Fundraiser

‘I shop locally, eat locally, manage my own allotment, and cycle to work. I don’t use supermarkets, so for me fitting in all my shopping, along with everything else is difficult. But the vegetarian and vegan co-operative I’m a member of, makes this slightly easier.’

Joe - LetsTalkGordon.org.uk Campaign Co-ordinator

‘I’m getting active politically, at the moment I’m co-ordinating LetsTalkGordon.org.uk a campaign dedicated to getting the Prime Minister to make a televised address to the nation on climate change, launching the national debate about how we should respond.

I’m trying to eat less meat and cut down on flights. It’s difficult because my brother lives in New York. I offset, but am not convinced. Not being a vegetarian, eating less meat is not easy.

Helen - Festival Go-er

‘I’m growing my own veg in the garden, going to local farmers markets and buying too much cheese! I try to buy eco-products like organic, fair trade clothes and earth friendly toiletries. Overcoming my own laziness is the hardest part.’

Three Drunk Blokes on Cider

‘Arhhhhhhhhg.. Take a photo.. hic’

Gemma - Anti-Slavery Campaigner

‘Buying energy saving light-bulbs and saving energy around the house. I find the hardest part is seeing how were all making a difference, knowing that the part you play is just a small part in the whole thing.’

This year’s Glastonbury Festival was one of the greenest yet, but there was still room for improvement. It will be remembered as ‘one of those fantastic years’.

Keep coming back for a review of the Festival’s Greener Side in the coming days.

Green fields at Glastonbury Festival

At Glastonbury Festival, The Green Fields provide an environmentally friendly guide to life.

A number of entrances to the fields exist, but many will come along the old train track. Decorated by campaigners, the old track contains a number of climate inspired messages. ‘Did you know if all the bees died, life on earth would cease to exist after 60 years’, ‘Walk your kids to school’.

This year the Green Fields are showcasing a couple of low impact homes. Practical tips on how you can insulate your walls with sheep wool, build with green timber and make but use of your natural environment.

Despite all this greeness, the festival motto ‘Love the farm, leave no trace’ has clearly not struck a chord with some.

Guest Editor: David Fletcher - Too Rich to Care?

One morning I was walking to work in London when I passed a woman unlocking her shop on Old Bond Street. I noticed that all the lights in the shop were on, yet she clearly hadn’t been inside that day as the shutters were still down.

Realising the lights had probably been on all night, I couldn’t shake a sense of curiosity at why she was wasting electricity.

I began to investigate the subject more and found similar concerns expressed on websites like Green Girls Global. I also began to make late night trips to Old Bond Street on my way home to see how many shop owners had the same attitude as the woman I saw unlocking her shop.

I was horrified to discover that nearly every shop on Old Bond Street left at least some lights on after dark even though they were closed.

One night I had a chat with the security guard who has the unfortunate task of patrolling the street at dark. He told me that my fears were right and that most of the shops left their lights on all night. Some were even timed to come back on as the sun went down.

In looking to understand why shop owners may leave their lights on at night I came across two main responses. The first is that it is for security reasons. This I think is a crazy excuse. Surely it would be better to turn the lights off as any thief breaking into a shop with its lights turned off would need a torch to see where they going. The security guards would find this torch light very easy to spot.

The second and more plausible reason is that the shop lights are left on to attract shoppers. This I find more convincing especially on a road like Old Bond Street with its overt sense of wealth and extravagance. However surely we should be putting the fight against catastrophic climate change above mere window shopping? There are so few people on Old Bond Street at night it doesn’t seem worth the bother of leaving all the lights on. Surely the act of saving energy would be a much more powerful and environmentally positive statement to their customers?

To spread my concerns I created a website called www.bondstreetbaddies.com which has the aim of publicising which shops leave their lights on and which are going green.

Obviously this is a problem that blights many streets and I’d encourage anyone interested in this subject to find ways of drawing attention to it. I’d also encourage people to ask at their favourite shop whether they turn off their lights at night and if not why not?

10 Carbon Busting Greener Festival Tips

The Guardian recently reported that a study by Julie’s bicycle, revealed that large music festivals (i.e more than 40,000 people) can generate around more the 2,000 tonnes of CO2.

This year I’ll be going to Glastonbury Festival, and Camp Bestival and living by 10 greener festival tips as The GreenFestivalMan.

Number TEN - Fashion
Don’t waste money buying new clothes that will get trashed. Shop around charity or thrift Shops for pre-festival bargains. A large number of UK festivals have charity shops on site.

Number NINE - Toilets
This applies to guys more than girls. Festival toilets can be pretty grim but less grim than the thought of 10′000s of people urinating at random in a field. Doing so is tantamount, to empting the content of a large toilet right over the entire festival. Poor santitation = nasty stomach upsets and ecosystem pollution.

Number EIGHT - Lighting
It’s dark you need light. Use renewable power torches and lights, like the Puma Dynamo Torch available from EcoOutlet.co.uk. (It even has a strobe light).

Lights comes in all forms from solar to water powered.

Number SEVEN - Tent pegs
Made from potato starch, Millets.co.uk have launched a range of biodegradable tent pegs from GreenStake. Reusable, but won’t harm wildlife if you lose them in the ground.

Number SIX - Fire!
If like me you need fire be sociable and gather round someone else’s.

Use deadwood, don’t pull any branches down. Using charcoal? make sure it’s from a sustainable source. Charcoal in the UK should be FSC certified and can be sourced from British woodlands.

This year I’ll be using the WoodGas Biomass Camp Stove. Originally designed for developing countries to minimise smoke pollution. There are only a few UK stockists at the moment, but a larger number in the USA.

Number FIVE - Power
Use recharagable batteries or personal renewable power sources.

A number of personal solar panels are available to charge various different electronics like MP3 players, batteries and mobile phones. Most can be found for reasonable rates on the internet.

A recent addition to the pack, is the HYmini wind powered generator and handheld charger.

Number FOUR - Cleanliness
Use natural, bio degradable, wet wipes. Better still, take a flannel, remember those?

Use biodegradable soap and Eco-friendly toothpaste. Many ‘non-green’ hygiene products release nasty chemicals. These chemicals eventually get into food chains.

Number THREE - Rubbish / Trash
Leave no trace. Leave nothing but footprints. Use on-site recycling facilities or take home waste to recycle and/or compost.

Don’t trash your tent or burn it, give it to an organisation like Globalhand.org for recycling. If it does get trashed, salvage the useful bits. Tent poles can make good flag poles. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Number TWO - Food
Buy local, eat seasonal – try out the local food stalls. Meat eaters can cut back their carbon footprints but eating more vegetarian food. Cut it out or cut it back. This year at Glastonbury I’ll be only eating vegetarian food, but only if I can find another 15 meat eaters to join me. Sign up on www.PledgeBank.Com/GoVegetarian .

If going vegetarian isn’t your bag try to make the special effort to get something that’s local, free range and preferably organic. The meat tastes better that way and will have taken less carbon to produce.

A good range of organic and fairtrade museli and granola bars are available (excellent munchie food).

Decant soft drinks into a re-usable bottle, like CamelBak’s innovative BPA free range.

Alcohol from local breweries will quench the festival thirst. Find yourself stuck with a bottle but no way of getting in to it? Show your friends how old stuff can be reused. EcoOutlet.co.uk retail bottle openers made from recycled metal spoons.

• Number ONE -Transportation

Most of your Carbon footprint originates from the way you travel to the event. Use public transport where possible, many festivals across the world can be accessed by trains and coaches. Rock am Ring in Nurberg and Glastonbury included.

Going by car? arrange a lift share via liftshare.org or find a travelling companion on boards like eFestivals.com or networking sites like isanyonegoingto.com. Whatever your means offset it a few times using audited carbon offset companies like Climatecare.org.

Have a happy Festival and Camping Season. See you at Glastonbury or Camp Bestival.

GreenFestivalMan

(aka Gareth, GGG Editor)

The Green Festival Man says ‘Festival Season is Upon Us’

This year I’m trying to reduce my carbon footprint at Glastonbury Festival by living by 10 Carbon Busting Green Festival Tips.

Recently a number of GreenGuys and GreenGirls have written about the environmental and health benefits of going vegetarian. Some reports even say vegetarians have half the carbon footprint of their meat eating counterparts.

People go vegetarian for many different reasons, but for me it’s about the environment.

I’m looking for 15 other meat-eaters to join me between the 25th - 29th June 2008, and try out vegetarianism.

WILL YOU JOIN ME?

Join in the fun at http://www.pledgebank.com/GoVegetarian

OR text ‘pledge GoVegetarian’ to 60022 (in the UK only)

The idea has already generated a lot of lively debate on eFestivals and fits in nicely with Glastonbury’s attempt to lead the way in Green Festivals in 2008. Much of their marketing material carrying the strapline ‘Leave no trace, Love the farm’.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be reviewing a number of the latest eco-camping products and publishing my 10 Greener Festival/Camping Tips on GreenGuysGlobal.

I’ll be writing from the festival on my environmental finds, and asking people what they are doing in their lives to help reduce their carbon footprint, and finding difficult about making changes in their lives.

Join the group ‘Follow The Green Festival Man’ on Facebook, and become a friend of the Green Festival Man on Myspace http://www.myspace.com/GreenFestivalMan.

Look forward to chatting with you soon.

GreenFestivalMan
(aka GGG Editor Gareth)

PS Keep watching this website for my GreenFestivalTips later in the week.

Guest Editor: Henry Coppola - Help save the environment, and have fun doing it.

Are you tired of the boiler plate, run of the mill action emails steadily filling your inbox? Sure you want to help out—you want to change the world, end the war, save the environment, and so on—but does it have to be so boring? Skim the petition, enter your information and details, maybe email some friends; rinse, repeat.

What if instead of the standard request to sign a petition or donate to the cause, you were asked to play a game? Does an interactive and entertaining way to make a difference online sound too good to be true? It isn’t. Environmental action games of various shapes and sizes for all sorts of causes have been popping up all over the web and are beginning to make appearances in many online activists’ inboxes. You can help save whales, learn to reduce waste, calculate your carbon footprint, and my personal favorite–learn about and help bring an end to overfishing.

These games range in complexity and scope and can vary widely in the levels of entertainment and education that they provide. Many of the more entertaining games function in a simple arcade style, there are several games in this mode based on fishing practices in which you control a fish attempting to avoid various hazards and fishing gear. Other environmental action games work on more of a simulation model where the player makes a series of choices and is presented with the consequences of their decisions. While informative, this style doesn’t lend itself to repeated play or function as an interesting break from the daily grind, the way some of the action games do–with features like high score tracking and an increasing level of difficulty as you progress.

The best environmental action games are entertaining, re-playable, and informative. Whats the point to a game that isn’t any fun? Perhaps more importantly how can you create change without educating your audience? When these two qualities are combined to create an effective environmental action game the drudgery of filling out petitions and sending emails can be alleviated. You can have fun while making a difference online!

Three environmental action games to try:

• Whales Revenge is currently the leader of the pack, having generated over 1 million comments to date largely because it’s so fun to play. Its a bit like Missile Defense except with harpoons instead of bombs and bubble blasts instead of missiles. While Whales Revenge has done a remarkable job of collecting signatures and will help you wile away some time, you won’t learn anything by playing it.
• The Garbage Game has you make personal choices regarding a variety of common disposables, then you get to play garbage commissioner for New York City and decide where all that waste and recycling will go. This game is both interesting and informative, but it won’t have you coming back for more.
• Ocean Survivor lets you take control of a bluefin tuna cruising the seas and trying to avoid ending up in a net or on a hook. This game is fun to play, tracks high scores (you get to leave your name just like on Ms Pacman back in the day), and will also teach you about the fishing practice that eventually snags you.

What green games have you played recently?

- Henry Coppola

Guest Editor: Scott James - 5 Easy & Inexpensive Guerrilla Marketing Strategies for Fair Trade Organizations

Guerrilla marketing is one of the most effective methods available to small businesses and nonprofit organizations for increasing sales or expanding the reach of your cause. These unconventional techniques are designed to produce maximum results using minimal resources.

Today, the Internet provides the best medium to use guerrilla marketing in fast and easy ways. The most effective strategies are:

1. Email Marketing

You must give visitors to your website a reason to leave their email address and give you permission to continue communicating with them. Offer a free subscription to a newsletter about your niche within the Fair Trade movement or provide another type of bonus.

Use an autoresponder service to capture visitor sign-ups and send out follow-up messages and newsletters to your list. For my company that sells Fair Trade soccer balls online, I route our emails through the free tools available at Gmail (look at their Vacation Settings for the autoresponder functionality). Be sure to provide valuable information, not just blatant advertising. By developing a rapport with your readers, you’ll build a larger and larger list of responsive subscribers.

2. Blogging

Blogging has taken the online world by storm. Blogs (short for “web logs”) are dynamically editable websites people use to talk about topics important to them.

Post to your blog as often as you want and include links pointing to your website. This frequently changing, unique content and the numerous incoming links are extremely favorable to the search engines.

You can use Blogger.com to set up an attractive template for your blog and post messages right away. The best part, it’s free. I personally use WordPress – an open-source platform with lots of community support – on our blog at www.fairtradesports.com, as well as FeedBurner to make subscribing to our blog fast and easy for our website visitors.

3. Forum Marketing

Forums give people a place online to congregate and talk about what interests them. To find forums in your niche, just Google “[keyword] forum” and see what you get.

Once you sign up for a forum, post messages regularly. This is a great way to build relationships. Post questions. Answer questions. Tell people where to find good information. Putting blatant advertising in your posts is against the rules. But you are allowed to put a link to your website in your forum signature. Consider changing your signature based on the forum to which you are contributing. For example, this is my standard signature for any forum related to Fair Trade:

- Scott James
Fair Trade Sports
Blog: www.fairtradesports.com
Fair Trade soccer balls!

I use a different signature for forums related to the eco-aspects of our sports balls, my work with the abolitionist Not For Sale Campaign, or my work with the sustainable MBA school, Bainbridge Graduate Institute.

4. Direct Link Building

Search engines – Google, in particular – favor pages with lots of incoming links, both one-way and two-way links, because it increases your website’s “popularity” across the Internet.

A simple example of one-way linking is the kind of link you get when you submit an comment on someone else’s blog. Your comment can have a link to your site in it, and the comment can be picked up by related websites and ezines if the topic is interesting.

For two-way links, you can contact other website owners within the Fair Trade movement and ask to trade links. Or, just Google “[keyword] trade links,” and you’ll get back a bunch of sites that are offering to do a link exchange with you. Then, you can add them to a section on your site titled “Related Links,” “Resource Center,” or something similar. It’s that simple.

Go through the list and start asking if you can trade links. Slow and steady wins the race. Do a little every day and pretty soon, you’ll grow your links a lot. The key is to reach out to others with authentic sites doing work to further the Fair Trade movement.

5. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites are wildly popular with people under 25, and several (like MySpace, Facebook, and Ning) have become some of the most visited sites on the web.

Squidoo.com is different from other sites because you can sell blatantly without worrying about being shut down.

Squidoo lets you create what’s called a lens, which is an information portal about your topic. The secret is to provide helpful information for people in your niche. Along the way, you can point them to your website, getting you laser-targeted traffic. We made one to alert Squidoo readers of Fair Trade products available on the web (http://www.squidoo.com/shopfairtrade).

By implementing these guerrilla marketing strategies, you will be spreading the word about your product, your organization and your cause across the Internet in ways that will have both an immediate impact and a long-term effect for years to come.

by Scott James
Founder, Fair Trade Sports
Bringing you eco-certified Fair Trade soccer balls and more!

Making Democracy Work For You

At last year’s Glastonbury Festival I stood in the Left Field Tent and listened to politician, Tony Benn make a rousing speech on democracy.

Tony’s message was clear. “Democracy is not just voting every 5 years, watching Big Brother in between and wondering why nothing happens. Democracy is what we do and say. Where we live and work….”

Like anything in life if you want to use, it you need to know how to. Democracy is a lot like that, if you want to make real changes, you need to learn to use it.

Last year I visited my local Member of Parliament (MP) to find out how to use the system.

This is what I found out…

Email campaigns
You plug your name and address into a website, like magic an email wings its way to your local politician describing your disdain for whaling, climate change or the latest concern of the day.

Lots of people make a difference, but MPs sometimes treat these emails like a petition. It’s easy to sign something without giving it much consideration and MPs know this. “If you get 15 e-mails in one go, the usual reaction is not ‘this is important’ but ‘oh God, my inbox is full of e-mails!”

Effectiveness rating: *

Protests
The Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, Gandhi’s march, the Iraq war protests.

Protests can raise important media attention and apply intense pressure to political systems. They can even be used to highlight the ridiculousness of legislation, such as Mark Thomas demonstrations against restrictions on campaigning in Parliament Square.

Effectiveness rating: * to ****

Letters
I highlighted the sentiment of an email was the same as a letter but was told: “It would be better if somebody wrote a letter in their own words. Sometimes if lots of people send an email it can have an impact, but most of the cynical politicians will think ’somebody has just gathered 50 people to annoy me by filling up my inbox”.

I guess the pen is mightier than the keyboard.

Effectiveness rating: **

Face to face
Many politicians run appointments when you can go along and meet them in person. Don’t be shy, most of them are human. If you know a few people with the similar concerns go along together. If there are many of you why not invite them to come and see you.

Politicians know that issues must be really important to their constituents when they take the time to meet them.

Effectiveness rating: ***

Political systems are different in every country. The guidance above will help you get started, but it is by no means exhaustive. All politicians are different and vary in the type of communication they take most notice of. Different countries have different forms of democracy. The more liberal a democracy is, the more accountable the government to the people, the increased civil and political rights people have and the freer and fairer elections are. (Dahl, 1989)

I know people that give up even before they’ve tried, they tell me their concerns, ‘One person can’t make a difference’. I believe they can. Florence Nightingale, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln. History is full of individuals and groups making a difference.

Over the last few weeks I’ve decided to see my MP about Climate Change. I’ve dusted off the notes from my Environmental Science degree, boned up on the latest developments from the IPCC, and have taken it upon myself to give my MP a grounding in the climate science basics.

The first meeting went well. Once we had finished our ‘Save the World’ talk, I took it upon myself to complain that it takes 5 years in my town to get an allotment. A giant leap from the melting permafrost, or destruction of the rainforest, but I’ve come to realise that everything is connected to everything.

Effectiveness rating: ? Watch this space

References:

Dahl, R. (1989) Democracy and Its Critics, Yale University Press, New Haven

Links:

In the UK you can find out who your local MP is at http://www.WriteToThem.com

Mark Thomas - Mass lone demonstrations : Against legislation to prevent free protest around British Parliament http://www.markthomasinfo.com/demo/default.asp

The IPCC assesses the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of risk of human-induced climate change. http://www.ipcc.ch

In Case You Missed It

The best piece of environmental marketing communications to date (IMHO…)

A Blind Call

This is a bit off the classic green campaign (more of an ethical/charity campaign) but i find it brilliant nevertheless.

We all do it every now and then: forget to lock our phone’s keypad and accidentally call the first person on our contact list. Usually some unlucky person by the name of Asi or Abigail (or Armani if you’re well connected ;-)).

Belgian ad agency Duval Guillaume came up with a clever campaign that turns accidental calls into accidental donations to the Belgian League for the Blind. They’re asking people to add ‘A Blind Call’ to their list of contacts (for those of you in Belgium, the phone number is 070 222260). Every time the number is called, A Blind Call is given a cut of the call’s proceeds. Calls are cut off after 30 seconds, and the cost to the dialler is never more than EUR 0.75.

Not only will the proceeds help the League for the Blind fund useful projects and research for sight-impaired people, every Alice, Alan and Abdullah will be spared a few coat-pocket soundtracks.

Border genius - I wish I had thought about it…

Check it here (In French/Dutch)

Story via Springwise