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Recommended Reading The books, documents and various resources included here are grouped to aid LSP and other process participants in their theme based Sustainable Community Strategy work. The materials fall into three categories, ie those that can assist in; 1. Community Strategy decision-making. 2. Their subsequent implementation. 3. The provision of background perspectives on S&P concerns. As the latter invariably suggest remedies so much of the work necessary to address our global unsustainability lies beyond the scope of local strategic policy making and practice, ideally there should be a prescribed means of making bottom up input from processes into national democratic mechanisms. The page will be compiled from visitors’ contributions on an ongoing basis, so the current availability of titles is not assured.
Local Strategy Themes
1. Unsustainability How LSPs and SCSs can address global unsustainability at the local level. 2. Participation How LSPs and SCSs can involve communities in decision making – particularly about sustainability issues. 3. SCS Themes Identifying and grouping Strategy themes, and LSP theme groups. 4. Community Including social inclusion, young and old, ethnic and cultural diversity, narrowing the gap, VCO involvement. 5. Community Safety Crime and disorder. 6. Education Including lifelong learning, student led initiatives, ESD. 7. Health Including wellbeing, complementary medicine. 8. Economics Including local economy, social economy, employment, town centres, ethical consumerism, SCP. 9. Environment Including natural environment; access to green space, habitat and species biodiversity, pollution, maintaining and increasing natural features, urban trees. Also built environment; housing, planning and development, infrastructure, sprawl. 10.Transport Including traffic, road calming, buses, trains, passenger information, integrated transport initiatives, cycling, pedestrian issues, freight, air travel, parking, car sharing, socialised costs. 11. Waste Including waste, recycling: disposal facilities and provisions, packaging. 12. Climate Change and Energy Including energy conservation, renewable sources, global impacts on local environment, economy and communities, transition and energy descent, renewables.
Page Development It’s likely that in future Sustainable Community Strategies will focus on the five funding-stream related themes identified by Government: young people, older people and health, safer / stronger communities, economic development and enterprise and – the optional – environment and sustainability.
Identifying and Grouping LSP Themes Focusing on seven impending global disasters, A Short History of the Future suggests that their effects will converge around 2030, and urges us all to take action now in order to avert the chaos these will bring. Perhaps your LSP or process theme group could brainstorm its own list of seven likely disasters and recommend the behavioural changes currently necessary to mitigate the impact. If you’re wondering which this book identifies see the site’s Letters Page. o www.cat.org.uk
Unsustainability
Agenda 21 Essential reading for everyone involved in Community Strategy, LSP and related processes, it was this United Nations Document that led to the establishment of sustainability and participation processes worldwide. Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change is written by the director of ‘The Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil’, a film shown at many a Transition Town launch.Pat Murphy by-passes initiatives being played out on the global and national stages (such as Kyoto, TEQs, and legislation) his preferred starting point for change being our own personal life style. He argues that domestic energy efficiency should go well beyond the tokenistic approach of, say, long life light bulbs and double glazing, if it is to meet the need to change head on. Once we and others recognise the urgency of more committed measures (such as zero carbon emission housing and dietary reform) Murphy asserts that we’ll will find the necessary inspiration for additional transformation within our communities and their evolving role as engines of change. New Society Publishers. The Revenge of Gaia Perhaps a good starting point for your LSP’s next Community Strategy review would be a discussion of James Lovelock’s The Revenge of Gaia, published by Penguin in February 2006. Lovelock endorses the growing belief that the damage done by human activity has already pushed planetary decline beyond the point of no return. The book considers the implications of research into climate change, which currently suggests that as our century passes temperatures will rise - by 8c in temperate zones such as Britain, and in tropical latitudes high enough for land masses to become scrub and desert, and therefore no longer able to play their part in the regulation of current biospheric systems. Effects will include the failure of drinking water supplies, devastated agricultures, rising oceans, the loss of habitable lands, widespread environmental refugees, and the loss of current infrastructures. Worse still (!) Lovelock contends that the results of change are not going to be linear, but ‘amplified’; that is they won’t be contained within particular ecosystems but create outward ripple effects. For example, ongoing polar melt will not only flood low lying lands but also mean the heat that’s always been reflected by the ice will instead be absorbed by the water. The biosphere that has always worked in favour of life is rapidly tipping the other way. Lovelock also points out that while we have come to recognise how important it is to prevent the extinction of plant and animal species we have not yet grasped this concept of the extinction of whole ecosystems. Although concluding that we cannot now escape the inevitability of global collapse this century he argues that people should now be focusing on damage limitation strategies, doing whatever possible to prepare for the worst consequences. His suggestions range from the need for people to cease reliance upon food and energy from abroad, to the compilation of a guidebook for those struggling to survive environmental and social collapse – this would contain the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity, such as the Earth’s place in the solar system and the causes of disease and ill health. James Lovelock’s seminal Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth asserted that the physical and chemical make up of earth’s biosphere is a living system in its own right, made habitable by the dynamic interrelationships throughout its plant and animal life. His ‘Gaia Hypothesis’ challenged conventional science, which sought an understanding of systems as a sum of their parts through ever more specialist field based study. Gaia also rejected the linked assumption that plant and animal life had grown out of the planet’s inorganic systems to then evolve on a separate course. First published by Oxford University Press in 1979. A major new title from the Stakeholder Forum was published in June 2005. It revisits the 2002 Earth Summit’s WEHAB agenda (which prioritised water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity concerns), noting that power imbalances are becoming increasingly apparent. There is a growing need for global WEHAB concerns to provide a real world context for local processes attempting to address the same agenda. Governance for Sustainable Development – A Foundation for the Future is published by Earthscan. Passion for the Planet is an online radio station. o www.passionfortheplanet.com The Intermediate Technology Development Group has published a report on Democratising Technology, which is about reclaiming science for sustainable development. o http://www.itdg.org/docs/advocacy/democratising_technology_itdg.pdf A free booklet, Sustainable Development Indicators in Your Pocket 2006, presents the 68 indicators through which Securing the Future key priorities can be monitored. If ordering quote PB11008 o 08459 556 000 www.sustainabledevelopment.gov.uk/ defra@iforcegroup.com
Free copies of the SDC Annual Report – which has articles covering all aspects of LSP work – are available from the UK Sustainable Development Commission. Order on line. o www.sustainabledevelopment.gov.uk/ Jubilee Research Newsletter The developing world and debt cancellation, financial crises and the structural causes of poverty are amongst the subjects covered in this quarterly bulletin. Send Jubilee Research your name and address to subscribe. o Susanna Mitchell, Jubilee Research, nef, 3 Jonathan Street, London SE11 5NH. susannamitchell@neweconomics.org A Blueprint for Survival was originally published in 1972 by the Ecologist magazine and Penguin Books. The Sunday Times described it as “nightmarishly convincing… after reading it nothing seems quite the same any more”. A stark warning from Julian Huxley, Peter Scott, Frank Fraser-Darling and a host of other distinguished scientists and economists of the day. “Governments are either refusing to face the relevant facts, or are briefing their scientists in such a way that their seriousness is played down”. A Blueprint for Survival - The Ecologist, 1972 Setting the key for 1972’s Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Only One Earth was commissioned by the United Nations, and draws together many of the issues now pursued through S&P thinking and doing. Its authors, Rene Dubos and Barbara Ward, outlined three strategies for survival – knowledge and education, decision making and interdependency. Published by Penguin Books in association with Andre Deutsch. A third environmental classic, Limits to Growth was updated in 2004. Beyond the Limits sets out ‘environmental overshoot’ possibilities, and presents an update on sustainability movement thought. The book explains why the approaching global collapse brings with it an even more urgent case for linking global economic systems to the sustainability imperative. o www.cat.org.uk A growing number of people are finding ‘politics’ increasingly irrelevant, with government becoming divorced from both the everyday and the long term problems that communities face. From Here to Sustainability explores climate change, food safety, loss of open space and biodiversity, health scares, traffic congestion and a seemingly endless array of issues that illustrate how dangerously wide this democratic deficit is becoming. o www.cat.org.uk Below radar an increasing number of us are quietly changing the way we live. Our experiences will help other people and societies provide a less difficult transition from our personal lifestyle – and socially institutionalised – unsustainability. The Schumacher Briefing Ecovillages traces the emergence of communities around the world and the development of the Global Ecovillage Network. It not only provides local decision makers (and everyone else) with a practical guide to what living the change means, it also outlines ecovillage history and the contributions made by various schools of thought. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Ecovillages; A Practical Guide to Sustainable Communities covers similar ground, but goes on to provide a manual for planning, establishing and maintaining a sustainable community, covering subjects such as leadership, conflict management, home design, building techniques, food production, water and sewage, energy and alternative economics. Diggers and Dreamers (2006 – 2007) is a directory of UK communities which cross references entries by location and focus. They are also star rated according to sustainability criteria, such as land use, transport, energy, economy. o www.cat.org.uk Creating the World Future Council explains why our current, very narrow, world view is responsible for irreversible global unsustainability. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Focusing on seven impending global disasters, A Short History of the Future suggests that their effects will converge around 2030, and urges us all to take action now in order to avert the chaos these will bring. Perhaps your LSP or process theme group could brainstorm its own list of seven likely disasters and recommend the behavioural changes currently necessary to mitigate the impact. If you’re wondering which this book identifies see the site’s Letters Page. o www.cat.org.uk Those with a vested interest in perpetuating conventional ways of thinking and doing in the face of environmental, economic and social collapse are trying to combat mounting public concern in a number of ways. Global Spin examines some of these – such as establishing bogus public interest organisations and think tanks and influencing education. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Adopting the slogan of many involved in the world’s anti-globalisation movement, Another World is Possible, if… is Susan George’s book gathering together the problems of north-south inequalities, growing wealth disparities, worsening environmental destruction and elite political power structures. It also looks at practical solutions and opposition strategies as well as profiling those forces resisting change. Less unsustainable behaviour has to develop at all levels with individuals taking personal responsibility for the impact their lifestyle choices have. Walk Cheerfully, Step Lightly is a 28 page 75p booklet with sections on transport, energy, food, waste, bio-diversity, pollution, water and finances which includes a calculator to enable the reader to assess his / her own climate changing activities. o anne@dorking.quaker.eu.org An occasional Government booklet produced to track a range of environmental, social and economic trends, Sustainable Development Indicators in Your Pocket defines 68 – plus 20 headline – indicators. It also sets out four priority areas of concern; climate change and energy, SCP, natural resource protection and creating sustainable communities and a fairer world. Although the 2006 edition notes both positive and negative trends since the booklet’s first publication in 1994, it’s necessary to consult other information sources to determine whether the UK’s environmental footprint is getting smaller or bigger. o 08459 556 000 www.sustainabledevelopment.gov.uk/ defra@iforcegroup.com Planet of Slums - Mike Davis During Britain’s industrialisation people crowded into cities to find factory employment, and through the depressing accounts of urban conditions at this time social history sets out a warning to us all. But our past is the world’s future. A majority of the human population now live in cities where they are blighted by population density, filth and disease. However, there is a major difference between industrial revolution Britain and its globalisation – the current economic development model serves to sustain and aggravate, not address and eradicate urban deprivation. In his book Mike Davis examines how development strategies imposed by the World Bank and IMF mean governments are actively barred from implementing national reconstruction, such as that once seen across the post colonial empire and post war Europe. The environmental debilitation, unregulated enterprise and stark polarities of rich and poor brought on by city sprawl provide all those involved in LSP processes with a salutary opportunity to step back and look beyond the UK’s present programme of what the UN calls ‘city beautification’ to see some uncomfortable home truths. With contributions from a range of well-known people, including Anita Roddick, Rosie Boycott, Hilary Benn and David Cameron, Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? brings together inspirational ideas necessary to help reframe how we think and live. www.constablerobinson.com
Participation “Community Strategies and Local Strategic Partnerships have a critical role in further developing coherent service provision and genuinely sustainable communities.” “Delivering sustainable communities is the core purpose of Community Strategies and Local Strategic Partnerships.” Local Strategic Partnerships – Shaping Their Future ODPM, 2006
Local Strategic Partnerships: Shaping Their Future Various print and website sources including eg, CDF, Urban Forum, 2006. The 2006 Report and consultation by the former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister raised several issues for discussion by those involved in Partnership working. Those relating to local sustainability work are; 1. The shift of focus brought by renaming Community Strategies / Community Plans as Sustainable Community Strategies. It is now expected that while an area’s SCS sets out vision and priorities, its Local Area Agreement will define detailed outcomes as part of the Strategy action plan. 2. The need for SCS to better link social, economic and environmental goals and deal more effectively with cross boundary and longer term concerns. 3. The improvement of learning and support provision in order “to deliver sustainable communities that embody the principles of sustainable development at the local level”. Some of the other concerns; 4. The pros and cons of more formalised public sector involvement in LSPs and more vigorous engagement of the market and third sectors. 5. The evolving role for local authority representatives within LSP / SCS processes and desirability of bringing LSPs into Councils’ Overview and Scrutiny work and / or other governance / accountability frameworks. 6. The advantages of clustering LSP work around the four LAA blocks / Government funding streams (safer and stronger communities, children and young people, health and older people, economic development and enterprise) 7. The need for LSPs to link with regional and neighbourhood processes. This is likely to grow through county LSPs’ work with regional / sub-regional organisations and district LSPs’ work with neighbourhoods, facilitating bottom up influence.
Other Government Publications 1. The Egan Review: Skills for Sustainable Communities. ODPM 2004 2. Citizen Engagement in Public Services: Why Neighbourhoods Matter. ODPM 2005 3. Governing Partnerships: Bridging the Accountability Gap. Audit Commission 2005 4. Vibrant Local Leadership. ODPM 2005 5. Together We Can 6. Taking It On; Developing Sustainable Development Strategy Together Defra 2004 7. Change Up Capacity Building and Infrastructure Framework for the VCS. June 2004. Home Office. 8. Sustainable Communities: Building for a Future – a National Plan of Action 9. Securing the Future: the UK Government Sustainable Development Strategy 10. Delivering the UK Sustainable Development Strategy: Securing the Future’ 11. A New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal: National Strategy Action Plan: Neighbourhood Renewal Unit. 12.Getting Citizens Involved: Community Participation in Neighbourhood Renewal. October 2004. National Audit Office. 13. Firm Foundations – the Government’s Framework for Community Capacity Building. December 2004. Home Office. 14. Strengthening Partnerships: Next Steps for Compacts. 2005. Home Office.
LSPs are responsible for developing and driving the implementation of Local Area Agreements (LAAs). Although these LAAs are being formulated to reflect the Government’s desire for LSPs to focus on service delivery they must come to embrace a wider vision, not to mention democratic role. See this site’s Glossary page. The most recent relevant Government guidance has outlined the development of local participation processes, an understanding of which will enable those wishing to champion sustainability issues to make the necessary input: 1. Strong and Prosperous Communities. 2006. 2. Focusing on Citizens, Users and Diverse Communities. Audit Commission. 3. Principles of Representation: A Framework for Effective Third Sector Participation in LSPs. NACVA. Principles to assist third sector organisations in shaping a collective voice for an area’s voluntary and community representatives. 4. Negotiating New Local Area Agreements. September 2007. 5. Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities, Strategy Guidance. October 2007. 6. Development of the New LAA Framework – Operational Guidance. November 2007. 7. Planning for a Sustainable Future 2007
The LSP Guide 2006 explains how Partnerships and Community Strategies work and the importance of local communities’ active participation in decision and provision making. This third edition covers recent changes such as Local Area Agreements and funding arrangements, local public service agreements and Sustainable Community Strategies. Published by CDF and Urban Forum this costs £4.95, though a free downloadable copy is available from the website. o 020 7812 5449 www.cdf.org.uk Building a Better Quality of Life into Community Strategies is a handbook produced by the North West’s Government Office and Regional Assembly et al. o sdonaldsongowm@goregions.co.uk The 2005 London Sustainability Exchange Report on the city’s LSPs and sustainability finds that where Government guidance does give them the opportunity to address sustainability, there’s little evidence of such work being undertaken. It concludes that sustainability is still considered a marginalised environmental issue, despite LSPs’ broad base, and that the voluntary sector umbrella organisations and groups are failing to address the pressing new agenda. o www.lsx.org.uk/programmes/c.mms Research incorporated into Leading Change Towards Sustainability sets out a framework to enable LSP managers to embrace sustainability through the creation of a greater awareness of interdependency in governance systems; it also shows how processes could draw upon sustainability expertise while leading in established activities. o www.greenleafpublishing.com On a more individual level Do the Right Thing – Living Ethically in an Unethical World sets out to help readers learn how to gain a personal grounding in contemporary ethics. It includes a set of decision-making tools that can assist us all in developing behavioural patterns based on personal integrity and responsibility, social awareness and accountability. o www.cat.org.uk People and Participation is a new publication evaluating the different ways of participating according to the number involved, cost, time taken and more difficult factors such as whether participants should be self selecting or elected and where participation isn’t the best option. It also compares and matches different methods and desired objectives. Free downloads are available. o www.involving.org More detailed assistance in determining the most appropriate participation methods is available from another project, Yorkshire Futures. A focus of this is the identification of what is required from those involved – aspirations, vision, expertise, ideas, interests or opinions. o perrywalker@neweconomics.org The Government publishes annual reports on Sustainable Community Strategies, in which the DCLG evaluates processes and identify emerging trends. o www.communities.gov.uk/ Changing Neighbourhoods (lessons learned from the JRF Neighbourhoods Programme), Assessing Community Involvement in Regeneration, Routes and Barriers to Engagement and the Foundation’s response to the Government’s An Action Plan for Community Empowerment. o www.jrf.org.uk Two recent reports from CDF are ‘Local Strategic Approaches to Community Development’ which is about the difficulties of matching project overview and short term funding, and ‘The Contribution of Community Development to Local Governance and Democracy’ which highlights practice which helps community decision making become more inclusive, participatory and sustainable. Every Action Counts’ ‘Changing the Way You Work’ helps VCOs become greener.The New Community Strategies: How to Involve Local People gives CDF participation and involvement advice. o www.cdf.org.uk There are generally various participation related policy briefings available on the Urban Forum website. For example, at the time of writing the site includes papers on Principles of Representation for the Third Sector (about strengthening the role of VCOs), Local Petitions (how the Government wants these to strengthen community influence), LAA Guidance, and the organisation’s response to the Government’s plans for Streamlining LDF Consultation. o www.urbanforum.org.uk Another useful site for relevant topical information and research is maintained by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The following reports are included at the time of writing: Future Perspective – Active Governance (community engagement with LSPs), Assessing Community Strengths (capacity building). Benchmarking Community Participation,
Community Young & Old, Ethnic & Culture Diversity, Voluntary Involvement The Journal of Community Work and Development is one of the UK’s leading professional journals covering all aspects of developmental community work, including learning, health, regeneration, planning, inclusion, empowerment, safety and wellbeing. There are free online samples of back issues. o www.cdf.org.uk CDF has recently produced some new resources for use in community development work. Together with NEF it has devised an equalities version of the Democs game, which shares information on topics in order to generate participant debate. With CDX, the Foundation has recently trialled an equalities work pack, containing a booklet, case study notes and resource directory. And, following its collaboration with the Audit Commission and Home Office, CDF has now reported on its Indicators of Community Involvement project. The indicators are community influence in decision-making, community cohesion, social capital and the condition of the local third sector. A version of these indicators has already been mainstreamed through the Government’s Safer and Stronger Communities Fund guidelines. o www.neighbourhood.gov.uk/page.asp?id=1531 Hidden Work: Co-production by People Outside Paid Employment finds that Government policies aimed at full employment threaten to ‘strip-mine’ neighbourhoods of the volunteers who determine whether public services succeed or fail. The Joseph Rowntree report is available from the publishers for £19 or can be downloaded free. o 01904 430033 www.jrf.org.uk Who are the Capacity Builders? Government policy is increasingly reliant on people becoming more actively involved in their communities, this looks at the Government’s present provisions for facilitating grassroots capacity building. Free online version available. o www.cdf.org.uk Changing Where We Live Published by the Community Development Foundation, the book’s a practical toolkit for involving communities in green projects. It’s of particular use to managers from local government, regeneration programmes, housing associations, etc. o 020 7226 5375 admin@cdf.org.uk www.cdf.org.uk A similar theme to that explored in Changing Where We Live is taken up in Diggers and Dreamers 2008 – 2009, though from a rather different starting point. The first edition of this guide was produced in the late 1980s, and the most recent version includes a review of communal living over the past two decades. Diggers and Dreamers is primarily a directory of all UK communities, giving full details of each one. It also explores community related issues and provides very practical examples of the way groups of people can quietly establish lower impact living co-housing and eco-villages – examples now of growing relevance to us all. The New Economics Foundation’s Participation Works looks at “21 techniques of community participation for the 21st century”. Starting with an identification of the different levels of participation, its authors - the UK Community Participation Network - then give details and examples of schemes concerning youth involvement, participatory planning, local indicators, parish mapping and a wide range of other proven initiatives.o www.neweconomics.org Strengthening Communities is to help community, agency and public sector capacity building. It draws on the experience of a wide range of projects working around Britain and includes details of the references and resources necessary to help readers involved in community empowerment and partnership. The author, Steve Skinner, has also written the two best selling Community Development Foundation books on capacity building Building Community Strengths and Assessing Community Strengths; and Community Development and Networking, by Alison Gilchrist, looks at the important contribution made by local networks. There’s a downloadable copy of the latest publications catalogue on the CDF website. o www.cdf.org.uk Proving and Improving is a toolkit showing ways the third sector can more effectively transform people, communities and local economies. o www.proveandimprove.org A Better Place to Live shows the ways community groups can engage in integrated local action for local service improvement, and is set against current national and international sustainability concerns. This is a tool for anyone who works in communities – from third sector employees to teachers and volunteers. Another of Chris Church’s handbooks on working to create sustainable communities, Changing Where We Live, gives examples of good practice from over 20 years of practical community work projects. o www.cdf.org.uk While an assessment of locally based sustainability projects, such as community recycling and food projects, Thinking Locally, Acting Nationally includes suggestions for ways agencies working top-down can encourage wider involvement in lifestyle issues, including policy and funding changes and more innovate hands-on programmes. o www.cdf.org.uk Searching for Solid Foundations, the recent Community Development Foundation research for the ODPM, showed that participation policies need to be facilitated by the involvement of skilled community workers, and its ‘Survey of Community Development Workers in the UK’ highlighted the lack of Government provision for this. The subsequent Sir John Egan review recommended the establishment of a national centre of excellence and network of regional bases. o 0113 246 0909. www.cdf.org The theme of The Well-Connected Community is the importance of community networking in any local participation processes. o www.cdf.org.uk The first community worker research since 1983, CDF’s Survey of Community Development Workers in the UK shows a tension between practitioners working to specific remits and agencies wanting to tap into the fluid issues that animate the third sector. o www.cdf.org.uk The NCVO report How Voluntary and Community Organisations Can Help Transform the Local Relationships looks at how local authorities and third sector organisations can address contemporary challenges. o www.ncvo.org.uk “One of the great strengths of the voluntary and community sector lies in our independence. Voluntary action is of immense importance in and of itself, and has an essential role to play independent of government.” Dhara Vyas Policy Officer, National Council for Voluntary Organisations An important consideration in any LSP or other developmental community work is the nature of the local third sector support infrastructure. Assessing Community Strengths is by Steve Skinner and Mandy Wilson. o www.cdf.org.uk How effective is your LSP in involving communities in determining local service provisions? How can the benefits of participation be maximised? Such practical questions are addressed by a Joseph Rowntree Foundation online report. o www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/ The Community Development Challenge assesses Government’s increasing reliance on community engagement, finding that resourcing and capacity building are not equal to the task. To address this the report calls for the growth of a strategic approach, credible resourcing, quality management and delivery structures, comprehensive training and professional development. It has been jointly produced by Community Development Foundation, Community Development Exchange, Federation for Community Development Learning and Community Development Challenge. o 020 7833 1772. www.cdf.org
Community Safety At some point – perhaps as a community or town centres remit – Sustainable Community Strategies deal with problems such as equality of opportunity, social inclusion, poverty, environmental deprivation, widening wealth disparities and community breakdown But it goes beyond their remit to link such factors and the identified causes of crime, disorder and low levels or perceptions of public safety. Global Citizens describes how community organisations are developing alliances, citing various case studies of citizen action for social justice. o sales@zedbooks.demon.co.uk Taking a wider view of the concept of ‘justice’, and defining a context for the more popular view of what is meant by ‘community’, Wild Law argues that the survival of the community of life on Earth requires humanity to move beyond the belief that change can come through the introduction of appropriate legislation, to a recognition of the need to reassess the purpose of law and governance, based on a manifesto of Earth justice. o www.greenbooks.co.uk
Education Also see this site’s ESD Directory page Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World. Edited by Michael K Stone and Zenobia Barlow this is published in the Bioneers series by Sierra Club Books. o www.bioneers.org Although written to influence processes prior to 2002’s WSSD, the issues raised in Are Educators Ready for the Next Earth Summit? are as relevant now. The Stakeholder Forum paper examines the way in which ESD should be mainstreamed but how it has been sidelined. The author, John Smyth, has worked with UNESCO, UNEP and UNCED, and on the Government’s environmental education programme in Scotland. o www.stakeholderforum.org A school teaching handbook divided into three parts provides practical support for those wishing to bring together citizenship and sustainability. The opening section outlines a context, next comes suggested lesson activities and worksheets, finally there’s a useful resources directory. Citizenship for the Future – A Practical Classroom Guide is available from the World Wide Fund for Nature. o www.wwf.org.uk For teachers of 7-11s, Reducing and Recycling Waste in Schools looks at products’ life cycles, tracing the materials that make them back to their origins, identifying those that are renewable and finite, then those that are reusable, recyclable and biodegradable. This book includes 20 classroom activities including how to develop a strategy for reducing school waste, and comes with worksheets, lesson plans and teachers notes. o www.wwf.org.uk Sustainable Education highlights the lack of serious attention given sustainability by formal provision and makes out the case for greater commitment to ESD. By Stephen Sterling, this is a Schumacher Briefing. o www.greenbooks.co.uk A book for 8 – 80s explains how grown-ups are responsible for causing climate change but how it’s being left up to the kids to deal with it – and how they can begin by teaching their parents how to behave. How to Turn Your Parents Green is by James Russell. For more details see the publishers website; www.tangentbooks.co.uk
Health Many of the titles here can be used by LSP processes to inform, guide and promote local initiatives addressing the root causes of ill-health, such as bad diet, chemicals in the home, stress, motor vehicle emissions and inappropriate pharmaceuticals. First published by Routledge and Kegan Paul in England in 1956, Erich Fromm’s The Sane Society examines the links between human health and well being and the way we are increasingly defined in terms of the alienating requirements of economic processes. So many food and cosmetic product ingredients damage our health – but how are we supposed to know which ones to avoid? The information that generally comes to us piecemeal is here gathered together to distinguish the hazardous from the safe. The Chemical Maze de-mystifies additive codes and unravels some of the health effects of what we consume. o www.cat.org.uk Not on the Label, by Felicity Lawrence, chronicles a series of undercover operations to discover some dubious food industry practices and suggests how we can improve the quality of our diet by purchasing unprocessed, fresh, local, seasonal produce wherever possible. Amanda Ursell’s What Are You Really Eating? separates the helpful product information found on labelling and in advertising from that intended to simply hoodwink us, explaining the meaning of terms such as ‘farm fresh’, ‘nutritious’, ‘organic’, ‘pure’, ‘95% fat free’. o www.cat.org.uk The Ecology of Health by Robin Scott and The Roots of Health by Romy Fraser and Sandra Hill, bring a holistic perspective to health and ill health issues. These are both published as Schumacher Briefings. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Chew on This – Everything You Don’t Want to Know about Fast Food is a book for young people based on the best selling Fast Food Nation, the watershed expose of fast food and our unhealthy diets. Apart from investigating food ingredients and production processes, authors Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson report on the eating, health and research experiences of young people. o www.cat.org.uk "Sustainable development and health are closely linked. Examples of the interactions range from reducing energy use by home insulation… to cutting car use and thus reducing pollution, saving energy and allowing the traveller to benefit from exercise. “Since employment is such a major influence on health, schemes to promote local use of resources while providing employment can also benefit both individual and planetary health… helping to strengthen networks within a community and so help it to be more self-supporting and resilient.” Dr Hugo Crombie - Public Health Alliance In making the essential links between our health and environment, body, home and earth, Organic at Home reflects a holistic and hands on approach to everyday living and draws together hundreds of ideas about meals, toiletries, home and garden products. o www.cat.org.uk Are GM foods another threat to our health? No doubt Britain’s wariness has a lot to do with the recurrent food scares of recent years. In Seeds of Deception Jeffrey M Smith argues that worldwide industry manipulation, rather than sound science, has brought genetic engineering to our tables; he provides evidence to show how the health dangers are concealed and industry funded research is actually designed to avoid finding problems. o www.greenbooks.co.uk The 2006 Organic Directory embraces all things organic: the terminology, products, product producers and retailers, eateries, educational establishments, organisations, days out, accommodation, farmers’ markets, veg box schemes. Organic Futures challenges the unsustainability of farming practice which causes the deterioration of soil life. o www.greenbooks.co.uk or www.soilassociation.org The importance of healthy eating when young, and a national complacency about children’s wholly inappropriate diets would not be topics Community Strategy process participants would prioritise. The Organic Baby Book and The Organic Baby and Toddler Cookbook suggest how important early years’ nutrition is in the health of individuals and communities. Perhaps your Health And Well-Being Theme Group could consider the delivery of more challenging perspectives through local health education services. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Bringing together material from The Guardian columns, Leo Hickman’s The Good Life gives useful food, diet and health information, such as ethical eating and seasonal produce. o www.viva.org.uk The Food Commission’s Food Magazine is an invaluable quarterly for those LSP theme groups working on health issues. Its articles look at the health effects of food production and ingredients, and the extent to which food multinationals work to influence us all. Of course, the industry’s motives are the same as any others’, but the Commission’s publications highlight the ways a profit maximisation ethic fails to deliver nutritious diets while promoting processes detrimental to health and environment. A particular concern is children’s wholly inappropriate diet and the reluctance of Government to take simple but effective action. o www.foodcommission.org.uk The Hidden Persuaders explains how products are sold using not only advertising but packaging, store placement and an armoury of other promotional techniques – and of how people are persuaded to buy into the prestigious wine label not the drink, the cartoon fun not the fruit flavoured sugar lump, the world of celebrity not the salty nibble. Reading Vance Packard’s 1956 classic now you can’t help but draw marketing comparisons between consumer goods and contemporary politics. Food is not merely a tradable commodity but something which goes to the heart of human well being. In Food is Different Peter Rosset explains how our health, environments and economies are damaged by the transnational food industry, why the WTO wants more control over the world’s food supplies and why it’s becoming increasingly important for us to pursue an alternative agricultural vision. o www.zedbooks.co.uk In Selfish Capitalism psychologist Oliver James argues that it is the way in which the US and UK have pursued economicdevelopment over the last 30 years that has caused unprecedented levels of mental illness. With the ongoing strife for ever more material wealth comes a breakdown of other human values and needs. People are encouraged to only engage in activities which involve earning or spending money – and the book includes statistics correlating the two nations’ economic policies and incidence of mental illness since the 1980s. It also asserts that in the UK these mental health problems are causing up to 23%of physical medical conditions.
Economics Community Strategies should really add a separate theme on footprinting. Although they don’t there are readily identifiable links between global and local economies – and these are not always as beneficial to both as those who do gain would have us believe. Hungry Planet is a photo study of the diets and lives of 30 families from around the world that makes it easy to see some of these economic links, the winners and losers. The Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping also looks at the way our lifestyle affects other people and animals and the planet, showing that by actually taking responsibility for our impact on the world around us we can make a difference. o www.cat.org.uk Lamenting the loss of local retailers and the important economic and social role they play in communities Clone Town Britain looks at the downside of high profile high street stores. o www.neweconomics.org Regeneration and Sustainable Communities promotes a holistic approach to regeneration, providing a community take on programmes and critiquing their economic aspects. o www.cdf.org.uk Green Books’ latest mail order catalogue includes details of the publishers’ recent titles. These include Just Work - The Ethical Careers Guide: Living in the Cracks, a look at rural social enterprise: Biodiesel, an examination of the crop-derived liquid fuel that can be locally grown and produced: and the second Feasta Review, featuring a paper on responding to impending global economic destabilisation. o www.greenbooks.co.uk The Corporation is a documentary film and book exploring the impact a multi-national business has on our environment, children, health, media and democracy. o www.thecorporation.com In Captive State George Monbiot examines those issues that trouble the anti-globalisation movement but deeply affect us all. National government is making itself increasingly impotent, abdicating its democratic role to international bodies controlled by unaccountable transnational corporations whose powers now dominate all aspects of our lives, including development, education, the food chain and water supply. o www.monbiot.com The Ethical Consumer Research Association has produced The GOOD Shopping Guide, whose content is intended to empower us to extend democratic decision making to our shopping habits. In 300 pages it reveals the human rights, environmental records, animal welfare and politics behind over 700 well known consumer brands. One feature of the Guide reveals the best and worst corporate histories in such areas as nuclear power, genetic engineering, arms, workers rights, marketing, support for oppressive regimes, animal testing, pollution, etc. o www.thegoodshoppingguide.co.uk Reviewed in the Daily Mail as “the definitive study of man’s predicament in the late 20th century” Herbert Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man critiques the capital-driven nature of our society, unravelling its structural disadvantages and dangers. First published in the UK by Routeledge and Kegan Paul in 1964. Although a growing number of people realise that world economics benefits western nations while exploiting the people and resources of developing countries, as local communities and individuals we feel powerless to redress the balance. 50 Ways You Can Feed a Hungry World makes some good suggestions. o Kingsway Publications, Lottbridge Drove, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT. Working to Live looks at the issues that are ignored when discussing employment, which is invariably seen as an end in itself. In this Green Party booklet there are sections on the relative social and environmental benefits / damage created by many jobs, the importance of unpaid labour and unofficial economies, the official manipulation of related statistics and the viability of a basic income scheme. A similar book focusing on Seven Myths asks such questions as: Whatever happened to the leisure age? Why are people working ever harder and longer hours, given the benefits of modern technology? What’s the difference between somebody making work for you to do and job creation? Box schemes, community self-build, food co-ops, time banks, fair trade, city farms, car sharing, community transport are just a few of the economic initiatives that can be taken through local action. A number of these are included in Community Works! published by the New Economics Foundation. o www.neweconomics.org Transforming Economic Life by James Robertson and The Ecology of Money by Richard Douthwaite set out the arguments and agenda for moving to a less unsustainable economic system. These papers are published in the Schumacher Briefings series. o www.greenbooks.co.uk In the 1950s we spent 20% of our grocery bill at supermarkets, now it’s 80% and increasing. In Shopped Joanna Blythman asserts that in the last 50 years our nation of shopkeepers has become one of ghost towns and illusory consumer choices. o www.cat.org.uk We all tend to go unquestioningly with the flow unless we step back to re-think what we want out of life, and maybe also where this is leading those around us and in the wider world community. Life Swap, the Essential Guide to Downshifting takes such feelings as a starting point, then looks at the various difficulties we’re likely to incur if we decide to do something about it – the financial and emotional issues and practicalities, and how we can secure the desired life / work balance. o www.cat.org.uk 1989’s Blueprint for a Green Economy served to change the direction of environmental policy making by linking ecological problems to their economic causes; a decade later Blueprint for a Sustainable Economy revisits the theme to find that governments worldwide are grasping the implications of this, even if they are not fully committed to developing economic policies which serve rather than thwart the sustainability agenda. o www.cat.org.uk The economy theme of Community Strategies focuses on one very narrow aspect of economy related discussion. One issue that really should be considered is the unsustainability of the world’s supply of natural resources. As current production and consumption patterns are unsustainable they will change, either in a managed way as a consequence of policy or through the crises of resource depletion when the lives of those who follow will become less materialistic. Timeless Simplicity is a positive response to this impending sea change. When material resources are not so abundant we will have to put more value on such things as work and community involvement, creativity and self development, earth and spirituality; indeed, the author suggests that we should have already started preparing for this. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Capitalism, As if the World Matters People and governments are beginning to have to face the dire failings of the capital based economic system that dominates the world. Jonathon Porritt argues that the most feasible way through and forward has to be ‘sustainable capitalism’ – a systemic restructuring of current practices to recognise and sustain the integrity of the planet’s eco-systems. o www.cat.org.uk JDC is recommending three books on debt – and all three help put local economy decision making into their global context. Another World Is Possible If… is by Susan George, and published by VersoBooks. The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen In Our Lifetime by Jeffrey Sach, is published by Penguin and Noreena Hertz’s IOU! The Debt Threat And Why We Must Defuse It is a Perrennial title. An analysis of classical economics’ key concepts and the exploitative assumptions running through them lies at the heart of Market, Schmarket by Molly Scott Cato. The book also looks at dissent and practical alternatives from around the world. o New Clarion Press, 2006.
Environment Economic theory identifies three requirements of production – capital, labour and land. First printed in 1879, Henry George’s Progress and Poverty examines the land element, making the case for a system of taxation that targets those who control and most benefit from using the natural resources that are our common heritage. When you consider that the term ‘land’ refers to everything ranging from oil and water to crops and built environment, airwaves and flight paths George’s book is as deeply relevant today as it was when it was written. o The Henry George Foundation of Great Britain, 177 Vauxhall Bridge Road, Victoria, London SW1. Seeing Green by Jonathon Porritt, sets out a number of the problems confronting us today while distinguishing between the remedies offered by environmentalism and eco-politics. o Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd. 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF. There is a great need for Community Strategies to link personal behaviour and the how this can affect the natural environment – themes such as transport and waste are already doing, where the local links can often be easily seen. The Go Mad! Go Make a Difference series gives very practical advice on how we can live less unsustainably by changing our daily habits. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Strangely Like War looks at the alarming consequences of present deforestation programmes for future generations. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Written to help third sector organisations influence the planning system, rather than simply respond to it, Urban Forum have published a new SCI Guide. o www.urbanforum.org.uk Architecture in a Climate of Change calls for changes in the way we build, in order to achieve optimum living conditions using minimum natural resources. In Cities, People, Planet Herbert Girardet uses footprinting and best practice to demonstrate how urban design can become more planet and eco-friendly. o www.cat.org.uk Another book condemning contemporary built environment as “a tragic sprawlscape of cartoon architecture, junked cities and ravaged countryside”, James Howard Kunstler’s Home from Nowhere calls for the restoration of traditional architecture and urban design and a widespread reclamation of public space. Not in Our Backyard shows how communities can organise effective opposition to unwelcome development proposals. o www.cat.org.uk Creating Sustainable Cities rethinks our built environment. By Herbert Girardet, this is one of the papers in the Schumacher Briefings. o www.greenbooks.co.uk A book to help all those involved in the building industry work more responsibly, Philosophy of Sustainable Design outlines many of the sustainability issues that have emerged in recent years. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Bring together natural and built environment and there’s a good chance that discussion will not only subordinate natural to built, focusing on development or open space issues – but also disregard any other environmental issues. Lucy Seigle’s Green Living in the Urban Jungle turns the former convention on its head, prioritising ways the natural environment can shape individuals’ approach to urban living. o www.viva.org.uk Bringing together environmental objectives and community participation, Painting the Town Green is recommended reading for all those involved in encouraging the public to go green. It recommends ditching approaches that are either too informed or alarmist, using instead a more familiar everyday idiom. It’s written by Stephen Hounsham and published by Green-Engage. The Living Planet Report, published by WWF, sets out two indicators of Earth’s well-being. The Living Planet Index shows that recent years have brought a loss of biodiversity unprecedented in human history, while the Ecological Footprint is a measure of humans’ unsustainable demands on the biosphere. o www.wwf.org/uk/news/ There are over 500 ways to save the planet included in Emma Jones’s Go Make a Difference. But as the book aims to inform us about the sort of changes we can make in our personal domestic lives, the question here is how can this advice be used at community level or promoted through areas’ LSP processes? o www.panmacmillan.com Earth Then and Now; Potent Visual Evidence of Our Changing World a collection of photographs showing how locations have altered over the years. Compiled by Fred Pearce and published by Mitchell Beazley in 2007. Blue Covenant, subtitled the Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, is written by Maude Barlow who works tirelessly for global legislation to protect all those at risk from water deprivation. In her book she advocates three remedies to prevent increasing inequalities – conservation, trade justice and water democracy. She calls for a UN Treaty proclaiming water to be a human right. o www.blueplanetproject.net www.bluegold-waterworldwars.com In the third world one child dies every eight seconds from drinking contaminated water. See the changes community groups can make when taking on board environmental work – Better Places, Better Planet includes examples of what other groups have achieved and how we can all make our voices heard. Written by Chris Church this 100 page booklet was published in June 2008 by CDF. Copies cost £6.95. o 020 7812 5449. publications@cdf.org.uk Air Madness: Road’s Mistakes Repeated by Cedric Pulford. The third edition has been expanded to update its argument against the UK’s national aviation policy, which plans a threefold increase in flying by 2030. o www.pulfordmedia.co.uk/ituri Planet Savers by Kevin Desmond brings together details of notable environmental movers and shakers and describes the many different ways they’ve brought about change. Although the book includes well known people, ranging from David Attenborough to St Francis of Assisi, much inspiration will come from the achievements of all those whose work is less high profile. o www.greenleaf-publishing.com
Transport Transport: the Way to Go, a new booklet from Friends of the Earth, “shows why transport that would be good for the environment would also make life better for everyone.” It also includes many thought provoking facts – did you know that it’s relatively cheaper to run a car today than it was 30 years ago? Over the same period, the relative cost of rail and bus fares has risen by 80% and 70% respectively. o www.foe.co.uk/campaingns/transport/ Produced in 2006 for the Department for Transport by University College London and consultants Halcrow, Looking Over the Horizon demonstrates how British transport’s CO2 emissions can be reduced to 60% below 1990 levels by 2030, through technological innovation and behavioural change. The Report concludes that “the old debate in terms of relying on technological improvements to help maintain our current CO2 intensive lifestyles seems to be obsolete” and “tinkering around at the edge of the business as usual policy direction will not deliver our ambitious carbon dioxide reduction target”. The research – which raises important policy questions when read alongside the Government’s Climate Change Programme – was never published by the DfT, but is summarised at o http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucft696/vibat2.html “Probably the most important piece of transport research for many years”. Friends of the Earth - Review of Looking over the Horizon Cutting Your Car Use is a useful handbook for all those who wish to become less dependent on private vehicles. It looks at such topics as why reduce car use, the alternatives, how to change travel habits, and living without a car. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Divorce Your Car, by Katie Alvord, has a similar theme. Published by Green Books Car Sick is by Lynn Sloman. The work both looks at the wide range of problems created by car culture – gridlock, over-use, asthma, obesity and other health problems, the environmental and social effects – and the abundance of creative solutions to car dependency. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Outlining a city structure designed to minimise environmental impact and maximise quality of life, Carfree Cities brings together the car free arguments and alternative city designs. J H Crawford, 2000. In The End of the Road Wolfgang Zuckermann outlines 33 ways that our societies can move on from car dependency, ranging from integrated transport to lifestyle changes. Public space can be reclaimed from traffic and its infrastructure, as the photographs in New City Spaces show. Jan Gehl and Lars Gemzoe. Walking Is Transport by Mayer Hillman and Anne Whalley. This 1979 report is more relevant now than when published, with the case for appropriate policy change having become unavoidable as the full implications of climate change have become better understood. The Policy Studies Institute document questioned why Government policy discriminates against the most equitable and sustainable modes of transport, raising such issues as why education for professional planners focuses on road building, while neglecting cycling and walking. Today it’s argued that the need to tackle climate change means humans must reinvent socio-economic systems where CO2 emissions are at least 80% lower than at present – this would see a return to the majority of personal journeys being made by bicycle and / or foot. A leaflet has been published specifically to help LSPs – it explains how a sustainable transport approach can improve a community’s economy, health, cohesion and wellbeing. Copies of the advice, published jointly by the Department for Transport, Local Government Association, CBT and Sustrans are available for distribution to Partnership members: campaigns@bettertransport.org.uk Sustrans has also published a report entitled Towards Transport Justice – Transport and Social Justice in an Oil Scarce Future. o www.sustrans.org.uk
Waste In Save Cash and Save the Planet Friends of the Earth look at the recycling opportunities for different household items, such as medicines and mobile phones, and include some interesting waste related facts and figures. This is a good one to order from your local library and give others the opportunity to dip into. o www.savecashsaveplanet.org Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! is an A to Z guide showing how and where everyday household items can be recycled. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Waste is a prominent theme of Change the World for a Fiver by the Community Links Trust. This is a short book that aims to help us all make small but fun changes in our everyday lives. o www.wearewhatwedo.org Our waste management problems are a result of over-consumption. Many people, without realising they are part of a growing movement, are choosing to downshift, consuming less for reasons of health or well-being or to explore personal growth options. Of course there are also those who are doing so for environmental reasons. The classic Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich by Duane Elgin, was first published in the USA in 1981. o William Morow and Company, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019. A similar theme, though from a more academic perspective, is explored by Erich Fromm in To Have or To Be? The question whether humans are more fulfilled by having or by being, was explored in a number of titles from Jonathan Cape in its World Perspectives series, whose editorial board included Kenneth Clark, Fred Hoyle, Joseph Needham and Lewis Thomas. Recycle, the Essential Guide The facts behind waste and its disposal, looking at issues such as over-packaging, personal life style, product life cycles and organisations that can help us live less wastefully. o www.cat.org.uk The concept of waste is diminished when defined by its Community Strategy context. Rubbish! A Chronicle of Waste brings back some of the word’s wider connotations, such as the way our greedy, unsustainable ways obliterate other animal species, despoil the natural environment and clutter the earth. o www.cat.org.uk
Climate Change and Energy In How We Can Save the Planet authors Mayer Hillman and Tina Fawcett take as a starting point our energy production options’ lack of viability. Their study shows nuclear power to be very dangerous and uneconomic, biofuels lacking capacity, solar and wave technology to be underdeveloped, costly and controversial. They therefore look to the least technologically impractical solution – though one not lacking social, political and behavioural difficulties - explaining how a global agreement based on equitable per capita energy appropriation would have a top-down influence on us all, with individual energy consumption coming to be based on personal swipe card allocations. This proposal was first formulated in the Global Commons Institute’s Contraction and Convergence (C&C) scheme, which aimed to reverse the current economic incentives / disincentives to consume and conserve. The C&C proposal is also supported by Mark Lynas, author of High Tide: How Climate Crises Is Engulfing Our Planet. o www.marklynas.org “Climate change is not just another environmental issue: it is one that calls into serious question the very survival of most of humanity and other living species on a habitable planet. Politics-as-usual will not get us through this one.” High Tide: How Climate Crises Is Engulfing Our Planet Mark Lynas Just how is climate change policy being determined? The 1995 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is the ultimate basis for international action, though the UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research believes that the Convention should define its objectives and set out the means by which this can be achieved. In Meeting the Climate Challenge the International Climate Change Taskforce outlines the challenges ahead: published by Central Books. o www.ippr.org.uk/publications/index.php?current+8&book=463 For heating, lighting, power and the content of many products we depend on coal, oil and gas. The world currently consumes 80 million barrels of oil a day, a figure set to rise to 140 million in the next 20 years. What happens then is one question asked by Paul Roberts in The End of Oil, published by Bloomsbury. Contraction and Convergence explains one of the sustainability movement’s favoured answers to climate change. By Aubrey Meyer, this is a Schumacher Briefing. o www.greenbooks.co.uk Even more worrying than fossil fuel depletion is the growing international drinking water shortage, and while public concern has focused on the former, the latter is of course more serious. Like oil, water is linked to climate change and both resources serve to highlight the power structures working to check life or death economic reform. As Lester Brown points out in Outgrowing the Earth there are substitutes for oil, but none for water. o www.cat.org.uk Community Strategies’ Energy and Climate Change theme is the most appropriate one to take on board impending drinking water shortages. Water: Use Less, Save More gives 100 home tips for saving this life sustaining resource. An easy and practical read this will promote discussion on how everyday life in your area will be affected in years to come. Has your area LSP begun addressing this vitally important issue? o www.greenbooks.co.uk Richard Heinberg writes about the implications of global capitalism’s impending collapse. In Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World he examines the likely impacts of fossil fuel depletion and the positive ways forward, all of which will require contemporary effort and sacrifice. In The Party’s Over he focuses on oil, and the extent to which we have come to rely on it for transport and many other, often less acknowledged, purposes. o www.cat.org.uk “We are entering a new era as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times. This recommends a managed and realistic transition to a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future. A very pragmatic wake-up call that needs to be headed.” Centre for Alternative Technology Review of ‘The Party’s Over‘ Global Warming – a Very Short Introduction Mark Maslin explains the serious economic, social, political and personal implications of what’s happening to our planet in this useful, reader-friendly look at why we must change the way we live and what we should be doing now to mitigate the worst effects. o www.cat.org.uk The Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, has published a briefing to answer many of the questions people have about climate change, and to counter some of the arguments put forward by those vested interests who continue to deny either its existence or that humankind is responsible. A Guide to Facts and Fictions about Climate Change can be downloaded from the Royal Society website. o http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=1630 Extreme Weather By Peter Bunyard, this follows up the themes of his previous books The Breakdown of Climate and Gaia in Action. It looks at recent weather related disasters, their causes and the preventative action humans must now start to take in order to mitigate the effects of similar events in the future. o www.florisbooks.co.uk As fears about the consequences of climate change spread two books by veteran climate campaigners bring welcome hope and optimism. Heat (by George Monbiot) and Living Within a Carbon Budget (Co-operative Bank and FOE) both demonstrate how humans can change to a low carbon economy. The Transition Handbook by Rob Hoskins, published by Green Books. In this book, subtitled From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, the author explains how simply reducing our individual CO2 emissions will be insufficient to solve the difficulties – that it is only through communities’ collective actions that we’ll be able to begin addressing a problem of such enormity. There are now over 30 UK Transition Towns. o www.greenbooks.co.uk
Website links Visitors can follow through the same twelve S&P themes on the pages listed below. S&P Information Resources for LSPs – lists some UN documents, Government papers, books and publications from a variety of other sources in order to help inform SCS and LSP theme group discussion and decision making. Model Resolutions for LSPs etc – gives LSPs and third sector organisations a chance to network on S&P concerns. Model Sustainable Community Strategy – sets out the S&P overview that it’s necessary to bring to different local SCS themes and those involved in their LSP’s associated theme groups.
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