National LiftShare Day - 9th June

Something to check out ... it's great how they're emphasising how companies can get their staff involved, rather than putting it all on individuals.

- Set up a prominent link to http://www.liftshare.com/ on your website, enabling people in your community to register their journeys free of charge.

- Promote carsharing using our Email to colleagues and encourage them make 9th June the day they try carsharing.

- You could try and get an article in your in-house magazine or company newsletter. We've put together a draft article which might help inspire you.

- Generate some positive PR for your company by shouting about the fact you are encouraging car sharing. We've put together a template Press Release which you can use as a basis.

- Set up a carshare scheme for your organisation or community by visiting http://www.liftsharesolutions.com/.

Video: Sharing a car with someone you don't like

PPM Of Carbon Dioxide

1958: 316ppm
1988: 352 ppm
1998: 367 ppm
2003: 376 ppm

Now, in 2008, we have a record high (the highest in 650 000 years) for CO2 levels in the atmosphere -- 387 parts per million (ppm).

From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm. This is leading scientists to worry that the Earth may be losing its natural ability to soak up billions of tons of carbon each year. If more carbon stays in the atmosphere, emissions will have to be cut by even more to prevent us reaching 400 ppm or beyond.

If we exceed 400 ppm in the atmosphere, we will not be able to prevent a 2 degree Celsius warming of the planet, causing devastation to vulnerable ecosystems, like the Amazon or coral reefs. In the last 10,000 years, the Earth’s average temperature hasn’t varied by more than 1 degree Celsius. This is not a natural warming cycle. Anyone who's still believing that has their head in the sand.

Gordon Brown And Affordable Housing

Fraser Nelson, on the Coffee House blog of The Spectator:

There is a housing development in Brockley, south east London, with an extraordinary piece of graffiti. “Thanks to Gordon Brown, I will never buy a house”

Brown’s easy-money policy at the Treasury led the Bank of England to chase a dodgy inflation measure - therefore, making credit too cheap, and, therefore, inflating an asset bubble. Also Brown’s failure to reform planning laws put an artificial restriction on supply of UK housing in the face of ever-rising demand.

Is Brown entirely to blame for housing boom? Not even I would go that far. But this isn’t the point. If many people believe this to be true, it becomes in itself a feature of our political landscape.

Ask anyone campaigning in Crewe right now, or anyone who tread doorsteps for the local elections. Pensioners, borrowers, teachers, soldiers – each has their own bone to pick with him. He has somehow become a tartan lightening rod absorbing the nation’s anger.

For as long as Brown stays, the more resentment there will be against this PM whom no one elected. This is why Brown’s survival is vital to Tory chances at the next election.

Video: Peter Tatchell and Elise Benjamin on the Green Party's housing campaign, calling for at least 50% affordable housing

Youth Employment / Open Borders

Mike Davis lays out a number of key questions that we need to find answers to, the main ones for me being: how to link environmentalism with youth employment, and how to talk about open borders and human rights in an age where we will see more environmental refugees. Davis is probably best known for writing "City of Quartz" and "Planet of Slums."

"I think that every environmental demand should be linked to a social justice demand ... and I think most environmental demands should have to do with youth employment and extending the opportunities for the enjoyment of nature and participation in green politics to people in the inner cities."

"Human rights come first. Borders are essentially systems of violence imposed on landscapes and human lives. And it's very important that there's something like an abolitionist minority that reject borders per se as a way to ration rights in the world or to manage conflicts ... A lot more people die now at the borders of Europe than they did in the age of the Iron Curtain."

Brian Paddick's Election Diary

Probably the funniest thing you'll read about the recent London election.

Labour's Self-Destruction Continues

Everywhere you read, it's getting harder and harder for Gordon Brown.

- John Prescott thinks Brown was "frustrating, annoying, bewildering and prickly."

- Lord Levy says it would be "inconceivable" that Gordon Brown did not know about the loans made to the Labour Party for the 2005 general election.

- Stephen Byers accuses Mr Brown of manipulating the tax system "for political advantage" and being "distant and uncaring."

- Cherie Blair's memoirs were scheduled for the autumn, but have now had an early release to add to their troubles.

- If the government is defeated on the budget next month, Brown will have to resign. The 20 members of the Campaign group of left-wing MPs will meet this week to discuss plans to vote against the budget bill.

- If the government is defeated on 42-day detention, he'll probably have to resign as well.

Finally, an ICM survey for the Mail on Sunday suggests the Tories could win the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, their first in a seat held by another party since 1982. The poll puts the Tories on 43%, Labour on 39% and the Liberal Democrats on 16%.

Clinton Vs Obama - The Final Days

A good place to pop back and read every few days is Marc Ambrinder's blog for the Atlantic.

The Obama campaign is organising voter-registration drives in 110 cities around the US. That is, Obama is already behaving like the general election candidate for the Democrats. Ambinder points out how sophisticated Obama has been at "data mining" and building up a voter database. A reader of his blog takes up the story:

"I donated a small amount and supplied my work contact information below before the California primary. A few days later, I get a message on my home answering machine – not the numbers below and _not_ a listed number – thanking me for my support and inviting me to an event “at a neighbor’s house” two blocks from my house (miles away from the information I supplied below). I was not contacted at my work address. So they took my name from the donation and then located my unlisted home phone number and unprovided home address and put it in their database so they could contact me for a neighborhood meet up."

Apart from Ambrinder, Andrew Sullivan persuasively argues that Clinton is a dead woman walking, especially with regards to the African-American vote. Obama, even after all the Jeremiah Wright controversy, is making inroads in white voters who haven't gone on to university.

In last Tuesday’s North Carolina primary, Clinton got only 7% of the black vote – a lower percentage than Nixon or Reagan had won in general elections. In a few months, the Clintons have turned a 30-point lead among African-Americans into a deficit of more than 80 points. No constituency has swung as much over the past few months. The more the Clintons attempted to polarise the voting racially, the more successful Obama was in deflecting it. His rebuke of Wright probably helped. But also the profound media attention. The more working-class white voters actually saw and heard of him, the more their fears of the unknown seemed to subside.

He won only 27% of white voters without college degrees in Ohio; he won 29% in Pennsylvania and 34% of them in Indiana. And when you look at age, the effect is even more striking. In North Carolina, a southern state, Obama won 57% of white voters under 30 and 45% of white voters under 40.

[Bill Clinton] never ran against a black candidate and neither did his wife. They are used to loving and supporting minorities – as long as the minorities know their place and see the Clintons as the instrument of their salvation. Obama broke that dependency and that relationship. And that was why the Clintons had to do all they could to destroy and belittle and besmirch him.

Green Party News Around The Country

- Leslie Rowe of Richmondshire Green Party gets some BBC coverage about the risk of GM contamination of crops near Leeds

- The Sheffield Green Party is concerned about hundreds of homes planned for flood plains

- Robert Smith is our candidate for the Crewe and Nantwich by-election on the 22nd of May. He works in town planning, with a particular expertise in transport, and he's the former coordinator for the Young Greens in the North West

- The Brighton and Hove Green Party is calling for a summit with the city's major housing associations to assess the effect of the credit crunch on the housing crisis

Boris Johnson And Youth Crime

It would be catastrophic to underestimate Boris Johnson.

The stereotype is that he's a dunce who'll keep putting his foot in his mouth. Boris isn't going away. He was elected as gaffe-free New Boris, and he will govern as New Boris. Anything other than that, and the Conservatives are toast, with regard to especially northern cities, at the next election.

I'm finding it much more interesting thinking about why Boris won, not lamenting that the electorate were so stoo-pid.

One reason was his position on crime. There must be a way of articulating a better left-centre non-New-Labour tough-on-crime, approachs to law and disorder and restoring responsibility in society. One of BoJo's first appointments was Ray Lewis, founder of the Eastside Young Leaders Academy, in Edmonton, NE London.

Lee Jasper, Ken Livingstone's former race adviser and a long-time champion of young people from London's black community, is a fan of his attitude, describing Lewis's project as brilliant.

"His focus on personal responsibility and discipline are positive things and he is getting results. He has not got any experience of politics or delivering policy but that may work in his favour in some ways because he will be a breath of fresh air ... and when you are talking to young people in and around gangs you have to have radical solutions and be brave enough to follow them through, and he has that."

"Hard Work, Hidden Lives"

The first report from the TUC's Commission on Vulnerable Employment comes out this week:

"We spoke to agency employees who worked long days and nights for less pay than their permanent colleagues and who received no paid holiday or sickness leave."

"We heard from construction workers who were injured at work but were not entitled to welfare protection."

"There were workers who had spent 70-hour weeks on around £2 an hour who had no choice but to keep working when they were ill, as they could neither afford to lose a day's pay nor risk the sack."

"I particularly remember the chambermaids who had to be available to work from 8am, seven days a week, but who were not paid for the extra hours if rooms were vacated in late morning."

Compost Awareness Week

Recycle Now is offering any Coventry resident who buys a compost bin, between now and next Sunday, the chance to scoop £50 of gardening vouchers. There is one winner per authority area.

You can look at their compost converters, for £17 or £20, at this link.

Election Round-Up

I'm going to be lazy and urge you to take a look at The Daily Maybe. More bar charts and pie charts about the London election than you can shake a stick at!

But, I will highlight our notable successes, a first Green councillor for Solihull, and becoming the 2nd largest party on Norwich council.

The Rise Of BoJo

Energy and charisma alone don't necessarily make anyone a good manager.

He's got a heckuva large budget to manage -- Transport for London (TfL), the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), and the London Development Agency (LDA).

His record on gay and lesbian issues is appalling.

When I ask him what he would do to reduce the sky-high rate of suicide among gay teenagers, he starts talking about the need to get kids out of gangs – as if the Brick Lane Massiv is stocked with gay-boys and lesbians.

Still, he's starting from such a low base of expectations that he can't help but pleasantly surprise us. Hopefully.

I remember visiting New York during the recall election of 2003, which led to Ahnuld becoming the Gov-ern-a-tor of California. Myself and two friends recently moved to NYC from Los Angeles found the very idea of his candidacy absurd. If someone had told me, five years later, that Schwarzegger would be putting California on a path to be the leader in the US in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, encouraging a million roofs for solar energy, and threatening to sue George Bush's federal government if it did not take steps to curb greenhouse gases, well, you could have pushed me over with a feather.

I just compared Boris Johnson to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Am I running a fever?

Coventry Election Analysis -- 2008

Before any numbers mumbo-jumbo, I think the important thing is that the Coventry Green Party stood 15 candidates. That's up from 1 candidate in 2006, and 8 candidates last year. This gave 165 000 people the chance to vote Green. In the seven "new" wards, this was perhaps the first time, in local elections, where people could do that. It may have led to 160 votes here, and 4% there, but we're giving people a choice, and we're putting issues on the agenda that wouldn't be there otherwise.

The high points:

- Having 20 people help out at the count! We were interviewed by local radio and print (having the youngest candidate in the city; having a brother/sister dynamic duo as candidates), sampled ballots, and nearly got lost in the building on the way out at 345am.

- 30% of the vote at the polling station at Ramphal on the Uni of Warwick campus! This is roughly similar to last year's result.

- 14.5% of the vote in Earlsdon (3rd place); that means there is probably a core of 600 voters who have voted Green in Earlsdon for 3 straight years.

- Our best "non-target" candidate this year was Ryan Taylor, take a bow, Ryan, with 9.9% of the vote in Bablake. This was a pleasant kind of curious result, as last year in Bablake, we had 5.5% with Gianluca Grimalda (our candidate in Whoberley this year).

- Across national consitutencies, we ran in 5 wards each in Coventry South, Coventry North West and Coventry North East. Our best was Coventry South -- 1578 votes.

The low points:

- Turnout was, to use a technical electoral term, piss-poor across the city. There were only 4 wards with more than 35% turnout. This won't be solved by the Greens. It will be solved by the "two main" parties in Coventry -- Labour and Tory -- actually listening to the public and putting their concerns right. People overwhelmingly feel, on the doorstep, that no matter who gets in, things won't change.

- When head-to-head against the BNP (they didn't run in Earlsdon, Foleshill, Wainbody or Upper Stoke against us), we usually (apart from Bablake and Sherbourne) had a situation where our paper candidates were rather outpolled by the BNP. The BNP came a few dozen votes from finishing 2nd in Woodlands.

I've tried to convince myself that this is down to the background noise of "British Jobs For British Workers" or "Polish asylum seekers are coming here to take our housing and eat our swans" from the Mail/Express. But I'm not doing very well. There is a tremendous amount of background noise about climate change as well. We had relatively favourable coverage from the Coventry Telegraph and the Coventry Times in the week leading up to the vote. There was even a "business leaders recognise that climate change is bad news" conference going on at the Ricoh on the day of the election, and it was being featured on Touch FM on the hour! People know that climate change is happening, but they are not (yet) willing to put that first at the ballot box.

It could also be a fear of the other more generally after 9/11 and the London bombings, with the BNP whipping up Islamophobia, and that might outweigh longer-term concerns about the planet.

The white working class didn't have it great to begin with, and wages are being pushed down, and affordable housing is scarce. So, the BNP steps in, and says, well, we'll stick up for you, we'll make England great again, and it plays on the idea of empire, that being English is something more special than anything else.

Of course, the solution to low wages is to lobby and organise for higher wages for everyone. The solution to a lack of housing is to build affordable housing for everyone, rather than racialise access to it, or talk about gays and lesbians as not "breeding", or talk about £50 000 payments for British citizens who are Asian or Black to "go home," or talk about Muslims as if they are all sleeper terrurists who have dirty nuclear devices primed under their beds.

I suppose I view left/Green candidates as trying to unite people around common goals (radical transformation; ownership of public services; creating communities that can solve their own problems in an era of peak-oil transition), whilst BNP candidates want to unite people on the grounds of being white, Christian and straight, and have them fear, hate and blame others.

Coventry Election Results - 2008

You can see a list of all the results here. Our two best wards were Earlsdon (14.5%) and Bablake (9.8%). I'll post up some more detailed analysis and commentary later in the weekend.