DCarb Upper Calder Valley no longer exists – it is basically reforming as the Communities section of Calderdale’s Energy Future Panel.
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Author Archives: jenny
Benefits of short food supply chains are not a foregone conclusion
The Food From Here conference at Coventry University Centre for Agroecology and Food Security has identified
” a clear need for more quantitative evidence on the benefits of short food supply chains.”
Common Agricultural Policy-a scam that benefits idle rich and doesn’t help working poor
Another day, another demonstration of how the system is ideologically rigged so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Common Agricultural Policy subsidies take our public money, provided by ordinary tax-paying, working people, and hand it over it to millionaires, Dukes and our own Elizabeth Windsor aka The Queen. For what? For doing nothing and owning lots of land.
It all comes down to entitlement trading – an expression that says it all really.
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Flood prevention public events with SOURCE in July
Many community renewable energy projects lose Feed In Tariffs income
Community renewable energy projects in Calderdale, as well as scores of others across the country, have fallen foul of a little-known Ofgem rule. Introduced in 2011, it bars publicly grant-funded community renewables from receiving Feed In Tariff (FIT) payments for the electricity that they generate.
Affected community renewable schemes only found out about the rule earlier this year. when their FIT payments stopped and they heard that Ofgem would only reinstate them on repayment of an unspecified amount of their grants.
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A plague on both ConDem and New Labour for failing their duty of care to the NHS
Allyson Pollock, professor of public health research and policy at Queen Mary, University of London, points out that by removing the NHS from direct democratic accountability, New Labour reforms are at the root of a lapse in NHS standards. These have seen the Care Quality Commission (CQC) cover up an investigation into baby deaths at Furness Hospital in Cumbria, and investigate failures at Mid Stafforshire Hospital.
In 2009 New Labour “stripped out public accountability for the NHS,” moving it to arms-length, market-based inspection and enforcement under the new Care Quality Commission and Monitor – the economic regulator for the newly-marketised NHS. Until New Labour’s meddling, the NHS was directly accountable to the public, since it was under the direct control of the government.
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Cheetahs on the brink – are rising carbon emissions the cause?
Cheetahs may be suffering eye damage as a knock-on effect of the greening of semi-arid regions – itself a consequence of rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
As a result of carbon dioxide fertilisation, savannah grasslands have become more thickly wooded – mostly with thorn trees like acacia.
Cheetahs are now on the Red List of threatened species.
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Q & A with Tony Holdich – the man behind Inspire Bradford Business Park
How do you create a managed workspace?
Incredible Edible Mytholm needs to know, because our plans for Green Food Adventures (formerly Growing Futures) on the Mytholm Works site now include a small managed workspace for agroecology-related, low carbon and sustainable food businesses.
On midsummer day, IEM put our questions to Tony Holdich, former CEO of Newlands Community Association’s Inspire Business Park.
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Assembling Against Austerity
Kirklees Green Party member Adrian Cruden reports from the People’s Assembly Against Austerity in London on Saturday 22nd June
Four thousand people from a wide range of progressive political parties, trade unions, community groups and individuals gathered at Methodist Central Hall in London on Saturday 21st June to launch the People’s Assembly Against Austerity – perhaps the largest gathering to discuss alternatives to the current neoliberal economics being pursued by the Coalition and, seemingly, endorsed by Ed Miliband’s Labour Party. Greens were in strong evidence as speakers, organisers and attendees, and Romayne Phoenix, former Green leadership candidate, chaired the opening session. Caroline Lucas, Natalie Bennett and Cllr Liz Wakefield spoke in breakout sessions on housing and green jobs.
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Make Your Local News Work
Changing More Than Lightbulbs’ main writer & editor is attending the UK Coops/Carnegie Trust workshop in Manchester, to find out about their Make Local News Work scheme. Hoping to learn more about how CMTL can develop into a hyperlocal news coop – along the lines of the pretty great Brixton Blog.
A CMTL steering group is forming, to work out how this can happen.
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