I-SIS Which Energy? Gets High Praise At Launch

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Which Energy? Gets High Praise At Launch

press-release

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 17:55:47 +0100

 

 

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press-release ISIS Director m.w.ho

 

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at

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Which Energy? Gets High Praise At Launch

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People at the Westminster meeting were " stimulated and

energized " . Sam Burcher and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

 

" This report is extremely stimulating and could hardly be

more timely, " said Tim Yeo MP, Chair of Commons

Environmental Audit Committee in his opening remarks as the

buzz of excitement was hushed. People were still coming in

from far-flung reaches of the country, having taken the

earliest trains to arrive on time.

 

Tim Yeo had set the tone. Participants showered praises on

ISIS' Energy Report at Launch Conference in UK Parliament 25

May 2006. The conference went over time by nearly half an

hour, and it was a full hour later before we could sit down

to lunch. There was so much bottled up enthusiasm that had

to be expressed, frustrations that had to be vented, and

ideas to be sounded out to take things forward.

 

After lunch, a small group met for further discussions to

prepare for Saturday 27 May, when more than 30 real

enthusiasts would gather for a brainstorming meeting hosted

by Chris Maltin, CEO of Organic Power Ltd., Somerset, to

take the Dream Farm II project forward. That too, turned out

to be a great success.

 

Meanwhile, our main sponsoring organisation the Third World

Network, presented Which Energy? to the 14th Session of

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD14)

in New York USA, 12 May 2006.

 

Sarahda Iyer of Third World Network reports back: " The

response at CSD 14 from NGOs as well as government

delegations was overwhelming to say the least. The 220

copies were picked up faster than we could lay them out. The

Report proved to be the best of all-under-one-roof

assessment of the various options for a sustainable energy

future for present and future generations. "

 

We shall be circulating the speeches from the Launch

Conference, as far too many good things would be lost if

they were compressed into a conference report. Instead, we

present below a selection of the contributions from the

floor, edited for brevity, at and immediately after the

conference.

 

David Saunders, entrepreneur and financial consultant from

Sussex, reporting on the conference to his friends: " A very

comprehensive Energy Report which (amongst other things)

examines and demolishes the case for more nuclear power, and

gives reasoned and creative arguments for a variety of other

sustainable approaches. It's a report that should excite

anyone who has a passion for natural solutions and wants to

see broad-scale adoption of systemic approaches. (Ex-

Environment Minister Michael Meacher said he felt inspired

and nourished by the report and the Launch Conference).

 

" Proposals include the creation of ultra-productive `Dream

Farms'- advanced, zero-waste, energy-generating, multi-

cropping, biodiversity-increasing, economy-enhancing organic

farms – for local energy and food self-sufficiency. The plan

is to set up a model Dream Farm in the UK, which integrates

aerobic and anaerobic approaches to waste elimination,

energy generation, compost making and water purification,

and to research and disseminate best practice. "

 

David Fleming, author of several influential books on

sustainability and economics: " I think we need to realise

how good this Report is. It's by far the best paper I've

read about the future of energy and let's give it as much

publicity as we possibly can "

 

Dr Alan Guwy, University of Glamorgan in Wales and leading

expert on anaerobic digestion in the UK: " I fully endorse

all the speakers today. There is a future for renewable

technologies. The economics of renewables is that they now

demand that government and industry take them seriously. In

our pilot study we plan to show that potentially across the

UK we can make one third of a billion pounds in diesel

equivalent from agricultural co-products. And with an ever-

increasing population there is always the resource of

organic waste. "

 

Dr. Graham Ennis, Director Omega Institute, Brighton,

Sussex: " I feel really uplifted and energised. Thank you so

much for the vision expressed.

 

" Tony Blair can only be described as being possessed of

invincible ignorance. There is a man who is a technological

and scientific illiterate, who is deeply frightened of

science and technology because he doesn't understand it. He

has been captured by a clique of government scientists and

senior civil servants who don't really understand science

and technology either.

 

" We have looked at this Report very carefully. This is the

way forward if we wish to have energy and food security in

this country. There is no question of it. The economics

are outstanding. Large-scale organic farms based on this

system would create an interesting and benign balance that

produces agricultural wealth on an industrial scale that

would make farmers rich. A totally green wealth balanced by

green economic growth. The defining principle of the Report

is that once you realise that this model of wealth creation

is possible, and that it is transferable to other sectors of

the economy, it becomes much bigger than farming alone. This

green economic growth model substitutes for the

environmentally damaging growth patterns and gets away from

the old military-industrial-complex that is raping the earth

we live on. This new model is holistic and is fundamental

to shaping a greener society. "

 

Dr Colin Hines of Protect The Local Globally, the pro-

localist, anti-free-market think-tank: " This report is a

ground-breaking document. It brings new angles into the

energy debate. The information on biofuels is crucial.

 

" I want to make two points: the funding of these very

hopeful scenarios we've heard about today, and the politics

of nuclear power. Pensions are actually a way that we could

provide the upfront funding required for the very dramatic

transitions in both the energy systems and the food systems,

and as we heard, the economics of both are good. Alan

Simpson has often made the point that it was municipal bonds

that funded improvements in sanitation and energy in Britain

a couple of hundred years ago, and it could be municipal

bonds that will fund the energy transition. So my question

is: What likelihood is there for encouraging municipal

bonds as a way to fund the huge resources required for

example, just to make the city energy tight? That requires

a lot of upfront money for long-term saving which is exactly

what pension funds are looking for.

 

" On the nuclear front, I wonder whether you might do well

with a combination of nuclear sceptics on both sides of the

house to start questioning Mr Blair's nuclear policy.

According to one report released, he's going to try to get

it through without a debate in Parliament, and so there

won't be a vote on this. "

 

Tim Yeo, MP replies: " It is quite right that improvements

were financed by municipal bonds in previous centuries.

However, I'm cautious about telling pension funds where to

invest their money. The answer is to allow organisations to

float bonds with certain tactical edges. Then leave the

pension fund to make up their own minds as to whether the

returns are going to be good in those areas, and that would

certainly be possible to do.

 

" On the question of nuclear it will be disgraceful if the

decision is taken without a vote in the House of Commons. I

think if we could organise it in a way that there had to be

a vote, the outcome would be very problematic indeed [for

Tony Blair]. "

 

Mark Griffiths, chartered surveyor from Hampshire, is keen

to see much more emphasis put on energy conservation and

renewable technologies: " This Report is one of the few

serious efforts to examine the real potential of renewable

energy, and is to be welcomed as a much needed injection

into the national energy debate as we urgently consider the

future of our supplies. "

 

Dr. Eva Novotny, research fellow in astrophysicist,

Cambridge University:

 

" Everyone is much inspired! Congratulations, ISIS has done

it again, a great new project launched in record time.

 

" Governments can no longer afford to dither over the looming

energy crisis or the effects that non-sustainable energy

sources will have on the health of the planet. Which

Energy? lays out the possibilities for replacing the world's

dwindling fossil fuel supplies; and it becomes clear that

only renewable sources based on wind, sun, water and organic

wastes can sustain our future indefinitely. The last two

chapters show how several diverse problems can be solved

simultaneously by practising agriculture on farms that

operate on a closed cycle: wastes from one unit of the farm

become inputs to the next unit and at the same time generate

from those wastes a biogas that fuels all the energy needed

to run the farm. No carbon dioxide or methane is released

into the atmosphere. These organic farms build up the soil

to produce healthy crops and healthy animals, without the

soil-destroying and oil-hungry procedures of modern chemical

farming. "

 

Oliver Dowding, organic farmer Shepton Farms, Somerset:

" `The journey of a thousand miles, starts with a single

step' It is up to us to make that step and perhaps not worry

quite so much about what we don't have the power to change,

but what we do have the power to change. We can't expect to

on having the lifestyle we've always had in the way we've

always had it because it depends on things we aren't going

to have to fuel it. In other words we do have the power to

reduce our energy consumption and waste in this country on

an individual level. "

 

Dr. Geoffrey Hunt, Professor at University of Surrey,

Founder of Freedom to care: " We should all understand how

precious people like Dr Mae-Wan Ho and Professor George Chan

are to our society and our future. And why it is that we

don't have more people like them and why it is that so many

of them are marginalized, pushed out of academia, pushed out

of the research institutes, sometimes victimised and

vilified, and lies told about them, when these are the very

people that are showing us the way forward.

 

" We need political change, not just technological changes

that will engage citizens in valuing openness and

transparency, freedom of information and decent electoral

systems, which we certainly don't have. Rather than the

primitive regimes and corporations that trample all over the

planet. "

 

Michael Meacher MP replies: " I think that's a wonderful

statement about the politics of the future. You put your

finger on so many of the key points about what's wrong with

our society. It is basically and increasingly a corporate

state. It is run in a very narrow clique between the

leaders of business, finance and to some extent the media

and the political leadership. And it is only a very small

group of people who are dictating the whole direction of

policy altogether with the increasing suppression of free

speech, not obviously and totally, but in very important

ways. I think the range of the debate is being narrowed and

we are going in the direction of America. Thank you for

what you said. "

 

Tim Yeo MP, speaking as he had to leave before the end of

the general discussion, which went overtime: " Maewan, thank

you very much indeed for that vision of the future and I

look forward to covering the countryside with these farms!

I was very glad you mentioned the importance of having happy

animals. My favourite chef is Albert Roux and he told me a

long time ago that the best taste in food comes from animals

that are happy. `A happy chicken is a tasty chicken'! I'm

quite sure that's absolutely true. "

 

The Rt Hon Michael Meacher MP, at closing: " It's been a

wonderful morning that has fired my political and spiritual

energies. We're here to celebrate the launch and carrying

forward of this Report which has a transformational

capability. The world and this country face an energy

crisis. These original, thoughtful and ingenious, but

highly practicable and affordable ideas are indeed the way

forward. "

 

Don't miss out! Order your copy of Which Energy?

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/books.php#238 £7

 

Audio CD of launch conference

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/av.php#241 £5

 

Both the report and audio CD

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/books.php#242 £10

 

 

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