JONATHON PORRITT was the key speaker at the official launch of ClimateKeys during the at Markson Pianos Concert Series in London during October this year. The concert was a call to action on climate change. This is the speech he gave, edited for The Ecologist.
People have been talking about some kind of 'progressive alliance' ever since the 2010 General Election, writes Jonathon Porritt. If ever there was a moment where such an alliance could start coming together, and start working out a game plan to transform our political prospects between now and 2020, this has to be it.
Is the UK sinking into authoritarian rule? That's how it looks, writes Jonathon Porritt, as the government joins with right wing media and fossil fuel companies to attack local democracy and environmental campaigners. Is this 'merger of state and corporate power' a sign of more, and worse, to come?
French nuclear parastatal EDF is facing problem after problem - zombie nuclear projects in the UK, Finland, China and France, a fleet of 'beyond the grave' reactors, a dropping share price and its drooping credit rating. But is it really as bad as all that? Jonathon Porritt has exclusive access to the leaked Agenda of its latest board meeting. And the answer is - no. It's even worse.
The latest book by Nicholas Stern Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate Change presents a rational assessment of the climate crisis.
The love affair of the 'pro-nuclear greens' with a failed technology has paved the way to the UK's destruction of its renewable energy industry, writes Jonathon Porritt, and to the imminent deal with Chinese parastatal corporations to build a new fleet of already obsolete nuclear power plants at massive cost to us all.
This year's Community Energy Fortnight is taking place at a strange time, writes Jonathon Porritt, with the entire renewable energy industry under government attack as never before. What can we do about it? For a start, by joining in some of the hundreds of events that are taking place across the UK!
The GMB trade union has called on the UK government to press ahead with the Hinkley Point C power station despite legal challenges and serious technical failures. In this Open Letter, David Elliott, Ian Fairlie, Jonathon Porritt and colleagues tell the union that its members' interests lie in our renewable future, not the nuclear past.
The previous government came in on a bold promise to be the 'greenest ever', writes Jonathon Porritt. But what we got was a shameful record of ideologically driven policies that promoted fossil fuels, undermined action on climate, obsessed over nuclear power, did nothing to arrest the decline in the nation's wildlife and biodiversity - and suggest even worse to come.
Friends of the Earth opposes new nuclear power stations in the UK. And that's great, writes Jonathon Porritt, except for their complete failure to campaign about it - even though the government's nuclear obsession is a huge obstruction to the renewable energy future FoE says it wants. Please can we have some action now?
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant never made sense, writes Jonathon Porritt, but as legal challenges gather, finance fails to materialize, the cost of renewable energy keeps on falling, and the 'dead duck' EPR design is prepared for burial, even nuclear fanatics are turning against the doomed project.
Naomi Klein's magnum opus on climate change, capitalism and the growing resistance to extreme energy is positive, inspiring and full of hope, writes Jonathon Porritt. But it's also deeply challenging: the 'everything' that has to change is not just government and corporations, but you, me and the ideas that guide our lives.
Pope Francis's forthcoming statement on climate change could just revitalise progress towards significant emissions cuts, writes Jonathon Porritt. But more than that, it will open up the space for a wider spirituality to guide our thinking, and campaigning, on climate and other key global challenges.
A new report shows that the UK's farms can easily generate as much power as the proposed Hinkley C nuclear plant, writes Jonathan Porritt. Not only would it all be renewable, but if could all be in place by 2020. Here he offers some friendly - but strictly confidential - advice for Energy Secretary Ed Davey.
Keith Barnham's new book reveals the giddying and glorious plethora of the solar technologies that lie at the heart of the all-renewable energy system that awaits us, writes Jonathan Porritt - making it 'one of the most exciting and genuinely hopeful books' that I've read in a long time'.
The advance of solar power around the world is bringing instant, dramatic improvements to people's lives, so why aren’t more governments overhauling their dysfunctional energy policies?
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report provides an account of an industry in decline, writes Jonathon Porritt - with rising operating costs and an ever-shrinking share of world energy production, while the sector loses the race for investment and new generating capacity to fast growing renewable energy technologies.
With the Government wilfully undermining the UK's small but fast-growing solar power sector for the second time, Jonathon Porritt wonders ... why the attacks on what is our second lowest cost source of renewable energy, and getting cheaper all the time?
With three of Jonathon Porritt's wishes for the UK's energy sector coming true in the space of as many weeks - the launch of the Renewable Heat Incentive, a Solar Strategy and a Community Energy Strategy - he finds cause for celebration.
Jonathon Porritt finds Mark Lynas's latest pro-nuclear tome 'gratifyingly short' and reasonably open-minded. But Lynas falls into the trap of seeing nuclear technologies as fast developing, while renewables are stuck - when the reverse is the case!
The solar industry is going great, with tens of gigawatts of new capacity planned for 2014 alone. But as Jonathon Porritt writes, the solar revolution could be going even faster - with smart, consistent policies for solar power in Europe and Japan.
Floods, giant waves and billions of pounds of destruction to the UK's homes, businesses and key national infrastructure could revolutionise climate politics, writes Jonathon Porritt. But no thanks to the increasingly pathetic BBC!
On 21st March 2011 George Monbiot stated: "As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology." Jonathon Porritt critiques Monbiot's intellectual gymnastics ...
