Jason Kitcat

I am astounded and delighted by the result of the Kingsnorth Trial as reported in The Guardian. Six Greenpeace activists have been cleared of causing criminal damage by successfully arguing that they were trying to protect us from the greater damage that climate change will cause.

Among the arguments fielded by Greenpeace:

The jury was told that Kingsnorth emits the same amount of CO2 as the 30 least polluting countries in the world combined…

This is astonishing and embarassing. We have the technology and skills to eliminate the need for this carbon monster, yet the government want to build another coal-fired station next door. It's a completely unjustified and frankly reckless proposal that not only jeopardises our emissions targets but also undermines our ability to argue for strong action on the global stage.

Greenpeace have pulled off a real coup with this successful protest and court action – I'm sure a huge amount of hard work went into this so congratulations!

This past weekend's Green Party conference in central London marked a significant turning point in the party's fortunes. We now have a leader after years of noble but ultimately flawed attempts to support a number of alternative structures for presenting the public face of the party, most recently with the two gender-balanced Principle Spokespeople.

Caroline Lucas MEP was overwhelmingly elected as the Green Party of England & Wale's first leader with Cllr Adrian Ramsay her deputy. They have been elected to positions unlike any other leadership posts in British politics: They must be re-elected every two years, with a limit of five terms and are subject to a recall procedure by members. Leaders, yes, but not in the overbearing way of the other parties.

From the moment of the leadership election result being declared on the Friday evening of conference we could see the electrifying impact of the change. Media coverage of the party was much higher with Caroline and Adrian getting significant space on TV, radio and print media. Furthermore an impressive array of candidates, committed to working for the success of the new streamlined party structures, stood for the national party executive.

A rising cost of living, energy costs continually in the news, an unstable climate, broken government commitments to reducing our carbon emissions and increasing concern about the health impact our 'modern' lifestyles are making the Green Party's unique perspective relevant to a rapidly growing number of people.

I hope that this will signal a surge in Green support in the coming couple of years. I'll remember that London, Autumn 2008 was when it took off. You'll be able to keep track of our progress on the re-launched national party website and on the new Green Home blogging centre for Green bloggers both launched at conference.

Both Hillary and Bill have delivered speeches well beyond what duty required of them. Losing the primary was undoubtedly a bitter pill to swallow but it barely showed in Hilary's speech, and Bill once again reminded us of his incredible skills as a political communicator.

Certainly there's plenty of Democratic policy I find too timid, but they're fighting a different election to a very different audience to the one I'm used to here. Bill Clinton's speech is concise, exquisitely timed and summarises positions with a rare clarity and simplicity.

You can watch it in its entirety (not the hatchet edits news sites are showing) on the Convention's own site.

UPDATE: Jon Naughton adds his own thoughts in a similarly complimentary vein citing Dave Winer's praise also (and Mr Winer was there).

If you aren't already convinced by the arguments for organic farming then the news of ocean 'dead zones' is pretty persuasive…

The International Herald Tribune reports that nitrogen-rich run-off from crop fertilisers is the main culprit in an expanding number of marine dead zones. The number of zones has doubled every decade since the 1960s:

About 400 coastal areas now have periodically or perpetually oxygen-starved bottom waters, many of them growing in size and intensity […] While the size of dead zones is small relative to the total surface of the oceans, scientists say they account for a significant part of ocean waters that support commercial fish and shellfish species.

The article goes on:

Many dead zones are cyclical, recurring each year in the summer months. But over time, they can permanently kill off entire species within the zone. They have also prevented the rebounding of species that are under protection after overfishing, like the Baltic Sea's cod […]

Once dead zones recur, “they are very hard to reverse,” said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, adding that “they have major consequences for the ability of fish populations to renew themselves.”

Organic agriculture can provide excellent yields is better for the health of farmers, consumers and the wider environment… as well as the oceans. We need to stop looking at issues in isolation – artificial fertilisers stay in our ecosystem and have lasting effects. The good news is that organic alternatives are viable, but they taste better too!

Just in case you were in any doubt, our green house gas emissions are going up [according to two detailed reports]. The increase is 18% between 1992 and 2004 according to one government report.

As my brother-in-law who drives lorries for a logistics company likes to remind me 'everything goes by road' so if the economy grows, so do emissions. Despite claims from ministers, we have not broken the link between economic security and our impact on the climate.

Andrew Simms had an excellent piece in The Guardian on Friday, “The final countdown”. It superbly summarises the basis on which we are fast approaching an irreversible climate crisis before detailing the ways in which we can climb out of the hole we have dug ourselves into. Even without global warming driven climate change there are other imperatives to change: oil is fast running out, air quality remains a serious problem (as Olympic athletes will soon recount I'm sure), cancer rates are soaring and the global population is bigger than ever.

What always strikes me when looking at alternatives to the current 'business as usual' approach is how viable they are. There's nothing impossible about them… the technology is there, the ideas are there, what we are lacking is the leadership and collective willpower. Why aren't we insulating all homes or subsidising alternative sources of energy? Why have we privatised our limited water supplies? Why is our train system so expensive and slow? Why is so much effort being put into expanding Heathrow airport?

The existing political establishment have had their chance to prove their commitment to these issues. But again and again they've failed, whilst delivering extremely fine words of intent — but the last thing we need is more hot air. A greener, low carbon world isn't one of deprivation it's a future with a higher quality of life for all.

Some overdue links for your delectation:

• TheyWorkForYou, Video, tagging, crowd-sourcing… MySociety have another great new development and you can help improve it: Video on TheyWorkForYou

• Dutch ban voting computers
  Old, but good news. In May the Dutch government ruled out using e-voting again, due to problems with eavesdropping, so they are reverting to paper ballots. I love this excerpt from The Register: The Ministry of Internal Affairs says that the development of safer voting computers has “insufficient added value over voting by paper and pencil”.

• Brighton & Hove Dharma Yatras
  Scroll down to the very, very bottom to view pictures from a couple of silent peace walks for the Tibetan and Burmese peoples. I participated in a couple and found them very moving.