Blog Archives
Saving Water, Saving Lives ~ WaterAid’s Big Dig And Fundraising Continues
Perhaps you’ve had a holiday this summer in a nice hotel (as I have!).
In that case you probably had a notice in your room from The Management, suggesting you might like to save water and other resources by not asking for new bedlinen every morning. Fair enough, it’s your choice one way or the other. But it does give pause for thought about how much water we all use, every day. So here are a few ideas about how that moment of reflection can give rise to positive action:
Could you find time on 15 September just to go for a walk, to help WaterAid?
To read more about WaterAid, or to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.
Beating The Safe Water Deadline In Rural Malawi: WaterAid’s ‘Big Dig’
One of the most memorable stories I ever heard was from a civil engineer who was asked about the achievement of which he was most proud. He immediately said it was being invited to first turn on the tap which he had installed to deliver clean running water to an African village where there had previously been no supply. And now Water Aid has decided to share in real time their account of an even more ambitious project in Malawi, set against demanding deadlines…
To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.
Shaping The Future (North West Wales)
I was pleased recently to be invited to become an Ambassador for the Shaping the Future programme in North West Wales. This programme aims to ‘put human potential at the heart of regional development’ – an aim with which I immediately felt aligned; as I did also with the intention to create sustainable economic diversity by encouraging skills development, with retraining and redeployment for the highly-skilled employees of the Wylfa and Trawsynydd nuclear power sites as their careers are threatened by decommissioning.
To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.
Understanding How The Pakistani Community in Blackburn Relates To Public And Private Institutions
Blackburn on a Saturday afternoon… and an invitation to join discussions with business, mosque and council leaders from the Pakistani community, as the Insight Out project comes to an end, with dedicated time to face outwards and engage additional concerned citizens. It was a wide-ranging, open-hearted debate about what Pakistani heritage Blackburn residents might do to improve the outlook for both their own and their neighbours’ communities. The move towards real action, I sensed, has begun.
To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.
Liverpool Economic Forum 2012
The Liverpool Economic Forum 2012, hosted on 15 May at Radisson Blu Hotel by North West Business Insider, offered important pointers to the future. Positively, a lot now hinges on new City Major Joe Anderson’s delivering his pledges to bring investment, cruise liners and much else to Liverpool. More problematically, whilst all agree the city now punches above its weight, concerns remain about whether Liverpool can deliver a coherent offer to potential investors. And still discussion of real sustainability and inclusion is absent.
To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.
Green (Solar) Energy To Resolve Greek Debt?
Could the sun resolve Greek (and Spanish) problems with national debt? Some three years ago now Dreaming Realist lamented the inability or unwillingness to capture the power of Greece’s annual 2,000 hours of sunshine. Perhaps the current European economic crisis means the time is now right to revisit this omission. The Greek deficit is alarming. Carbon (sunshine) now has formal monetary value. Northern Europe needs much more energy. Investment in Greek solar energy infrastructure would benefit that national economy….
Green Hubs As Social Inclusion And Community Engagement
Summary: Here we look at a possible framework for concepts about public space, culture, knowledge, community engagement and inclusion. This is not to challenge current ideas about the sustainable development of public space, but to offer additional, interlinked perspectives on the importance of culture and knowledge in resilience, engagement, community cohesion and sense of place.
To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.
Is ‘Ruin Porn’ A Good Approach To Regeneration?
Summary: The Centre for Cities 2011 report published in January makes for interesting reading, especially in its focus on the challenges ahead for places like my home town of Liverpool. The debate at the launch – which, sadly, I had to miss – will have been compelling.
The Centre’s 2011 projections are fairly upbeat for locations such as Bristol and Edinburgh for other cities such as Liverpool (and Birkenhead), Newport and Swansea is measured and dire.
To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website HERE.
Future Currencies: Carbon? Water? Knowledge?
What will be the fundamental ‘currencies’ of the future? What, if we are serious about global sustainability in all its forms, should these currencies comprise now? It’s likely, if we collectively are ever going to achieve a level of long-term viability for the human race, that we will have to shift the emphasis from money (or the gold standard) to the really basic requirements for life on earth – carbon, water and nitrogen, plus knowledge of all sorts to keep the whole show on the road.
Can Meat Be Eco (Or Even Zero Carbon)?
Recent advice is that, to ‘save’ the planet, we in the developed nations should eat meat at most four times a week; but we should also recognise the current fundamental economic centrality of meat in many parts of the developing world.
Discussion of these recommendations has produced some interesting ideas about what might constitute almost zero carbon food, even zero carbon meat. Hill grazing sheep, jellied eels and lobster aquaculture are amongst the food items and techniques proposed.
Dreaming Realist 