How Green Is Your Valley?

           Last evening, I attended a citizen consultation session hosted by a group of city councillors who, having declared a state of ‘climate emergency’, are now obliged to take appropriate action. But emergencies, by definition, demand immediate action and this is where things get tricky. In the realm of infrastructure, for which the council is responsible, changes will take time, inevitably. For example, exhorting people to use public transport is futile unless you have first provided it and made driving less feasible. In the realm of personal behaviour, where changes can be encouraged or nudged by official policies, results can be achieved more quickly but there is an irrationality factor to take into account. How do you persuade people, for example, to look after their personal health and thereby ease the burden on the NHS? Many just don’t, despite the clear consequences to themselves, never mind the NHS. The obvious conclusion is that peoples’ actions are dependent upon the proximity of perceived threat to themselves. Some individuals are exceptions, of course, like those who are at the rational end of the spectrum of human behaviour. (They are easily identified by their refusal to stockpile toilet paper.) The fact that Covid-19 is an immediate threat to all citizens and all economies, has resulted in drastic measures being imposed – and largely accepted – to curtail the contagion. The fact that eco-disaster poses an even greater but less instant threat has resulted in postponed, half-hearted and often reluctant attempts to avert it.

          1974 was, for me, a significant year: it was when I migrated to Manchester, where I have remained since. But in that same year, of course, much more important things occurred, among them the establishment of the Centre for Alternative Technology, set up by a group of determined pioneers in a spent slate quarry near Machynlleth, Wales. Would that I had been in their visionary company, but I chose the conventional, consumerist life, unconcerned about sustainability and only vaguely aware that others had seen the light and were busy working towards a greener future. Nevertheless, I have visited the CAT occasionally to see how things are progressing, most recently last week. The complex has grown, thanks to the determination of its founders and the support of like-minded individuals and organisations. It has a sophisticated ‘visitor experience’ and is a grand day out for families who are looking for an educational theme park. There is a display showing its first electricity-generating wind turbine and photo-voltaic panels alongside information describing the efficiency of the latest, commercial models of each. It must be gratifying for the staff to have learned, this week, of a report claiming that wind and solar electricity generation will soon be cheaper than coal, in all major markets, and that even the building costs of the structures will be less than the running costs of coal-fired equivalents. If anyone is entitled to say “I told you so,” it is this lot. And they fought long and hard to prove their point, with no help from the establishment. This is what they were up against: “The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun” (Ralph Nader).

          Earlier that day, in the town of Machynlleth, the former capital of medieval Wales, and home to the first Welsh council to declare a climate emergency, I had dropped off my partner at a redundant chapel, where she was attending an Extinction Rebellion event (albeit with zero support from the council). I then identified a likely-looking coffee bar – nay, roastery – and went off in search of a copy of the Financial Times. My search was fruitless but, in the process, I did notice there was no shortage of toilet rolls in the shops. From this I deduced that, either Machynlleth has lost all vestiges of former power and influence or its priorities are different from other towns when it comes to panic buying.