Public Perception

Tradable Energy Quotas: a solution for peak oil and climate change?

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Beth Stratford edited the recent report on Tradable Energy Quotas for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil Peak Oil on Wikipedia).  She is Energy and Finance Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Scotland, and an MSc student in Ecological Economics.

If information campaigns are inadequate for motivating behaviour change, and carbon price rises are regressive, is there another approach?

This lunchtime seminar will critically consider the role that Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) could play in shifting social norms, engaging ordinary people with the task of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, and guaranteeing fairer access to energy when the going gets tough.  It will also explore barriers to implementation – including issues of public perception and policy space – and try to identify useful areas for future research.

Lunchtime presentation and discussion

1:30 – 2:30pm  9th March 2011

Lecture Theatre D, Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh (Peter Wilson Building, Kings Building campus, EH9 3JG)

For thoughts about Peak Oil please also look at PLATFORM London’s blog.

Beth Stratford edited the recent report on TEQs
<http://www.teqs.net/report> for the All Party Parliamentary Group on
Peak Oil: www.teqs.net/report <http://www.teqs.net/report>.  She is
Energy and Finance Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Scotland, and an
MSc student in Ecological Economics.Beth Stratford edited the recent report on TEQs <http://www.teqs.net/report> for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil: www.teqs.net/report <http://www.teqs.net/report>. She is Energy and Finance Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Scotland, and an MSc student in Ecological Economics.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
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PostNatural history: organism of the month

PostNatural Organism of the Month: American Chestnut Tree July 2009

From a series of artworks from the Center for PostNatural History. The caption reads:

This variety of American Chestnut Tree is engineered by a small team of researchers at the SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry program to be resistant to the chestnut blight that is responsible for reducing this American icon to a shrub. In selecting the genes to create a blight-resistant tree, researchers paid unusual attention to selecting genes from organisms that would not be seen by the public as controversial. For example, researchers chose a blight-resistant gene from wheat rather than a more commonly used toxin gene from frogs. This consideration of public perception as well as the environmental ecology is significant as this tree is among the first transgenic organisms to be designed with the intent to proliferate in the ‘wild’.

Thanks to Groundswell blog.

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