date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:59:37 +0100 from: Andrew Manning subject: Re: Green league to: Alan Bond , Dear Alan and All, sadly, this is not at all surprising, and I believe that quibbling over methodology, while important to some degree when comparisons are made, serves only to cover up and ignore the main problems. Consider the following two examples, which although trivial in themselves, I consider to be very revealing: 1) UEA recently completed an "Energy Awareness and Conservation Initiative" survey, with a sampling of staff from several Schools asked to complete the survey (it took less than 10 minutes out of my day to complete). Shortly before the survey closed, ENV had the *lowest* response rate from any School, prompting an urgent plea from Chris Vincent that we take action and complete the survey. But even after this direct plea from HoS, ENV had a final response rate less than 50%, and better only than Management. (for those interested, results of the survey can be found at: [1]http://www.adian-survey.co.uk/uea/present/eaci_chart_1.html 2) My sources tell me that, on average, 4 days out of 5 in the week, the LGMAC kitchen recycling bin contains items that cannot be recycled. This despite an email ~2 months ago from a concerned postgraduate student reminding us about this problem, and despite large notices posted in the kitchen. If a supposedly highly educated section of the public, whose lives and careers are dedicated to Environmental Science, are unable to follow simple instructions to separate rubbish from recyclables, what possible hope can there be for the rest of the country?? There are many other examples - how many of us leave our computers, monitors, TVs, etc on standby in our offices and homes? Thus, despite having the excellent CRed Department in our midst, and despite living in the most "eco-friendly" city in the UK (email from Chris Flack, 15Nov2006), ENV's own performance when it comes to being green and showing concern for our environment is extremely poor. I make an analogy of our position with that of the Bush Administration against China - Bush refuses to get involved in greenhouse gas emissions reductions until China is on board. The rest of the world believe (for a host of reasons) that the Bush Administration (and Europe) should take the lead, set the example, and China will follow. How can we reasonably expect large-scale individual action in the UK (or even UEA), when the largest and most famous Environmental Sciences School in the country is unable to set an example? Some will say my analysis is too harsh and unfair, and give a list of contrary examples. I would counter those examples by saying, great, but we need more, a lot more, particularly on the scale of individual action, changes in day-to-day habits, and setting examples to the general public. I highly recommend the book by Dave Reay, "Climate Change Begins at Home: Life on the Two-Way Street of Global Warming". Reay points out that many of us (and I think this includes a lot of scientists) make one or two minor changes to our lives, to assuage our guilty feelings towards our impact on the environment, but in reality these changes are all but insignficant. Andrew At 21/06/2007 10:27, Alan Bond wrote: I was at Essex University yesterday, where staff took some delight in pointing out UEA's position in the University "Green League". As with all league tables - our position is totally dependent on the methodology .. but embarrassing all the same! Hint .. click on the URL below - and scroll down towards the bottom. [2]http://peopleandplanet.org/gogreen/greenleague2007/table Regards, Alan. Dr Alan Bond, InteREAM (Interdisciplinary Research in Environmental Assessment and Management), School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK. Tel. +44 1603 593402 Fax. +44 1603 591327 Email: alan.bond@uea.ac.uk Skype name: inteream Web: [3]http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/inteream/