Blog Action Day: 350.org

So, I got an email this morning from 350.org saying its blog action day today. So this is the least I could do. (And never let it be said I didn't do the least I could do).

As you may know, BmL is a big supporter of the idea of direct citizen action on global warming. Leaving it all to governments is a dead-end street.

To that end, we here at BmL are sending a smoke signal to all coastal fortalezas in the greater Solor/ Larantuka region that October 24 is the International Day of Climate Action.

You can check local events in your area through this handy widget, which will hopefully embed below. There's a whole bunch of useful info here on why 350ppm is such an important goal.

Days Left

On October 24, join people all over the world to take a stand for a safe climate future.

Enter your City, Country, or Zip/Postal Code below to find an event near you.

Águas de Março

Yes, rockin' the fortaleza with Sealab's version of Jobim's classic Águas de Março. Hilarious clip! Great song too. In fact, it was once voted the best Brazilian song of all time by, like, Brazilians.
É pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho...

Municipal Solar?

Ok, now let me run this scheme up the commentary pole and see who cheers (or jeers...)!

I've argued over at LP for a while that councils should look at developing municipal solar energy. That is, use the greater scale of council buildings, vacant property (and rates) to generate larger-scale solar power and feed it in to the grid at local area level. This would offer clear economies of scale in greenhouse abatement - that households can't hope to achieve - and produce larger volumes of power per dollar. Equally (by reducing net consumption of non-renewable energy across the municipal area) it would financially benefit all (both ratepayer-owners and tenants) by reducing household power bills in the mid to long-term. Households would receive the generated power as 'pre-paid' solar, at no further cost.

Households with private solar would get a double benefit, the rest would benefit by the effective socialisation of solar at the council area level. Perhaps they also could cut deals with state governments for the use of vacant Crown land.

Essentially, its a variant on the old school municipal socialism idea: in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th century councils were in the front line of creating public ownership of tramways, gas, waterworks and other utilities, using their greater collective buying power.