Your chance to tell Mark Lynas where the green movement needs to go from here
Here are a few comments from Mark Lynas, quoted in a Guardian article yesterday (14th June).
'...the green movement is stuck in a rut, but I think the problem is deeper than mere professionalisation and endless strategy meetings in corporate NGO head offices.
"Many 'green' campaigns, like those against nuclear power and GM crops, are not actually scientifically defensible, whilst real issues like nitrogen pollution and land use go ignored. The movement is also stuck in a left-wing box of narrow partisan politics, and needs to appeal to a broader mass of the public who are simply not interested in organic farming and hippy lifestyle choices. It needs to re-engage with science, as well as with the general public, if it is to remain relevant to the 21st century'.
Mark's new book The God Species, available in shops in the next few weeks, looks at what the world's environmental movement needs to focus on. How can we use science productively to solve ecological problems? Along the way, he takes multiple swipes at what he sees as the irrational and anti-scientific tendencies in many green organisations, obsessed with fighting the wrong battles.
Come to listen to Mark Lynas and Professor Johan Rockstrom, the leading figure in the 'planetary boundaries' movement that seeks to quantify the ecological limits that mankind has to stay within. Central London, afternoon Wednesday 6th July, free admission but reservation vital. All the details are here.
(22.June.2011 - last few tickets available, book now)
(When booking, please say you saw these details on Carbon Commentary).