Rosemary Randall

Outreach work is frequently a ‘must do’ for 3^rd sector organisations and campaign groups. Attention moves inevitably from people who are easy to engage to those who don’t automatically take up your service or join your group. The aim is admirable but the idea is not value free. Why, one might ask, do we always start with those who are ‘easy to reach’? What effect does this have on the way our activities develop and who finds us approachable? « Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping global temperature rise below 2° C is “just a nice utopia” according to Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency. What happens to hope in the face of increasingly gloomy predictions for the future? « Read the rest of this entry »

Speech made at Cambridge Carbon Footprint’s AGM May 19^th 2011 about  the year 2010, the future of CCF and the changing roles of myself and co-founder Andy Brown « Read the rest of this entry »

Climate change community groups often want to work with children. ‘We must get into the schools,’ says someone and there is a nod of agreement. It’s worth thinking about the psychology behind this. Why is this idea so appealing? And why is it so damaging? « Read the rest of this entry »

There is no doubt that climate change is bad news. But how should we talk about it?  Should we acknowledge that it is bad news, or look on the bright side? Should we tell the whole truth – or try to make it more palatable? « Read the rest of this entry »

Two events last week touched on the psychological impact of climate change: the Horizon programmed fronted by Paul Nurse examining why the public increasingly distrusts climate science,  and a debate at Trinity Hall in Cambridge between Professor Sir Brian Hoskins (climate scientist, Royal Society Research Professor and Professor of Meteorology) and Walter Grant Scott, a businessman, benefactor to the college and climate sceptic. How effective were these speakers and why? « Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Crompton’s Common Cause report has struck a chord amongst NGO’s, particularly those working on climate change. The conference to discuss it in London on December 9th was massively over-subscribed. 100 people made it to the day. Another 100 were disappointed.

What’s it all about? Is it a new way forward for organisations who are tired and demoralised by the ineffectiveness of their campaigns? Or is it ‘catnip for campaigners’ as Solitaire Townsend of Futerra reportedly said, an approach which validates retreat towards a familiar comfort zone where NGO’s lecture others about what they ought to do? « Read the rest of this entry »

Text of talk delivered in Cambridge, UK as part of European Waste Prevention week, November 25^th 2010

I’d like to start with a quote from the economist Herman Daly:

“Man transforms raw materials into commodities and commodities into garbage” Herman Daly

– and then talk first about our pre-occupation with commodities and then about their transformation – the way they cross a line from the desirable to the rejected, from new to old, from clean to dirty and what that process involves. « Read the rest of this entry »