Books and organisations
Sustainable
Energy – without the hot air: A book by David JC Mackay.
Available for free download, or buy the book via its website
or from all good booksellers.
Deals with actual numbers where others just hand wave. This book
is essential reading for anyone interested in realistic solutions to global warming/peak
oil issues.
Six Degrees – our future on a hotter planet: A terrifying book by Mark Lynas about the predicted effects of different levels of global warming. His website is worth a visit.
The New Economics Foundation is concerned with the 'triple crunch' of financial crisis, climate change and oil depletion and has published The Green New Deal report.
The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) does research, education, and offers support for renewable and sustainable technologies. It is open to the public and has interesting exhibitions. many of them interactive. Its comprehensive report Zero Carbon Britain 2030, offering an integrated set of proposals backed up by a wealth of data, is free to download.
Transition Towns
The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Network, is the basic text on how to reduce your town or village's dependence on oil.
A Transition Community works together to respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of peak oil and climate change. In particular (there are many others) . . .
Hawkes Bay New Zealand: This shows how one community approached the
Other noteworthy initiatives
The Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral Project is a community-led initiative that is aimed at making their village the first carbon neutral community in England.
Local organisations
Oxfordshire ClimateXchange: A climate change project for Oxfordshire, led by Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, which encourages interest in climate change. It organises meetings such as ‘Joining the Dots’ and has an extensive website which is a massive resource.
Community Action Groups: There are a number of CAGs (concerned with reduce/reuse/recycle) in the area.
Sustainable Wallingford covers recycling, swap shop, local produce market, school vegetable garden producing usable quantities, encouraging interest with films etc. and more ideas are being considered.
HEAT (Hungerford Environmental Action Team) has a very useful website with some exciting and original ideas, such as a page indicating what foods are in season and map showing foraging possibilities in the area.
Pangbourne and Whitchurch Sustainability Group (PAWS) is a nearby group that has started up recently.
Blewbury Energy Initiative aims to reduce energy consumption in buildings in Blewbury,
Education
The Northmoor Trust is very much into education for children and adults and is working to help understanding of the effect of energy changes on the future landscape. It has a number of interesting school projects.
Project Genie aims to educate and engage young people in the climate change debate. It provides free resource packs for schools (age 7–11 years) including a book ‘The genie in the bottle’.
Campaign groups
10:10: A national drive by individuals and organisations for everyone to cut carbon emissions by 10% during 2010.
TckTckTck: TckTckTck is an unprecedented global alliance of non-government organizations, trade unions, faith groups and people like you – all calling for an ambitious, fair and binding climate change agreement.
350.org: An international alliance aimed at reducing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to under 350 parts per million.