New challenges need new solutions…

Nathan is next up in our spring blog relay - catch up on entries from other Greenpeace staff.

I've been with Greenpeace now for nearly six years, having worked on a number of campaigns, but now sit within the climate and energy team as a senior campaigner on energy solutions. But what do I actually do (a question my boss asks on a more than regular basis)?

Well, this week, what with it being spring (glorious uninterrupted sun and modest temperatures) it's been difficult to concentrate on the task at hand – the task being balancing the needs of the nuclear campaign with nurturing the infant that is the energy solutions campaign. It's not been easy the last couple of weeks, as prominent members of the green movement have been claiming that some Damascene experience has led them to take leave of their once sound faculties to go pro-nuclear. This has required time and energy dampening the media firestorms and rigorously defending the good name and integrity of Greenpeace. It seems puzzling that in the chase for a headline or a lust for polemic status, normal, intelligent individuals abandon scientific and critical examination for a more comfortable, contrived narrative.

For all the new found enthusiasm for nuclear power they never answer the question as to how nuclear power will solve the problem. Even if we discount nuclear waste, nuclear proliferation, nuclear accidents, terrorist attacks etc we would need to build 14 times the number of nuclear power plants globally just to stand still – ie, replace those that are closing. This is impossible to do. And it doesn't answer the China question. Nearly all future emissions will come from India and China and they are built on beds of coal not uranium. That's the problem we need to crack if we are to solve climate change. That can only be done by energy efficiency, renewable energy and probably in future by capturing the carbon from fossil fuel power stations and industrial sites.

And what would pursuing nuclear at all costs mean for the fight against climate change? Well, this is a question that comes up daily. We’ve always said that nuclear power will undermine renewable energy and will damage our own efforts to tackle climate change – now it would appear that the nuclear industry agree. It recently came to light that EDF, the rabidly pro-nuclear company, have been lobbying to block efforts to deliver on the most important technology for slashing emissions in the UK– wind - in order to protect their own, vested nuclear interests. Shame on them.

Anyway, with those diversions aside, what's on the cards before the sun sets on this week? Well, having narrowly scraped through the campaign strategy group – a rigorous interrogation of your campaign plans not dissimilar to the tribunal challenges of the Spanish Inquisition and the mental agility of the Krypton Factor – I've some final amendments to make to the energy solutions plan. See, what we're best known for are the monumental and brave efforts to scale chimney stacks or our shrewd and obstructive maneuvers to buy land under the nose of a rampant aviation industry, but we also spend the majority of our time looking for solutions amidst a maelstrom of environmental problems. And our energy solutions work is built on the premise of doing exactly that.

Right now, here in the UK we have a unique opportunity to create and deliver a coherent, visionary and practical energy policy which can be central to providing real world answers to the big questions that we are facing – the triple crunch of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, concern over energy security and prices and accelerating climate change. And our solutions work aims to harness this current zeitgeist and apply pressure to Government and industry to ensure that they the scales fall from their eyes and embrace a radical and innovative approach to the task at hand. This could include greater energy efficiency measures – becoming much smarter and better in how we use our energy - or massive support for renewables which not only make our fine nation more energy secure, but help create tens of thousands of jobs and slash emissions.

So expect a heady cocktail mix of some high energy Obama style 'yes we can' magic and the more practical, getting your hands dirty, no job too big enthusiasm of Bob the Builder. And now that the weather's on the up and the nation is casting off its winter skin, when better to launch a report about home insulation, double glazing and keeping the warmth in.