Greenpeace, politics and football
28th September 2007 by Alex Briggs
Those were the key elements of last night’s Powering the UK event in Manchester. Greenpeace hosted the event at Manchester City’s stadium. The club is set to unveil a very large wind turbine just outside the stadium in the coming months, working with Ecotricity and Manchester City Council to provide power to the stadium as well the surrounding neighborhoods.
Thanks usually come at the bottom of an article, but in this case, they warrant being at the top. Darren Shirley of Greenpeace and Madeline Carroll of Ecotricity both worked hard to set up an event that had a dynamic mix of panellists and audience members. Not sure of the exact number, but 100 people would be a good estimate. Due to several of the panellists providing excellent interviews post event, I didn’t actually get to meet either Darren or Maddy, but there help in getting me to the event was invaluable.
The event featured 5 panellists, each with slightly different messages, including:
- The chairperson, Labour Party MP (David Chaytor, Bury North), leading the overall discussion and establishing his credentials as one of the greenest UK politicians
- Greenpeace (Dr. Douglas Parr, their chief scientist) unveiling their “A Convenient Solution” film,
- Manchester City Council (Councillor Neil Swannick of Bradford) talking about making Manchester the “greenest city in the UK”
- Manchester City Football Club promoting their environmental and corporate social responsibility work,
- Ecotricity (Gary Freedman) discussing the benefits of wind power, and
- the Sustainable Development Commission (Vice-Chair Rebecca Willis) providing the facts on decentralising power stations
Following the presentations of the individual panellists, the floor was opened to audience questions. That is when things got interesting. The audience was a mix of local area UK councillors (many of whom have obviously recently taken on climate change and environmental issues as part of their role), local Manchester residents and representatives from companies hoping to get an insight and possibly even some business prospects from the event.
Here are some interesting facts that came out of the evening:
- 150,000 people die annually from the impact of climate change (Greenpeace)
- 71% of all Manchester City fans walk to the stadium (Man City) — I am from Houston, and if 71% people walked to a sports event there, it would mean that they were serious sports fans and that their car broke down so close to the stadium that they decided to abandon it and walk the rest of the way.
- The UK government will need to spend 70 Billion pounds to pay for the waste that current nuclear plants have generated (Greenpeace)
- The UK Government is in the final stages of approving a “code of conduct” for businesses making carbon neutral claims (David Chaytor, MP Bury North)
More to come next week on the event, including interviews with some of the panellists, as well as a podcast from the event next week, drop me an email if you would like to be updated when those posts and podcast are ready, or subscribe to our email updates.
Thanks again to all of the panellists for sharing their time and insight as well as Darren and Maddy for making it all happen.
