Denis Campbell continues to follow us and shine his spotlight on the work and travails of South Wales fractivists. Much appreciated Denis – keep up the good work!

Frances Jenkins – founder of Frack Free Wales – on the Balcombe 16 trial experience:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs9jQ9KN-w4&list=UUIaAkrszD7vt2uht8glGR_A&feature=c4-overview]

Plus, Andy Chyba talking about his withdrawal from the MEP elections, governments fracking big lies, and the likely impact of the balcombe 16 trial verdict:

7.00pm Thursday 23rd January 2014 at theThe Railway PH at the bottom of Station Hill
ALL WELCOME (Especially new members!)

AGENDA:

1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Apologies for Absence
3. Minutes and matters arising
4. Officers’ reports (Andy/John/Neil)
5. Councillor feedback (Kathy)
6. Elections – Target ward /Euro campaign/BGP AGM (Feb)
7. Campaigns update – Fracking (Andy/Rozz); PAAA (Andy/John); Bridgend Against the Bedroom Tax (John/Trish/Andy/Gareth); free solar energy (Andy).
8. AOB
9. DoNM

REMINDER – If anyone needs a lift to any of our meetings, let Andy know (greens) and we will organise it for you.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Dear Bridgend Members,

Please see details of Spring Conference below. This will be the first time for quite a few years that I will not be attending. I would recommend it to committed members as it is your most direct means of influencing Party policy and there is plenty of interest to most of you going on, I am sure.

Belated best wishes for the New Year.

Andy Chyba
Chair Bridgend Green Party

PS The first meeting of the New Year will be on Thursday 23rd January, usual time and place.

Dear Local Party contact,

Green Party Spring Conference this year will be held at the beautiful St George’s Hall in Liverpool from Friday 28 February to Monday 3 March.

We would be very grateful if you could pass this information on to your local members via newsletters, websites, emails, meetings, etc.

Please find attached an outline timetable. A more detailed timetable will be available from the beginning of February on the conference website:www.greenparty.org.uk/conference
And will include panel debates on Saving the NHS, Austerity in Europe, and the Struggle for Education.

The agenda of motions for discussion can be found on the members’ website. https://my.greenparty.org.uk/news/first-agenda-spring-conference-2014

· Bookings can be made online via the website. Early bird booking deadline is 14 February, but you can book up to the conference and even on the day itself.
· Hardship Fund that can be accessed by those who could not otherwise afford to attend.
· Free Creche
· 50% off national express coach travel for GP members
· Crash space available at £5 per night, as well as £10 B&B with local members (limited places)

Details of all this and more on the conference website:www.greenparty.org.uk/conference

Thanks and best wishes,

Louisa Greenbaum
Conferences Co-ordinator
The Green Party

Spring Conference 2014
28 Feb – 3 Mar, St George’s Hall, Liverpool
www.greenparty.org.uk/conference

Spring_2014_timetable_outline_V0.pdf

Fracking has inspired opposition across the socio-economic spectrum and amongst musicians in particular.

Here is my current Top 20 of inspired and inspirational music:

1. “No Fracking Way” Leo Sayer with Aussies Against Fracking
A very recent rocking effort by a seasoned pro!

2. Fracking is Coming to Town by John Harrison
Slaughters the Springsteen classic, but gets a high position in this chart as it is only a week ’til Christmas!

3. “My Water’s On Fire Tonight” is a product of Studio 20 NYU
Fracking hip-hop style! An established classic , being two and a half years old now

4.Fracking Song – Emily Blyth
Emily is well know to us in the Green Party, and soon to become Mrs Derek Wall! Fracking folk-style!

5. Don’t Frack My Mother – Artists Against Fracking
Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono et al with a song in the style of the protest song maestro, BVob Dylan

6. Cuadrilla Killer – HUTC
From the Balcombe protection camp – inspired by a Talking Heads classic

7. Frack Off! by GRASS
Folk rock from the Fylde Coast

8. Raise A Ruckus In Aromas
Classic country-style song from the Southern States

9. The Fracking Song – Little war Twins
Reminiscent of Joni Mitchell (perhaps)

10. This Land Is All – Canton Community Choir and Cor Cochion Caerdydd
The Welsh choral tradition being upheld (just about!)

11. This Fracking Song – ‘Deadly’ Dave Welsh
Quality Aussie singer-songwriter, recorded in a beer garden

12. CFFT Fracking Song – Susan Shann
Military style ‘call and response’ from Tennessee

13. Frackin Devil – Frank Molloy
Great song, great video, with lyrics, from the Irish fractivist

14. Hydro Fracking Song – LRevolution
Linkin Park style anthem from June 2010

15. Pete Seeger Sings Out Against Fracking
The old-stager can still churn it out!

16. Freakin Frackin by Op-Critical
Heavier sound, conveys the sinister vibe very well

17. Lock the Gate – Laura Doe & The Chaps
Great track from a Aussie campaign album called “Whole Lotta Frackin’ Going On”

18. Fracking Gasholes – Stele Ely
Dodgy title, but a great song and a excellent video (with lyrics)

19. Don’t Frack Me Around – Oxygen Brothers Band
Canadian folksters getting straight to the point

20. Fracking Anthem (after Blake’s Jerusalem) – words by Simon Welsh
I had to end with one in which I make a contribution – the mass choirs of Balcombe!

And there is a hell of a lot more out there, I promise you!

From Bridgend Green Party

We hope to see you all sometime in the New Year.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 23rd January 2014,
7.00pm in the Railway P.H.

(Please note that the previously advertised meeting this week, on Thursday 19th, has been cancelled)

A few months ago, I was asked what I knew about the Free Solar Panels scheme from a company called a A Shade Greener.

As a result of my enquiries, I decided to pursue it myself and I am very pleased with the outcomes to date.

The scheme is explained well on their website
http://ashadegreener.co.uk

and this video:

I am pleased to report that they have been as good as their word at every stage and it has all been remarkably hassle free. The only inconvenience has been having to have someone at home on the installation date.

The only small gripe I have is that they do not provide a metering system that allows you to readily check what is being generated and what the house is using. You can log-in to their website and get access to their data on what the panels have generated, but if you want to be able to optimise your own use of the free electricity you really do need a suitable meter. There are quite a few of these available on the market and I ended up buying this one:

http://www.eco-eye.com/products-smartPV.html

It is pretty easy to instal and set up (get it in advance of installation date and the electrician will fit it in about 2 mins if you ask them nicely!).
It has a very easy to understand ‘traffic light’ system that tells you when you are generating a surplus (green), when you are using more than you generating (red) and when the two are in rough parity (amber). Amber can be regarded as the optimum in terms of getting best value out of the system.

The meter also logs data on a memory card that can be downloaded to a computer, and with the supplied software it is a doddle to produce useful analysis figures and graphs. These are from my first download:

Date	Used Kw	Gen Kw	gen/used %
27/11/2013	15.445	0.704	4.6
28/11/2013	17.784	1.191	6.7
29/11/2013	9.605	1.253	13.0
30/11/2013	13.348	10.579	79.3
01/12/2013	19.072	0.829	4.3
02/12/2013	16.216	1.755	10.8
03/12/2013	13.571	0.901	6.6
04/12/2013	14.889	3.544	23.8
05/12/2013	13.913	1.598	11.5
06/12/2013	12.316	3.8	30.9
07/12/2013	12.056	4.329	35.9
Total	158.215	30.483	19.3

PastedGraphic-1.pdf

It is, of course, the worst possible time of year for solar generation, given the short daylight hours and often heavy cloud cover. But even so, as you can see from the table, over this 11 day period, we have averaged generation of 19.3% of the energy we used. The range is quite dramatic. We didn’t quite mange 5% on a couple of days (although one of these was the heaviest use day), but we also managed approximately 80% on 30th November – when my wife and I were away and our sons had the house to themselves!

Given these figures, it is easy to see how we can achieve consistently high savings much of the year and can clearly look forward to annual savings of at least the average of 37% A Shade Greener quote. Given the cost of electricity at the moment, that is a lot of money saved, alongside a big reduction in our carbon footprint.

We are learning as go along, and the smart meter functionality of out PV meter is teaching all of us a lot about where we are using (and wasting) the most electricity. The electric shower is horrendous! I also get a buzz every time the meter lights are flashing orange and I realise that, at that moment at least, we are not paying anything for our electricity. I am also enjoying the challenge of whittling down the base consumption of our house , by tracking down devices left on standby etc. I had it down to just 62 watts/hr at one point.

Potential savings are clearly a function of how savvy you get in optimising your patterns of use. I have things on timers, phased throughout the middle of the day, to take advantage. But potential savings also depend on certain fixed factors, such as the size and pitch of your roof, and of course, its aspect. The closer to due south facing you are, and the closer you are to having room for a full 4Kw/h system (the maximum allowed for domestic systems), the better the generation figures you will see.

I have a 4Kw/h system, but face 16 degrees off due south – still pretty good though as they will fit systems up to 55 degrees off due south.

All-in-all, given that I was unlikely to spend the £6k to £8k on a system myself, and that if I did, the payback time would be many years, this seems a no-brainer to me. Ok, some private company is taking the FIT (Feed In Tariff), which I would get if I paid for the installation, but 30-40% off my electric bills for the next 20 or so years, for absolutely no investment from my pocket – alongside the immediate reductions in our family carbon footprint – mean that I can see no significant reason why the vast majority of peolpe with suitable roofs should not do it.

Just remember to say to were referred by a friend and give them my details (contact me if you don’t already know them) and we will also BOTH be £50 richer too – if it is result of this blog article, mine will be going into Bridgend Green Party funds.

Thank you in advance!!

http://ashadegreener.co.uk/refer-a-friend/

Excellent article.

……	Click here to view it online
	26 November 2013 Endless Stalemate: How Fossil Fuel Interests Are Killing Climate Action By David Cromwell The devastation wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines has led to heart-wrenching scenes of human suffering, with the death toll now put at over 5,000 and likely to rise still further. Yeb Sano, the head of the Philippines climate delegation, gave a moving speech at the UN climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, linking the typhoon to global warming, and then went on a hunger strike which would last, he said, ‘until we stop this madness’. Sadly, the madness looks set to continue if we recognise that the corporate media is an integral part of the problem: pulverising us with corporate advertising to encourage increased levels of consumption and planetary resource depletion, while averting our gaze from the root cause of the climate problem; namely, corporate-led global capitalism. News reports and editorials were ultra-cautious not to link Typhoon Haiyan directly to climate change; either not mentioning climate change at all, or providing the worn-out disclaimer that individual weather events cannot be attributed to global warming. But as Kevin Trenberth, senior climate scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, said last year: ‘The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.’ Climate scientist Peter Gleick noted that data in the form of ‘unusually high sea levels and warm temperatures’ supported the claim that climate change had influenced Typhoon Haiyan. Peter Hart, a media analyst with Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, emphasised the point that mattered: ‘There is no way that one massive hurricane will be stamped “Created by Climate Change,” while another would be considered a “normal” hurricane. ‘These catastrophes are occurring, and will continue to occur, in a climate that has been undeniably altered. Waiting for the “real” climate change-caused storms to hit before talking about climate change is illogical and irresponsible.’ Sadly, the corporate world, with the corporate media a vital supporting pillar propping up the system, has long shown that it isirresponsible. The Business Fix Of False Solutions Meanwhile, politicians have been paying lip service, at best, to the risk of climate catastrophe, just as they have since UN climate talks led to the ineffectual Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The latest fix bandied about at climate talks is a ‘global carbon market “toolbox” ‘ thus ‘making climate change targets more achievable’. The farce quickly becomes evident on further reading: ‘governments have proposed launching a framework‘ to create ‘a single voluntary platform to share ideas, with a view toeventually launching a global market to battle climate change.’ (Emphasis added.) This sums up how the world works. The planet is rapidly and dangerously overheating, but elite economic and financial interests, with bought-for governments under their corporate thumbs, will nevertheless continue to do whatever they can to retain profit and power. So, for instance, they’ll devise a ‘toolbox’ in a ‘global market’ for that to happen, and it will be cynically sold to the public as a means of ‘battling climate change’. Indeed, for years corporate elites have lobbied intensely behind the scenes at UN climate talks to steer any agreement in their direction. Worse, they don’t want any ‘sweeping international treaties’ at all, as these are seen as: ‘no longer the key for charting the planet’s path to sustainable development. Instead, partnerships among governments, businesses, and NGOs hold the most promise for measurable progress on sustainability issues, including climate change.’ As for the climate talks themselves, the campaigning group Corporate Europe Observatory has exposed what the corporate media is happy to overlook; namely that corporate polluters are poised to gain most from the talks: ‘The EU aims to expand carbon markets that would benefit big polluters at the UN climate talks, COP19 in Poland, says a Statement signed by 135+ groups, movements and networks from all over the world. The Statement denounces the corporate capture of COP19 by the same companies that stand to profit.’ The Brussels-based group, which monitors and challenges the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporate lobby groups in EU policy making, added: ‘COP19 is the first UN climate talks to have corporate sponsorship, with some of the biggest climate crooks as official “partners”, including ArcelorMittal, Alstom and BMW.’ ArcelorMittal is the world’s biggest steel company and Alstom is a French conglomerate with major interests in power generation and transmission. A new report, ‘COP19 Guide to Corporate Lobbying: Climate Crooks and the Polish Government’s Partners in Crime’, published jointly by Corporate Europe Observatory and the Transnational Institute (TNI), shows how: ‘Big business, industry and finance, keen to set the agenda and shape the rules in the interests of their profits – and at the expense of climate justice – have infiltrated COP19.’ These elite actors not only include giant fossil fuel companies, but wider business groups, financial interests, agribusiness and agrofuels, as well as other polluting industries. A sobering infographic on the TNI website displays the power interests ‘behind the scenes’, explaining succinctly ‘why UN climate negotiations never work’. It is therefore unsurprising that NGOs finally had enough of the climate talks in Warsaw and walked out in protest last week, with one campaigner saying: ‘It has become quite flagrantly obvious that progress to reach any legally binding climate treaty is being obstructed by the lobbying forces of the fossil fuel industry.’ Even after campaigners had walked out of the climate talks, our searches of the Lexis database found not a single newspaper report into the real extent and intensity of corporate lobbying on climate in any of the national UK newspapers. At best, there was just a passing mention in a tiny handful of opinion pieces about ‘vested interests’ or fossil-fuel lobbying that sought to‘deliver watered down versions’ of the ‘effective instrument’ of carbon markets. In particular, there was not a single news article about the eye-opening report on corporate lobbying by Corporate Europe Observatory and the Transnational Institute exposing the hollowness of current UN climate talks. Following the NGO walkout from the UN talks, the Guardian did go as far as publishing an online opinion piece by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, which touched on the ‘corporate sponsorship’ of the climate summit, quoting one of the campaigners responsible for the report on industry lobbying: ‘This is perhaps the most corporate climate talks we have ever experienced.’ But this was a rare and brief foray into the reality of the huge corporate forces that are obstructing climate sanity. Climate Science ‘Really Clear’ That ‘We Need Radical Change’ Goodman presented Democracy Now! from the UN climate talks and interviewed Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows-Larkin, two British scientists from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. They rightly observed that ‘runaway global warming’ is not being addressed by world leaders, and they pointed to the urgent need for ‘radical and immediate de-growth strategies in the United States, EU and other wealthy nations.’ This was a welcome and much-needed intervention from two climate scientists who have refused to be hidebound by academic conventions of what it is ‘politic’ to say – or not say. They called for ‘reparation’ to be paid by the ‘traditional polluters’, namely the industrialised countries, to poorer nations to help them develop ‘renewable, low-carbon energy systems’ and a decent quality of life for their people. The scientists also supported the walkout by climate campaigners and, admirably, encouraged other climate scientists to be more vocal in demanding the radical action that is needed to avert catastrophic climate change. Professor Anderson spoke bluntly: ‘I think the scientific community has for too long really let the policymakers, and indeed the wider public, down, that we haven’t been as vociferous as we should have been about what our science is telling us. So, our science is telling us, and has told us, to be honest, for 10 to 15 years at least, that—you know, explain the situation that we’re in and that we need these radical levels of change. But we have not—we have not translated that in a language that indicates how important that is. We have used language which is more acceptable to the policymakers. It’s more politically palatable. So we’ve converted, you know, “impossible within the current economic framework” to “a little bit challenging.” Now, that’s not a fair reflection of what our analysis is showing us.’ He added: ‘Our role as scientists is to stand up for the analysis that we do. And if it is misused, we should be louder and louder and louder about how it is being misused. But at the moment, there is pressure […] for us as scientists to stay quite quiet about this, just to say, “Oh, it’s an issue, a problem that we can resolve in the current way of thinking.” You know, that’s all rubbish. The analysis and the maths are really clear about this now. We need radical change.’ As Naomi Klein notes in a recent piece titled, ‘How science is telling us all to revolt’: ‘So what Anderson and Bows are really saying is that there is still time to avoid catastrophic warming, but not within the rules of capitalism as they are currently constructed. Which may be the best argument we have ever had for changing those rules.’ Meanwhile, like the rest of the corporate media, the ‘impartial’ and publicly-funded BBC News largely avoids exposing the truth behind the failure to tackle the climate crisis. Instead, it bemoans ‘the scale of what can be achieved in any new deal’, and misleadingly calls this abysmal state of affairs ‘realism’. But in a rapidly and dangerously warming world, ‘realism’ means capitulating to the state-corporate elites that are driving humanity towards the abyss of climate chaos. Veteran environment writer Andy Rowell did not mince his words: the UN talks are a ‘charade’ and hundreds of campaigners had rightly said: ‘Enough is enough’. He added: ‘The bottom line is that the ability of current policies to achieve meaningful climate action is being undermined by the fossil fuel industry. As it has for the last 20 years. As it has been for every UN climate meeting.’ In a nutshell: ‘the political stalemate is due to the fossil fuel industry.’ Rowell suggests that we learn from the example of tobacco. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control warns of the ‘fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests.’ Just as public health policies have been protected from vested tobacco interests, so should UN climate talks ‘exclude the villains from the climate process’: namely, fossil fuel interests. In an interview with The Real News Network, campaigner Rachel Tansey, lead author of the COP19 corporate lobbying report, cogently made the same point: ‘…do you see the World Health Organization inviting big tobacco companies like Philip Morris to its conferences on how to stop the harm that tobacco causes? No, you don’t.’ Rowell correctly concluded: ‘It is now time to kick the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry out of the UN process. There is a “fundamental and irreconcilable conflict” between the fossil fuel industry interests and those trying to fight climate change.’ Not a single national newspaper in the UK has called for fossil fuel interests to be kept out of UN climate talks. On a planet that is rapidly warming out of control, that in itself is a damning indictment of the so-called ‘free press’. This Alert is Archived here: Endless Stalemate: How Fossil Fuel Interests Are Killing Climate Action Contact Us: editor Share this media alert: | | Follow us on Twitter, on Youtube and on Facebook The second Media Lens book, ‘NEWSPEAK in the 21st Century’ by David Edwards and David Cromwell, was published in 2009 by Pluto Press. John Pilger writes of the book: “Not since Orwell and Chomsky has perceived reality been so skilfully revealed in the cause of truth.” Find it in the Media Lens Bookshop In September 2012, Zero Books published ‘Why Are We The Good Guys?’ by David Cromwell. Mark Curtis, author of ‘Web of Deceit’ and ‘Unpeople’, says: ‘This book is truly essential reading, focusing on one of the key issues, if not THE issue, of our age: how to recognise the deep, everyday brainwashing to which we are subjected, and how to escape from it. This book brilliantly exposes the extent of media disinformation, and does so in a compelling and engaging way.’
	Donate… In July 2013, we reached our 12th anniversary. We would like to thank all those who have supported and encouraged us along the way. Media Lens relies on donations for its funding. If you currently support the corporate media by paying for their newspapers, why not support Media Lens instead? www.medialens.org
		……

7.00pm Thursday 28th November 2013 at theThe Railway PH at the bottom of Station Hill
ALL WELCOME (Especially new members!)

AGENDA:

1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Apologies for Absence
3. Minutes and matters arising
4. Officers’ reports (Andy/John/Neil)
5. Councillor feedback (Kathy)
6. Elections – Target ward /Euro campaign
7. Campaigns update – Fracking (Andy/John/Rozz); PAAA (Andy/John); Bridgend Against the Bedroom Tax (John/Trish/Andy/Gareth/Delyth); free solar energy (Andy).
8. AOB (e.g. End of year social)
9. DoNM

REMINDER – If anyone needs a lift to any of our meetings, let Andy know (greens) and we will organise it for you.

The world of neo-liberal capitalism. This is what you vote for every time you vote for Cameron/Clegg/Milliband.
There are alternatives – there has to be alternatives!!!!!