News

UK economists survey: A green recovery could reverse inequality and meet the climate emergency

Each year the Financial Times investigates the UK’s upcoming economic prospects with a survey of economic analysts. Green New Deal Group member, and New Weather Institute co-founder Andrew Simms, shared his thoughts on prospects for the year to come. As Andrew sets out, substantial public investment could set the UK on a path compatible with meeting the 1.5°C climate target can underpin recovery, levelling-up and building back a better, greener, more equal Britain.

read more

Lessons from Lockdown: The possibilities of rapid change

This report brings together lessons from the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic ranging across our transport and food systems, working life, arts, culture and consumerism, nature, the logistical challenges of achieving rapid change, mutual aid and leadership during crises by communities. It reveals that people can act rapidly, using the best information at the time, and focus effort and resources with laser-like accuracy where they were needed. The same can be done in the challenge of preserving a habitable climate.

read more

Lessons from Lockdown: More space for people and nature

Responses to the coronavirus pandemic showed that we can quickly make more space for people and nature in our towns and cities. This briefing on lessons from lockdown looks at how that was done. The measures are increasingly important as people become more aware of a dramatic global decline of plant and animal numbers and how habitat loss drives the spread of viruses between animals and humans

read more

Lessons from Lockdown: Looking after each other better

The first of the the Rapid Transition Alliance’s Lessons from Lockdown explores what the national lockdown taught us about how we can look after one another better. The way in which individuals, organisations and governments responded to benefit the wider community points the way toward a world where this way of working could be the new norm.

read more

Investing in jobs and climate is key

In a letter to the Guardian, Green New Deal Group members Richard Murphy and Colin Hines argue that the government’s covid recovery plan should help fund the employment of the millions of increased staff needed across all social sectors, from more care and health workers to teachers and police, while also funding investment in new climate-friendly infrastructure projects, such as making the UK’s 30m buildings carbon neutral and adapting existing infrastructure to deal with future heatwaves and flooding.

read more

Green shoots: the best books to inspire hope for the planet

Writing for the Guardian, Green New Deal group member Ann Pettifor suggests books that offer hope for the future and the Green New Deal. Just as in our time, the US in 1933 was confronted by an ecological disaster: the dust bowl. It’s an environmental tragedy central to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, written while the author benefited from a New Deal federal arts grant. Neil M Maher’s 2007 Nature’s New Deal tells the forgotten history of the New Deal’s attempt to green the American south. There was much that was downright wrong about Roosevelt’s racial and gender-segregated Civilian Conservation Corps. But Nature’s New Deal shows how we can chart a path out of the current crisis that leads to a future in which we can all flourish.

read more

Lessons from Lockdown from the Rapid Transition Alliance

For several months the Rapid Transition Alliance, co-founded by Green New Deal Group member Andrew Simms asked people to share their experiences of lockdown and see what lessons people might have for bringing about a rapid transition, and living happier, more caring and less polluting lives. The Rapid Transition Alliance received an inspiring, hugely varied collection of personal stories, insights and reflections. They have organised the lessons around three big themes: how we can look after each other better as societies, how more space for people and nature can be found, and how those who already have enough can thrive with less ‘stuff’.

read more

UK economists survey: A green recovery could reverse inequality and meet the climate emergency

Each year the Financial Times investigates the UK’s upcoming economic prospects with a survey of economic analysts. Green New Deal Group member, and New Weather Institute co-founder Andrew Simms, shared his thoughts on prospects for the year to come. As Andrew sets out, substantial public investment could set the UK on a path compatible with meeting the 1.5°C climate target can underpin recovery, levelling-up and building back a better, greener, more equal Britain.

read more

Lessons from Lockdown: The possibilities of rapid change

This report brings together lessons from the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic ranging across our transport and food systems, working life, arts, culture and consumerism, nature, the logistical challenges of achieving rapid change, mutual aid and leadership during crises by communities. It reveals that people can act rapidly, using the best information at the time, and focus effort and resources with laser-like accuracy where they were needed. The same can be done in the challenge of preserving a habitable climate.

read more

Lessons from Lockdown: More space for people and nature

Responses to the coronavirus pandemic showed that we can quickly make more space for people and nature in our towns and cities. This briefing on lessons from lockdown looks at how that was done. The measures are increasingly important as people become more aware of a dramatic global decline of plant and animal numbers and how habitat loss drives the spread of viruses between animals and humans

read more

Lessons from Lockdown: Looking after each other better

The first of the the Rapid Transition Alliance’s Lessons from Lockdown explores what the national lockdown taught us about how we can look after one another better. The way in which individuals, organisations and governments responded to benefit the wider community points the way toward a world where this way of working could be the new norm.

read more

Investing in jobs and climate is key

In a letter to the Guardian, Green New Deal Group members Richard Murphy and Colin Hines argue that the government’s covid recovery plan should help fund the employment of the millions of increased staff needed across all social sectors, from more care and health workers to teachers and police, while also funding investment in new climate-friendly infrastructure projects, such as making the UK’s 30m buildings carbon neutral and adapting existing infrastructure to deal with future heatwaves and flooding.

read more

Green shoots: the best books to inspire hope for the planet

Writing for the Guardian, Green New Deal group member Ann Pettifor suggests books that offer hope for the future and the Green New Deal. Just as in our time, the US in 1933 was confronted by an ecological disaster: the dust bowl. It’s an environmental tragedy central to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, written while the author benefited from a New Deal federal arts grant. Neil M Maher’s 2007 Nature’s New Deal tells the forgotten history of the New Deal’s attempt to green the American south. There was much that was downright wrong about Roosevelt’s racial and gender-segregated Civilian Conservation Corps. But Nature’s New Deal shows how we can chart a path out of the current crisis that leads to a future in which we can all flourish.

read more

Lessons from Lockdown from the Rapid Transition Alliance

For several months the Rapid Transition Alliance, co-founded by Green New Deal Group member Andrew Simms asked people to share their experiences of lockdown and see what lessons people might have for bringing about a rapid transition, and living happier, more caring and less polluting lives. The Rapid Transition Alliance received an inspiring, hugely varied collection of personal stories, insights and reflections. They have organised the lessons around three big themes: how we can look after each other better as societies, how more space for people and nature can be found, and how those who already have enough can thrive with less ‘stuff’.

read more