He is a trustee of the Food Ethics Council, an organisation established in 1998 with support from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Farm and Food Society. 

FEC works on issues ranging from the power of the supermarkets, food poverty and workers’ rights, to air freight, genetic modification, meat and climate change, and water scarcity. 

Its Executive Director Dr Tom MacMillan is to move to the Soil Association as Director of Innovation and FEC board members are looking for his successor. 

The November 2011 meeting of the FEC Business Forum focussed on resource economics. The speaker was Paul Ekins, Professor of Energy and Environment Policy at University College London. The meeting was chaired by David Croft, Director of Food Technology at Waitrose and a member of the Food Ethics Council. 

We held Shaun Chamberlin’s tour de force for a week to give top posting to the aweful news of Richard’s death. 

Thankfully that is not an end to our link with Feasta, the organisation which Richard co-founded. Caroline Whyte, of Feasta has agreed to keep in touch: 

“I’d be honoured to continue the link, although of course I couldn’t possibly replicate what Richard did.” 

* 

Many experienced and thoughtful people are visiting the Tent City University, organised by Occupy LSX. These include contacts like Dr Mayer Hillman of Crisis Forum and Dr Chris Williams, see  A focus on the 1% who have the power of life and death over so many of the species 

New Era networkers, Colin, Ben, Shaun and Molly have chatted to the Occupiers and will be involved with sessions at Tent City University on subjects including the transition movement, audit-city of hope, energy efficiency programmes – as an act of ‘intergenerational solidarity’ and reform of the financial-monetary system. 

* 

Congratulations to Molly Scott Cato who has been given a Chair at Roehampton University where she will be Professor of Strategy and Sustainability. 

Molly, who worked closely with Richard Douthwaite on certain issues during the last few years, will draw on his work on carbon sinks and cycles when giving evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into the Green Economy this coming Wednesday. She will then face a very different audience at her ‘slot’ at the Tent City University outside St. Paul’s. 

To see the programmes go to: http://tentcityuniversity.occupylsx.org/?page_id=69  

Over the last couple of months I have been fascinated as the occupations started with OccupyWallStreet on Sept 17th, followed by others joining in solidarity around the world, including OccupyLondon, which has been the London Stock Exchange’s new neighbour since Oct 15^th . . .

So what is ‘Occupy’ all about? A lot has been made in the mainstream media about the elusive “one demand” that Adbusters referred to in the original image that sparked the movement, and the ensuing lack of a single clear demand to fulfil that call.

And yet the basic point comes through loud and clear . . .

Go to the complete blog, with its graph, photographs and splendid cartoon, here.

Today I received the sad and most unexpected news that Richard died yesterday, after a long illness.

He last wrote in June, valuing the network post on the refocussing of the work of the Feasta Climate Group, but I assumed that he was busy and thought no more of it. 

After reading about his thinking in 1996 in an article on ‘downshifting’ in the Independent on Sunday’, I sent a copy of a survey of alternative practice in this country which had been written for my Indian colleagues.  He was very encouraging and said that we should work together whenever possible. 

I later found by chance that he had stayed at our centre in Mumbai as a young ‘unconverted’ economist.

After reading Short Circuit and – later – The Growth Illusion, the founder, Winin Pereira, was amazed and very pleased to see how Richard’s thinking had changed during that Indian tour. 

Highlights were forming a local group to comment on the draft of the Ecology of Money’ and arranging for my Indian colleagues – Winin and Subhash Sule – to help with information for a chapter in the second edition of the Growth Illusion, ‘The Mahatma’s Message’. These books are all closely relevant to today’s concerns. 

When I pointed out that much alternative thinking presumed a rural setting and asked if anyone was working on urban potential, he warmly recommended the ‘Lean Economy’ work of the late David Fleming and put me in touch with him – another valuable service. 

In 1998 he was a co-founder of FEASTA, which ‘aims to identify the characteristics (economic, cultural and environmental) of a truly sustainable society, articulate how the necessary transition can be effected and promote the implementation of the measures required for this purpose’.

There is an opportunity for readers who knew him well to add a short message on their website. 

He will be missed – but not forgotten. 

By FDF adviser Karen Leach, on November 11th, 2011

See today’s post on a sister site: A British crime “committed by a so-called civilised people” – a deep stain on our collective conscience:  http://political-cleanup.org/?p=4165 

Richard is not in the best of health but these two are indomitable! 

We wish them and the Diego Garcia islanders a rewarding verdict.

It seems that the UK population is taking energy into its own hands, with a 24% rise in the number of ‘member owned’ energy co-operatives in the last four years. 

The new figures from Co-operatives UK, the national trade association for co-operative enterprises which works to promote, develop and unite co-operative enterprises, show that member owned energy organisations is the fastest growth area for co-operative businesses in the UK. 

The data is released alongside a comprehensive research report on the sector – ‘A Co-operative green economy – New solutions for energy and sustainable social justice’ written by Pat Conaty and published by Co-operatives UK, which explores the potential for co-operative solutions in renewable energy and household energy reduction. 

Grassroots co-operatives are now organising under the feet of the big six energy companies 

Ed Mayo, Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, says: 

“Co-operative energy businesses are owned by members and run for members. The co-operative model is a perfect antidote to current energy practices – co-operatives put their members in control of where profits go whether that is back to members, back to the community or to invest in viable green energy projects. The big six energy companies are still the giants in the market, but grassroots co-operatives are now organising under their feet.” 

Ovesco, in Sussex, is one of Britain’s first community-owned renewable energy providers, formed to help its community invest in localised zero-carbon energy generation. It helps to set up community owned energy schemes, fitting solar panels and providing energy advice.  

The Co-operatives UK report can be downloaded at www.uk.coop/energy.

‘Organic Carol’ – is the first organic fruit and veg trader in Birmingham’s Bull Ring market.

She left her work as a teacher and film-maker in London to take over her late father’s stall and pioneered the selling of affordable locally grown food, some of it organic and some, though grown in a similar way, uncertified. Prices are well below those in supermarkets. 

Those who want to buy fruit and vegetables grown within a forty mile radius can go to a nearby farmers’ market once a month, join a box scheme, or select their own from Tuesday to Saturday at Carol’s stall in the Bull Ring outdoor market which is open each week.

Though many make a special journey to this stall, people shopping in the outdoor market and, passing by, are also attracted by the reasonably priced produce.

This is a replicable model which could and should be a feature of every market in the country. 

With her colleague Bernice Ellis, other traders and great public support she is currently working for a campaign to save the Birmingham Wholesale Markets – a prime 21-acre site which the council wishes to see redeveloped.  

Read about her linking of this issue with her concern for those thousands who would lose employment: “thousands of young people in Birmingham feel desperate, excluded and marginalised . . .”

Julian Rose is a British pioneer organic farmer, writer and activist. He is currently President of the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside which is leading the fight against GMO in Poland. He is author of “Changing Course for Life – Local Solutions to Global Problems” www.changingcourseforlife.info 

The Occupy Movement should consider ‘Progressive Protectionism’ and chants of  ‘The State is Great’. 

The strengthening and spreading of the ‘Occupy’ movement is extremely heartening for those of us involved in proposing alternatives to economic globalisation during and after the World Trade Organisation’s rout in the 1999 Battle of Seattle. Our victory turned into a false dawn however as the global debt boom allowed the neoliberal system to continue strutting its stuff through much of the noughties. 

To hasten its present demise today’s protestors will need a clearly articulated alternative. This must take us from austerity, growing inequality and the unquestioning acceptance of international competitiveness to an economic system where citizens and their communities can protect themselves and the environment, whilst having a sense of security and hope for the future. 

To help develop this counter vision it is crucial to remember the central critique of previous anti globalisation movements. This was a rejection of the destructive model of evermore open borders pushed by international big business and finance.  The alternative usually proposed was a localisation which emphasised the centrality of tacking back national economic control to improve local conditions globally. 

The Occupy movement could update this approach by calling for a ‘progressive protectionism’ whereby countries rebuild and rediversify their economies by limiting what finance and goods they allow to enter their borders, and in the process wean themselves off export dependence. This would allow space for domestic funding and business to meet the needs of the majority in society. Such a policy renders impotent the threat of relocation that bankers and big companies invariably invoke should any nation have the temerity to call for an end to banker’s bonuses or increased taxation of the richest 1%. 

This approach would not lead to a rerun of the thirties since the ‘regressive protectionism’ introduced then, with its increased national barriers to imports allied to the fantasy that others would keep their economies open was oxymoronic. Progressive protectionism by contrast is geared to ensuring that the controls on imports and inward investment are imposed to help ensure a transition to societies ever less dependent on exports. 

There is little today that can’t be manufactured inside a country or grouping of neighbouring states. Long distance trade will shrivel to its original priorities- the quest for raw materials and cash crops that cannot be found domestically. Such trade will still be governed by international trade rules, but ones which ensure that the rebuilding of sustainable local economies are their raison d’etre, rather than evermore open markets and exports. I have proposed trade rules that can achieve this via a World Localisation Organisation to replace the free market WTO, and a ‘Treaty of Home’ to revitalise an EU fragmenting under pressures caused by the open borders obsession of the Treaty of Rome. 

Economic globalisation has put the clock back for the majority with its rising inequality, personal insecurity and the neutering of the nation state. Progressive protectionism therefore has at is heart the concept that ‘The State is Great’. This is due to its ability to tax income to ensure social improvements and to tax wasteful resource use to increase environmental improvements. It could also introduce appropriate regulation and act as a guarantor to encourage use of the wall of money in personal savings and pensions to help fund the transition to localisation. The first step could be a public and privately funded Green New Deal programme to make all UK buildings energy efficient and provide huge numbers of jobs where people actually live. Such a multi decade programme will provide a new career path, particularly for the young, and would promote intergenerational solidarity since funding such jobs would provide a safer haven for the savings of an increasingly ageing population.  

Progressive protectionism could not only become a concrete rallying cry for the Occupy movement it could also attract support across the political spectrum The economic activity inherent in this shift to localised economies could see off the imminent economic decline by providing a more secure future for local businesses, savers, the young, as well as protecting the environment. It should therefore appeal to those on the left, the centre, the greens through to small ‘c’ conservatives. 

Of course such a radical change in economic direction could not be introduced in one country alone, since the money markets would ferociously destabilise such a challenge to their present dominance of the world economy. Europe, under huge threat from the forces of international finance as it is, would however be a powerful enough bloc to implement such a programme, particularly if the ‘Occupy’ movement and the politically active started to campaign for it.  Winston Churchill identified a stable society as the balance required between what he termed the ladder and the net. 

Today the ‘Occupy ‘ movement is clear that the ladder has rungs that need to be bought very much closer together and the net dramatically strengthened – progressive protectionism could achieve just that.