NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts has announced the shortlist for its £1 million prize Big Green Challenge. NESTA is supposed to encourage innovation, skill development, research and the like. In a statement of unparalleled meaninglessness, NESTA CEO Jonathan Kestenbaum said,
“Big Green Challenge was launched to encourage communities to come together to generate new ideas on how to save the planet. We had an amazing response from a wide cross-section of groups, and these 21 finalists prove that new ideas to tackle climate change can be found within our own communities. Too often people only associate innovation with technology. The Big Green Challenge shows that people-powered, social innovation can make a difference to the big issues of today.”The Big Green Challenge is:
"... the first project of its kind in the UK, offering up to ten community groups the chance to compete for a £1 million prize with their imaginative and successful approaches to cutting carbon emissions and tackling climate change head-on."You've probably never heard of NESTA, but it one of the hundreds of quangos that feel free to splash around your money to ever-diminishing effect. Just take a look at the "projects" that have been highlighted in the press release (remember, these are the most exciting projects and, apparently, innovation does not have to mean new, either.):
• The UK-wide Carbon Rationing Action Groups (CRAGs). Like diet clubs for the carbon-heavy, CRAGs are support groups for people trying to cut down on their
carbon footprint. Members survey their present carbon footprints and use CRAG tools to map their own steady and achievable carbon descent path.
Rationing -- there's a forward-looking idea -- hardly "innovation" though is it? And try to appreciate that truly execrable language:
"... survey their present carbon footprints and use CRAG tools to map their own steady and achievable carbon descent path."
-- when what they mean is "use less energy."
• The Three Green Valleys - Brecon, Wales. This group aims to develop micro hydro generation on steep valley sides that will produce enough electricity to finance further installations and provide capital for habitat restoration, efficiency measures at home, and community food and transport projects.What the hell is "micro hydro generation"? I suspect it won't rival The Three Gorges or Boulder Dams or the Rocky Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme. Perhaps they have an old water mill from the middle-ages they can use to grind corn; but the likelihood of producing "enough electricity" for "transport projects" is fanciful.
• Used Cooking Oil Alliance – Arundel, Sussex. Work This Way aims to set up a bio-fuels production programme in conjunction with Ford Prison in Sussex, collecting used vegetable oil from other prisons in the region to offer to local communities.Oh God, the humanity, the humanity! What an incredible waste of time and (literally) energy. You can just imagine all the sandal-wearing beardies bicycling around Sussex collecting cupfulls of used Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil from all the well-meaning BBC executives who have their weekend homes in that pretty part of the world.
• Lancaster Recycling Community plan to dramatically raise levels of food waste recycling and implement a range of green initiatives to over 1,000 local households. Plans include a kitchen food waste collection scheme and the introduction of a special ‘rocket’ composter.Excuse me, but don't we already have recycling? And the idea of a super-compost heap would be neat if loads of people ploughed up their back yards to grow veg, but they don't -- because it is much more time and energy efficient to grow food on large scale farms. I've never seen a rocket composter but I suspect what NESTA most needs is a rocket up the backside.
Ten finalists will be announced in September 2008, securing £20,000 funding to pilot their projects for a year. The judges will decide on the overall winner – or winners - in November 09, with the prize money going to those projects that can prove their ideas will have an impact on their carbon footprint.
The judges are looking for community-led initiatives that can radically reduce carbon emissions, be replicated nationwide and be sustainable in the long term.
Well, they've obviously been looking in the wrong place -- not one of these truly silly, frivolous ideas will be "replicated" or "sustainable"; they will fizzle out as soon as the government cash runs out or the one (and it's always one) true enthusiast gets fed up of having to do all the heavily lifting herself and goes back to shopping at Marks in her Range Rover and dumping her rubbish over the neighbour's fence.
Next year when this competition comes around, I'll be looking for collaborators on a true Green project. We'll seek the £1 million prize to plant GM crops across Prince Charles' Highgrove estate -- since we know that GM crops produce about one quarter of the CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions of "organic" crops; we will also use some of the money to demand more nuclear power stations.
Now, that's a Big Green Challenge that would be worthwhile.
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