It was a great success and great fun, with people teleporting in to sit in the SP Adopters' Amphitheatre in front of a screen showing slides about the Contraction and Convergence (C&C) policy proposed to address climate change.
There was an audio stream from the RL (Real Life) policy forum held by Simpol-UK at the UK Parliament last week, with Aubrey Meyer, Director of the Global Commons Institute, presenting C&C. SL-SPAG Coordinator, Luzo Orbit, hosted the event with text chat in the virtual world. Many thanks to Verum Vacirca for including the event in the Diversity Festival.
Key slides from Aubrey's presentation are given below. A full powerpoint presentation can be downloaded from:
http://www.gci.org.uk/
You can still hear the presentation. See
http://luzoorbit.blogspot.com/2007/03/climate-change-policy-forum-28-february.html
Slide 1: Business as usual (BAU). Carbon dioxide concentration and temperature rising out of control.
Slide 2: Squiggly line - economic growth cycle imposed on carbon concentration. Coloured graph - Contraction of overall carbon dioxide production with time, with different colours signifying different countries outputs.
Slide 3: Without swift action, the sinks that absorb Carbon Dioxide (such as the Amazon) could fail and become sources of Carbon Dioxide (the Amazon is already drying out to such an extent in some areas, that there are forest fires). Below, the plan for rapid contraction, with convergence of per capita output of carbon dioxide.
Participants in the meeting were from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States.
SL-SPAG enables international meetings, without the air travel.
In RL voting last year in the UK, Simultaneous Policy (SP) Adopters voted climate change as the top issue to be addressed. SP provides a democratic space for discussion, development and approval on policies people around the world wish to see implemented. Adopters undertake to vote for any candidate at elections, within reason, who pledges to implement SP alongside other governments, or, if they have a party preference, to encourage their preferred party to support SP. Politicians in an increasing number of countries are doing so. SL-SPAG members are encouraged to sign up to the campaign in RL.
The day after the meeting, the UK Finance Minister (or Chancellor, Gordon Brown) was under pressure to support taxation on air travel, proposed by the leader of the opposition. The Government response is that action is only possible by simultaneous international agreement, otherwise UK airports and businesses will lose out. This fear of putting a country at a competitive disadvantage is the obstacle SP aims to overcome by bringing people together around the world to provide the lead to politicians. See:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032532,00.html
See the websites (links at the side) to sign up as an SP Adopter if you have not already. Time is of the essence!
See the Simpol-UK website to comment on policy suggestions and propose your alternatives if you wish.
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