Feature Open lecture held at Ambleside campus
Declaration of Planetary Rights, and she has submitted a second proposal, The Crime of Ecocide, to the United Nations. She was nominated ‘The Planet’s Lawyer’ by the 2010 Performance Awards, has been named one of the top ‘unreasonable people’ in the world by cult online magazine Planet Green and hailed by The Guardian as one of their ‘Green Heroes’.
Polly Higgins
In the latest in a series of open lectures, international lawyer and campaigner for Planetary Rights, Polly Higgins, spoke at the Ambleside campus on 3 November.
The Ecologist voted Polly one of the ‘World’s Top 10 Visionary Thinkers’ for her earlier work advancing the Universal
There was a real buzz in the Charlotte Mason Building as over a hundred people arrived to hear Polly speak. Polly, a former barrister, captivated her audience with a powerful analogy between slavery and our current treatment of the earth as a commodity to be traded and sold, rather than as a living entity.
“If we are to prevent major damage to ecological systems, such as oil spills and deforestation,” she argued, “we need a fifth crime against peace: the crime of ‘ecocide’.”
The talk was attended by staff and students as well as members of the outdoor studies professional network. Richard Leafe, CEO of the Lake District National Park. Richard, said: “It’s really good to have speakers of this calibre coming to Ambleside.”
Kate Rawles said: “Polly Higgins is a truly inspiring speaker, thinker and activist. It’s a great honour to have her visit us. The lecture is also a really positive outward sign of the continuity of outdoor studies activity at Ambleside and of the university’s continuing local presence through its Gateway facility.”
More information about Polly and her work can be found at:
http://www.thisisecocide.com/ Polly’s book, Eradicating Ecocide (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2010), is available from Amazon.
Potential global market for Nuclear Decommissioning Programme—CRED report
A report commissioned by the Nuclear Industry Association and recently published by the Centre for Regional Economic Development (CRED) has examined the economic benefits derived from the Nuclear Decommissioning Programme in the UK. The report draws attention to the potential market for decommissioning services globally over the next 30 years.
Since 2005, the percentage of spend entering the UK supply chain for goods and services in the nuclear industry has grown from 50% to 57% and this represents a market worth around £1.6bn annually for a wide range of businesses that provide manufactured goods and services. These benefits are experienced by UK subsidiaries of overseas companies as well as UK firms.
The report’s authors, Professor Frank Peck, Dr Gail Mulvey and Keith Jackson
emphasise the relative newness of this industry and the opportunities that companies across the UK including those in Cumbria may hold as a consequence of their experience of working on the Nuclear Decommissioning Programme.
Professor Peck points out that, regardless of decisions on nuclear new-build, the global market for decommissioning of existing nuclear sites across the world is set to grow considerably over the next 15 to 20 years. He added “Experience gained by UK businesses through their involvement in the current nuclear decommissioning programme is highly significant in developing capacity in these specialist activities.”
For a copy of the report please email
sheila.kelly@
cumbria.ac.uk at the Centre for Regional Economic Development or call 01228 616274 or 01524 38 5445
(From left to right) Keith Jackson, Frank Peck and Gail Mulvey
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