| March 1, 2011 | ||
| 7:30 pm |
The European Commission selects one City every year for the European Green Capital Award. Bristol is the only UK city to have entered, and has ambitions to win the award in the next few years. The Green Capital Momentum Group is considering adopting this as its aim, so this is a timely debate.
How helpful is this as an ambition? If we won, would that make us really green? Or does the EU Green Capital award bear as much relation to sustainability as the Eurovision Song Contest does to musical talent?
Debate this question with Alastair Sawday, chair of the Green Capital Momentum Group; Angela Raffle (Sustainable Redland, Transition Bristol); and Mike Birkin, FoE. It promises to be a lively evening.
Background info:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/about.html
http://www.bristolgreencapital.org/
The Chair of the Green Capital Partnership Alastair Sawday, says: “Bristol’s Green Capital Partnership is going up a gear, with new energy and a new emphasis on important areas of work such as land use, food and the economy. We had a great start, but the pace of change must increase if we are going to make the kind of progress that Bristol needs to keep pace in Europe. It would be easy in these times of austerity to become distracted from our long term goals, but now, more than ever, it is incredibly important that we and the rest of Bristol’s leaders are clear about what it wants city to be like in 10 or 20 years time. The challenges will bring opportunities for Bristol and we can make the most of them if we share a vision, work together and bring people with us”
Angela Raffle, of Sustainable Redland and Transition Bristol, says: “In Bristol we have a great mix where social activists, business people, creative artists and community groups all interweave to influence the city. This is helping the city to start re-imagining itself in a future where we’ve successfully faced energy depletion and environmental degradation, and come out the other side with a better way of life. Making the transition to low energy travel, to sustainable food production, and to health care systems that can survive economic shocks, isn’t negotiable. We can either tackle it now and prosper, or we can ignore the issues and wait for everything to grind to a halt. What I love about Bristol is the sheer number of people, and projects, doing fantastic stuff to create a prosperous future for everyone in the city.”
Open meeting, gather in the YHA cafe from 7pm and move to the larger conference room (2nd floor) for the debate starting promptly 7:30pm. enquiries to info@bristolfoe.org.uk.
Venue: YHA, Harbourside, Bristol BS1 4QA.
