GND Media

After a technical hitch (some say Andrew tried to turn his whole house carbon zero with just a mirror and a kettle), we are back delivering high quality low carbon local environmental news!  This week we are joined by members from the campaign to save Ryebank Fields, an area of re-wilded land in south Manchester. Julie and Tara talk us through the work that themselves and there comrades have been...

City councils don't often get the same attention as the national political movers. Important decisions are still being made though when it comes to our environment and the impact we  have on it. In hopefully the first of 96 interviews with Greater Manchester City Councillors we will delve into the heart of local politics and see what those who sit in power think about the climate emergency, ...

Get involved with the Retrofit Get-in Project https://vimeo.com/459003183 The Green New Deal has been around for just over a decade, with it's origins beginning in the U.K. It made it's first big splash in the US with the likes of AOC and Bernie Sanders calling for the fundamental decarbonising of the US economy and economic justice for all citizens. The support for the GND and these can...

Apologies for some of a the audio quality, will be back on form next week. Over August bank holiday and early September Extinction Rebellion lead protests and direct actions in major cities in the U.K with the most news grabbing being the obstruction of printing presses outside Liverpool and London. How has this round of protests influenced the fight against climate breakdown and where is the move...

As wildfires ravage the U.S west coast it has never been more pertinent  to think about what rising global temperatures are doing to our natural environments. The wild fires in Australia at the beginning of this year  killed nearly 3 billion animals, our choices and the choices of our leaders and governments affect the world around us all. If we are to tackle the climate crisis how do we defend an...

We are back, after a holiday break and with a new theme tune! climate breakdown unlike other political and socio-economic crises has a tight deadline. If we don't tackle it within the next 10-25 years we're going to be heading to the Mad Max hellscape without the steam punk aesthetic. With a problem that is going to effect every generation and the ones yet to come it's no surprise p...

Last summer Extinction Rebellion made headlines around the world for their civil disobedience actions. Occupying areas of major world cities and demanding that we change course now from this ecologically destructive and economically extractive  system to a regenerative and egalitarian model all based on a democratic citizens assembly. From that we've seen climate emergencies declared all arou...

When people think of a Green New Deal their head immediately runs towards industrial policy; building solar powered cities, dumping fossil fuels, having sustainable public transport and good Green manual jobs. That's what we need to save the world from itself and we all need to get involved to do so. If that's the case then why are the majority of those industries dominated by Men? When...

Public transport is a complex beast in the UK. local transport can be run by a myriad of private firms, public private partnerships, municipally owned businesses, charities, publicly controlled private firms and other quangos. No doubt that public transport is a key pillar when it comes to tackling the climate crisis but which organisation is the most effective at tackling it and how should Britis...

Ironically, there has been a lot of hot air when it comes to institutions and leaders taking on climate change. Promises of carbon neutrality in far off distant dates just kick the can down the road. How can we hold people and places of power to greater account? Are local governments able to take on the climate emergency they themselves declared? Or has the Covid pandemic turning governments back...

Much has been said about the centralisation of wealth and power in major cities. London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Cardiff. these behemoths sucking up the economic activity of their regions as the cities expand and draw in more people and more business in from the now dubbed "Satalite Towns". Is having all the business and production of Greater Manchester concentrated in the city...

A year ago last week the Manchester Council and the surround councils declared a climate emergency. This was seen by many as the first step forward in Manchester becoming the green city it needs to be to tackle climate breakdown. Little did many of us know how deeply intrenched the city is with industries that are hurtling the planet towards a Mad Max future (sans the cool bikes). The Greater Manc...

Climate Breakdown transcends borders. The carbon output of Galicia while have an affect on the environment of Gateshead, Nairobi and Singapore. It's a global crisis that requires a global cooperative solution. Plans to protect the earth must link between the local, national, continental and international. This week we are joined by Pawel Wargan (@pawelwargan) from Diem25 to explore "The...

If you like the show tell your comrades! Find us at  Twitter:@MCRGND_POD Insta: Manchestergndpod FB:MCRGNDPOD There are many schisms embedded into the modern world. A foggy distance between our actions and the fallout from those actions. The carbon output of your job, the manufacture of the clothes you wear and the final destination of the waste we create. The separation between what we eat and ho...

Safe to say that he Economy as we formally know it has taken a nose dive. Britain has lost 20% of GDP over the course of lockdown as businesses closed up and demand slumped to save the population from Covid-19. But what is the British economy actually made of? Is GDP representative of the actual production of everyday people in the UK? Has chasing these golden numbers skewed the british economy in...

If you want to support the show, please leave us a review on Itunes. Local councils. Not your usual starting point when it comes to dealing with world wide crises like climate breakdown. Normally you'd associate them with the mundanity of bin collections and road works, tax bands and planning permission. Local councils however are our first interaction with democracy and thus our first opport...

Here is a list of resources to support the BLM movement https://bit.ly/2MCdcKa Covid-19 has resulted in a 17% drop in global emissions over the length of the crisis. How do we hold on to this silver lining after the economy starts back up and we return to "The new normal"? With transport being a whopping 3rd of emissions we have to look to other means of getting about that are better for...

From humble seeds do oak trees grow, from twitter frustration can a movement emerge. Labour for a Green New Deal had only been around for 6 months when it engaged in the longest composite meeting of the Labour Party conferences history. With now over 50 local groups across the country, demanding the Labour Party do better we sat down with co-founder of Lab4GND Chris Saltmarsh (@Chris_Saltmarsh). T...

Last year Manchester council declared a climate emergency to the adulation of the city and the environmental movement. Two days later they decided to build a brand new car park in the heart of the city, a stark slap in the face to that same declaration. This week we talk to Trees Not Cars on their efforts to make more green space in the city center, the affects on the already disastrous levels of...

It's very easy to concentrate on the national news cycle. Big flashy stories and scandals that drip from the teleprompters of Sky and the BBC. But underneath cocaine habits and duck islands, local government ticks over with a slither of the amount of coverage. With the perception it's just about bin collection and bus time tables, councils and local government have substantial power stil...

The Green New Deal is a plan to vastly transform our society. Through bold economic and social change it's a plan to save the Earth from the destructive forces of capitalism. that is going to cost a lot of money to do, and as the age old attack on the Left goes "how are you gonna pay for it?". 7.8 Trillion Dollars is estimated to be in tax havens and offshore accounts worldwide. Sou...

It's time for a moment of respite. With the planet in turmoil we must take a moment to envisage how it could be better. To have the imagination to design a more equitable world. How can we resolve the conflict between ourselves and the planet. This week we are joined by Will Stronge the director of Autonomy, a progressive think thank researching how we can change the world of work. We take on...

Even with a pandemic, the climate crisis rages on. In a time when it feels like so much is out of our control what can we do to fight against the ticking down of the U.K's Carbon Budget? This week we talk to Charlie baker the founder of Red Co-op. A organisation putting the agency back into peoples hands in the fight against climate change. We discover the immense potential of retrofitting th...

Education, Education, Education! It's as true now as it was then the only way to take on the biggest challenges in the world is through empowering our future generations to tackle the problems ahead of us. This week we are joined by Lydia Meryll from Manchester Environmental Education Network (MEEN) and Fi a primary school teacher from South Manchester to discuss how schools are coping with C...

The pandemic gripping the world has put Capitalism back into one of it's classic cardiac arrests. With economies slowing to a sclerotic trundle across the globe and great recessions on the horizon is there a better way to organize ourselves? We are joined by Mark Burton from Steady State Manchester to discuss the limits of Growth, how Climate Breakdown and Growth interlock and how Degrowth ca...