Future London

Yesterday I visited the Future London exhibition in Brick Lane:

It's interesting and has some inspiring points, but I don't think it goes far enough. I know the current approach to environment issues is to draw people in gradually and not scare them, but I think that underestimates the intelligence of the public, especially the young.

The main thing it needs is an interactive method of making comparisons - between parts of London, London and the rest of the UK, UK and the world:

- push button charts in which people can check the footprint of their borough and see how much each component accounts for (see the Stockholm Environment Institute's REAP website for all the local authorities in the UK - free but registration required).

- maps with push buttons in which the footprints of London can be compared with footprints around the country and across the world

This will help people realise how high up our lifestyle is on the scale of use of resources (and therefore of privilege). In general, footprints are higher among wealthier boroughs than among poorer ones:

- Kensington & Chelsea's footprint is the highest at 6.58 hectares per person, of which 1.4 is for food and drink (eaten in and outside the home). So the average person in Kensington & Chelsea uses as much land for food and drink alone as a person living in Albania, Ecuador, Egypt or Thailand does for ALL their needs.

Some more comparisons:
- six boroughs have footprints of 6 global hectares (gha) per person or above (Wandsworth, City of London, Camden, Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea)

- 11 boroughs have fooprints of less than 5.4 gha/per person. They are: Barking & Dagenham, Newham, Bexley, Hillingdon, Waltham Forest, Hounslow, Havering, Enfield, Tower Hamlets, Sutton and Greenwich.

How London compares with the rest of the country:
- local authorities with footprints above 6 gha/per person include Epsom & Ewell and Guildford (6.5 and 6.51 respectively).
- local authorities with footprints lower than any in London include Merthyr Tydfil (4.91) and Easington, County Durham (5.01).

The exhibition closes in Brick Lane on the 16th, then reopens at the Science Museum on the 25th. I asked an attendant there whether it would be the same exhibition and he thought it probably would - but perhaps the above points could be included in a future exhibition? It's a good idea, and if some of the items (like the zero energy house) could be available as portable exhibits that would be brilliant (eg. in libraries, shopping centres etc).

Best wishes
Cathy
Aitchison Media & Development