Welcome to my new website. There’s loads of resources and free downloads on it - so help yourself. The main thing I run is a Masters Programme called Activism and Social Change (see www.activismsocialchange.org.uk). We are recruiting for this September so take a look and let me know if you are interested. We have a new fieldtrip module to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales this year.

I live and work in Leeds and I’m based in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds. To give you a flavour of what I do here are a few of things I’ve been involved in lately.

I help edit one of the longest running radical journals in Geography - Antipode. We recently had a summer school in Manchester and about 25 people came from all over the world.  We run this every couple of years so keep it in mind if you know any budding Geography students! Antipode is 40 years old this year and we have loads of content that you can download for free.

As part of the MA in Activism we have a fair amount of links with NGOs. One of the most inspiring that we have links with is the World Development Movement. I spoke at their Campaigners Convention this year.  Their local groups are pretty active and they are one of the few groups who try and get to the heart of the matter and analyse the causes of issues. Their campaign on the new coal industry is a good example of this.

I’ve also just been on a great straw bale course with a local group of strawbale geniuses called Amazonails. I’m involved with a co-housing group called LILAC (Low Impact Living Affordable Community) which is planning to build 20 houses based on timber and strawbale insulation. I have to admit, strawbales are amazing. Here’s some facts I picked up from Amazonails:

• 22% of energy produced globally is used to make and move new construction materials and around 7% of global Co2 emissions are generated from cement production!
• 15% of all Co2 in the west is generated from heating and cooling homes and for this reason we are committed to good design to reduce the need for energy input.
• In contrast to a conventionally built home which produces around 50 tonnes of Co2 during its construction, a home built using straw bale as insulation actually stores 12.25 tonnes of Co2!

This is a picture which a friend of mine did of what our cohousing project might look like - right in the heart of Leeds!