CONTENTS:

1) WELCOME!
2) HOUSEKEEPING.
3) WEBSITE
4) BRIEFING DOCUMENTS
5) COP 6.5
6) CONTACT
 
 

DEAR GRIAN LIST MEMBER:
 

1)  WELCOME TO GRIAN!

You are receiving this---GRIAN's first newsletter,

either:  because you have already requested it,

or:  because you expressed an early interest some months ago before we were even formed,

or:   because we are making (what we hope is) a reasonably-grounded guess that you might be interested in at least hearing about GRIAN and about some of our work.

We hope that after reading this first newsletter you will be interested in maintaining your connection with GRIAN.

We reckon there will be a need for the sort of platform that GRIAN intends to provide for around the next 20 years.  This may seem to be a rather out-of-the ordinary timeframe to be contemplating.  However, anyone familiar with the sort of timescale that the earth's climate operates on, and anyone who has come to comprehend quite how much damage human society has managed to do to it over the last 150 years or so, will agree with us that allowing 20 years for the transition from the sort of society we have today to one which is both environmentally sustainable and more worthy of the title "human" may, in fact, be rather an under-assessment.  However, we intend to start with what we have---determination.

We hope you can help us in this mission as much as we can help you by providing information and materials relevant to any part of this aim.

GRIAN cannot do this alone, and has no notions of doing so.  We have established because it has seemed to us for quite some time that up until now there has been a lack of service provision in Ireland of pointers towards a route-map for the achievement of such a task.  This is certainly not to take away from the efforts of any individuals, organisations or platforms who are working in any way or on any part of this or any similar mission.

GRIAN's primary service provision---as many members will already know---is to attempt to start closing this gap by providing pointers, materials and assistance with regard to the climate problem.  In particular we will specifically be attempting to source, furnish or assist in the provision of solutions to the climate problem.

The rationale is simple:  there are over 3.7 million people living in the Republic, and over 5 million on the island as a whole.  No to mention another 600 million or so people worldwide who regularly use the Internet.  All of us are involved in causing climate change---to a greater or lesser extent.  All of us can expect to be affected by it within our lifetimes---again, to a greater or lesser extent.  Even if, for our own sakes, we hope that the tendency is towards the latter, this does not absolve us from acting straight away.  Climate impacts are already causing almost unbelievable levels of suffering and misery in other parts of the world far from here, as almost daily news reports testify.

Anybody who has even the most passing acquaintance with the problem---and at this stage that is probably around 95% of the people in Ireland---cannot be happy with the fact that they are so helplessly continuing to contribute to a problem which no-one wants to have in the first place.

In the face of such (unwilling) helplessness, GRIAN has decided to set about attempting to provide some tools for action, and a platform to use them on.  We hope you will be interested in maintaining your connection with us, and look forward to working with you for as many of the next 20 years as it takes us to get to where we want to be.
 

2)  HOUSEKEEPING

In the light of the above you can tell that GRIAN is very new, and has a very long way to go.

At this early stage therefore, due to the low level of resources available to us, our arrangements for keeping in touch with subscribers and supporters are a bit less simple (and a good deal less interactive) than we would really like them to be.  Please bear with us, it is early days yet.  We will upgrade as soon as we get the funds and the technology.  If you have any ideas on how to access either of these things rapidly---i.e.donors, sponsors etc.---please let us know.  We are, needless to say, currently throwing a good deal of effort into this area, and are optimistic that some level of funding should start to become available in the not-too-distant future.  At the moment, however, it is a purely voluntary effort being done off volunteer good will and almost no technology.

So, for the moment, the following housekeeping arrangements apply:

If--for whatever reason--you wish to no longer receive news from GRIAN and to be removed from the mailing list, simply send a blank e-mail with the words "unsubscribe list, " in the subject field to list@grian.net, and that will disconnect you.

As a matter of general practice, we hope to send out with each edition of the GRIAN newsletter print-ready versions of both the newsletter itself, and also any significant documents, briefings or products that GRIAN has generated between newsletters.

This, we hope, will be for your convenience,---at least until such time as we can afford to buy a copy of Adobe Publisher which would allow us load print-ready versions up onto the website.  Until such time, however, we will be sending them as Word attachments to either the newsletter, or occasionally as special mailouts.

If you prefer not to receive attachments,--for whatever reason-send a blank e-mail with the words "unsubscribe attachments" in the subject field to the same address and you will no longer receive them.  You will however, using this option, continue to receive the newsletter as an e-mail, unless of course you wish to cancel that by unsubscribing the list as described above.

Again, as a matter of general practice, we would hope to load the newsletter and any documents provided as attachments to it up on to the website at more or less the same time as list subscribers receive it/them.  However, due to the current low level of resources etc., this cannot be guaranteed, and the webversion(s) may not be so printer-friendly.  If it suits you to visit the website frequently rather than rely on us to tell you about uploads, you can probably live without the attachment option.  Once we have managed to afford Adobe Publisher, this should be even more the case.

During particular high-intensity periods when GRIAN is operating abroad (e.g. COP 6.5, below), the website will probably be more up to date than mailouts to the list, and we would recommend you make arrangements to visit the website at regular intervals.  More on this below.
 
 

3) WEBSITE

The website (www.grian.net) is now up.  While it would be nice to say it is also up and running, this-certainly by comparison to what we hope it will be able to do in the not-too-distant future---may be a slight exaggeration.  It is however open for business.  It is just that there is a lot more of GRIAN's service provision that could have been up on the website already if we had had more time, staff and resources available to us than we currently do.  Establishing GRIAN's logistical structure, while essential, has sapped a lot of effort that might have resulted in the website being far more of the resource it plans to be than it is at the moment.

In particular, the primary provision of a directory of web-based climate resources is still a few weeks away.  If it weren't for the imminent COP 6.5 (below), we could safely say that this could be up quite shortly.  To be thoroughly safe however, we will commit to having something like a comprehensive directory up and running well before schools and colleges resume in September.  In the meantime, a mini-version of this should go up in early August, soon as we're back from the COP.

The initial directory, in line with GRIAN's commitment to interactivity, will seek comments, suggestions, feedback, and will, we hope be able to take specific queries on specific subjects.

Until it does go up however---while we would very much welcome some or all of the above---please do not get too impatient if any suggestions you send in do not immediately show up on the website.

That said, if anyone has the time and skills, feels they know their way around both the climate and the web, and wants to volunteer the time to take on the job of actually doing the work for this, please get in touch before we leave for Bonn on 12th.July.  Details on how to do this below.
 

4) BRIEFING DOCUMENTS

In parallel to development of the web-based directory of climate resources, GRIAN will be generating its own print-ready briefings on specific subjects, themes or issues.  These will aim to follow the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) framework by falling into three basic categories;  science, impacts, and responses, which we believe to be a handy-enough division of the subject.

Again, however, we are starting from scratch.  While we would aim to generate GRIAN briefings across and within these themes more or less equally and at more or less the same frequency, at the moment we are only able to take it as and when we can get to them.

There may, initially, seem to be no discernible pattern to the rate at which these documents do or do not come out.  What we do promise, however, is to put them out just as fast as time and/or resources permit.  The more (and the faster) we manage to access these, the more documents we will be able to produce, and the more frequently we will be able to produce them.

As with the directory on the website, these documents and briefings are designed to be evolutionary.  This means that, while we may publish initial versions, that is exactly what they are: initial versions.  They are actively designed to grow in both size and capacity as and when resources become available to GRIAN to develop them further.

As a matter of general practice, we will advise members of the first publication and any further significant update of any such resources through the newsletter.  If a significant update or new edition of any particular resource or publication is shortly due to be published between newsletters, we will post a sticker to this effect onto the existing version on the website.

All that having been said, briefing #1 "Climate and Human Rights" is currently in preparation and should be available soon.  As per the preceding section, those list members who do not "unsubscribe attachments" should be receiving this shortly.
 
 

5) COP 6.5

The 6th Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be resuming on July 16th in Bonn, Germany, and is scheduled to continue until the 27th.  This highly unusual meeting is taking place because COP 6 broke up without completing its agenda in the Hague last autumn.

GRIAN is hoping to be able to send three members to Bonn.  As this newsletter goes to print, we are still awaiting word as to whether we will be supported in this effort by the Department of the Environment and Local Government.  This team will also be attending as members of Gluaiseacht.

(Assuming our application to DELG is successful) we hope, therefore, to be able to cover plenty of ground during the two weeks the conference is on.  With agendas and workloads as broad and as open as those which both GRIAN and Gluaiseacht espouse, it will provide an invaluable opportunity for both groups to get to grips with the climate problem at the very highest level, and also to meet other members of the international NGO community who share our own-or similar-objectives.

GRIAN intends to publish a short "Beginner's Guide to COP 6.5" suitable for those who know very little about the Convention/Protocol process (but who wish they knew more) before we leave on the 12 th.July.

We would really like to be able to upload relevant and interesting material from the conference on to the website on a daily basis.  However, even with 3 people there it is unlikely we will have either the time or the technology to write too many webpages at that sort of frequency.

If we had a digital videocam, however, we might be able to do even better than this, because we could then conduct interviews with interesting players and personalities at the conference, as well as straightforwardly reporting on issues and matters arising to camera ourselves.  The resulting files could then be uploaded on to the website as soon as we could get to a computer.

This would make life much easier for us, and would result in much more information being available to those wishing to follow events and developments taking place at the conference.  It would also be much more in line with the sort of service provision GRIAN would really like to be involved in.  By the time COP 7 comes around (if it comes around!) in November this year, we would hope to be able to stream live video from Marrakech.

The problem we have, however, is that neither GRIAN nor Gluaiseacht currently have such a camera.  If any readers of the newsletter have such a piece of technology and would be prepared to lend it to the team for three weeks from July 12th to around August 4th. we would be most interested in hearing from you within the next few days.  See below for contacts details.

The camera will, of course, be insured!
 

6) CONTACT

We will be advising of contact details during COP with the Beginners guide to it.  Existing contact details are on the website:

By e-mail:    coord@grian.net

By phone: (+353 1)  283  62  91  and  086  409  96  42
 

Please do not ring the mobile number from 22:00 hrs BST on July 13th. until around the 2nd of August, as it will cost us £1 per minute to take your call!  It will also cost you £1 per minute to talk to us!  Text a number to call back and we will get back to you as soon as we can get to a landline!
 

      WORKING FOR TOMORROW,  TODAY