I didn't change my ideas as regards the general approach needed for addressing climate change (from the bottom up) or the importance of women's contribution to, and the benefits they can derive from, sustainable development. I did learn a lot more of the science and technology, which, as Margaret Minhinnick says, helps to give confidence when talking about the issues - and certainly was a wake-up call to me on the urgency of the problem.

I spoke to Tanya Hawkes who has been working as a manager at CAT (the Centre for Alternative Technology) for four years. As a single mother with a young child and as a feminist, she has found that the cooperative approach used at CAT (employing 150 personnel at the height of the season) is a direct way of empowering women workers. CAT has evolved organically since the 1970s and now women and men have equal roles, with a majority of older women on the elected management group. ("Although that's a voluntary role, " she muses, " perhaps if it attracted extra pay or other benefits, there might be more men on it...") (more...)

Are women in Venezuela taken in by superficial male charisma? I think there's enough evidence to indicate that the system is delivering a little more than that (more...)

(Energy Wales)

The Guardian Weekend's front-page headline was "Police to use terror laws on Heathrow climate change protestors". Under these laws police can stop and search without even grounds for suspicion and people can be detained without charge.

After the workshop discussion a nice woman called Sandra accosted me and asked: "Are you a journalist? Here's what protesters should do. For every one that gets arrested, there should be another ten or twenty people ready to jump out and say: "Take me too!" The police are trying to scare us, let's frighten the police instead. The jails are overflowing already, they can't arrest everyone." (more...)

The festival was so popular I had to stay outside Machynlleth, at the Gwesty Minffordd in the Talyllyn valley. Set in probably the most breathtaking scenery in Britain the hotel is right at the base of the mountain known in Welsh as Cadair Idris (the armchair of the giant astronomer Idris). This latter is an appropriate spot in relation to the Victor Jara festival because the Welsh bards used to climb to the summit to sleep, in the hope they would find inspiration for poetry writing (more...)

La nueva canción is the Latin American musical movement that began in the 1960s. Like the US protest song revival of the 60s (with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan) it was radical in both its political and artistic goals. La nueva canción movement sought to revitalize Latin American song by combining traditional music with expressive poetry and contemporary social themes. (more...)

In 1977 the Centre for Alternative Technology initiated a process of collaboration with the renewable energy experts of the day, which led to the UK's first Alternative Energy Strategy. The influence of that radical plan was limited because the problems it addressed were not visible at the time. Now it's a lot clearer to see the problems of energy security, global equity and climate change. Thirty years on, through a series of consultations, CAT has built a fresh consensus around a pragmatic new energy strategy called zerocarbonbritain. In July this was launched at the AGM of the All Parliamentary Party for Climate Change Group who have this to say about it: (more...)

Italian singer Silvia Balducci recorded a series of songs by Victor Jara in 2003 entitled Homage a una sonrisa (homage to a smile). This is her second visit to Machynlleth to the festival. In an interview last year she talked about her motivations. Silvia considers herself one of the daughters of Chile's socialist musical tradition. She remembers she was eight years old on the day of the military coup in 1973 when Pinochet ousted Allende and supporters of socialism were rounded up, tortured and shot. The group Inti Illimani, exiled to Italy, popularised the songs of Victor Jara among others, especially El pueblo unido jamás será vencido, which, she says, became for the Italians a hymn of hope and social justice.(more...)

So now I understand more clearly why there is so much anti-Chavez press. And it reminds me of the propaganda war against Nicaragua in the 1980s. Then as now it's the threat of a good example, the worry that an entirely different approach to development might actually be proved successful - and be replicated in other countries. But the threat of Venezuela is rather more serious - because unlike Nicaragua and Cuba, Venezuela has such abundant natural resources (more...)

El Sueño Existe. The dream lives on. Mae'r freuddwyd yn fyw.

London may enjoy la Carneval del Pueblo, the largest Latin American event in Europe, at the beginning of August - but I spent the weekend of August 10-12 in Machynlleth, mid-Wales, blogging a Welsh Latino Extravanganza. The event is inspired by the life and work of Victor Jara - a leader of the New Song movement in Salvador Allende's Chile - and aims to support contemporary popular democratic movements in Latin America. (more...)

by Patricia Daniel

A new report was launched yesterday by the Sahel Working Group and the International Institute for Environment and Development. It provides hard-hitting conclusions in relation to the continuing vulnerability of people in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso - three of the poorest countries in the world, already subject to annual drought and under additional threat from the effects of climate change.