Polly Higgins and John Jordan

Polly Higgins, a barrister and environmentalist, has devoted her life to fighting for the planet. On the 6th November 2008 she presented her call for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights at the United Nations UK & Northern Ireland conference on Climate Change.

For the past three years she has worked closely with TREC-UK, a network of scientists and engineers, to help advance the concept of building concentrating solar power (CSP) plants in the desert to provide the world with clean electricity. Polly has lobbied and advised on EU and international legislative frameworks required for the implementation of CSP, is a Founder Member of the DESERTEC Foundation and now sits its Supervisory Board.

As a consequence of this experience Polly realised that something was needed that reached beyond global clean energy solutions, that a duty of care is required for the planet.

Thus she recognised the need for implementation of a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights. Her research and activities have now brought her to EnAct International, where she is a UK Associate. EnAct International is a consultancy that specialises in developing and strengthening governance systems that promote ecologically sustainable societies.

Polly blogs on all things environmental under the name of The Lazy Environmentalist, and is the founder of WISE: Women in Sustainability and the Environment – an international network that brings together women who are working on sustainability issues and the environment. Polly is also the Conservation Ambassador for 999 It’s Time

John Jordan’s work merges the imagination of art and the radical engagement of activism. Co-director of social art group Platform (1987-1995) he then went on to work in the direct-action collective “We Are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anti-capitalism" (Verso) which has now been translated into 7 languages. Senior lecturer in fine art at Sheffield Hallam University (1994 – 2003), he left academia to work as a camera person on the film "The Take" with Naomi Klein in Argentina.  In 2003 he set up the somewhat stupid  Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, which created a new iconography for the Alter globalisation movements. He is presently working in the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination co-writing a book and film project about Utopian communities in Europe and is heavily involved in the UK Climate Camp movement.