The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence marks the start of the Great Transition to a new economy. And where better to start than with your own carbon footprint?

All day on Saturday, you can pay a visit to the Ministry of Trying to Do Something About It and collect your very own Carbon Ration Book.

You can play your part in transforming our world into a cleaner and more equitable place – and make yourself a good deal happier along the way. Whilst small actions can lead to change, our ration book shows that a significant shift in the way we live our lives and reducing the sheer amount of stuff we consume is needed. Ration Me Up shows you your fair share of the world’s resources, revealing just how simple it is to minimise your impact on the planet.

And once you’ve used the Ration Book, you can leave your comments and reflection right on the Ration Me Up page.

The full programme, with all details of everything happening this Saturday at The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence is now available for download.

Get it now!

We’re holding The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence on 24 October 2009 to coincide with the International Day of Climate Action, co-ordinated by 350.org. The aim of that day is to tell the world our ability to defeat climate change will depend on a crucial number: 350.

350 parts per million is the maximum safe concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. We’re currently way over that number, at 390 ppm. If we overshoot our limits for too long, climate change will become unstoppable.

On the 24 October, people all around the world will be doing demonstrations and events around the number 350, and now, thanks to our friends at the Campaign against Climate Change, visitors to The Bigger Picture will be able to join in.

At 2pm, people will be gathering at Jubilee Gardens (the big green space between the London Eye and the Shell Building) to create a giant number 5 (the 3 and the 0 will be happening on other sides of the world). Jubilee Gardens is about a 12 minute walk from Bargehouse.

The schedule for The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence is now available online. More details are coming soon, but this outline of the day’s proceedings will help you plan what you want to do.

We’ve also published  listings of all the practical hands-on workshops at the festival, with details of times and rooms.

Tickets for our first fringe event, “Tackling inequality and climate change – can we do both?” are now available. They’re completely free and you can get yours by emailing eva.neitzert@neweconomics.org

The event will feature nef’s chief economist Stephen Spratt, epidemiologist and author of The Spirit Level Kate Pickett and Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP, and is happening at Hub King’s Cross, 18.30, Thursday 8th October.

Just when you thought that the number of organisations supporting The Bigger Picture was impressive enough, we now have six new partners.

We’re very excited to welcome Greenpeace UK into the fold. Greenpeace are arguably the world’s best known environmental organisation, and bring a wealth of expertise and experience in the field of direct action to The Bigger Picture.

Next up is the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation. For over 30 years, Bianca Jagger has campaigned for human rights, social and economic justice and environmental protection throughout the world. She’ll be speaking at The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence on 24 October 2009.

Paul McCartney’s Meat Free Monday campaign has also joined the Bigger Picture, encouraging everyone to cut down their meat consumption for the sake of the climate.

We’re also pleased to add the DEA, who do great work trying to encourage sustainable thinking and learning in education, and Project Dirt, a community hub for environmental projects.

Over at Speakers‘ Corner, we’re pleased to welcome Anna Minton, author of the agenda-setting Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the 21st Century City, which received a glowing five-star review in TimeOut, making it a must-read for city dwellers everywhere.c

Three more speakers are confirmed for The Bigger Picture, a Festival of Interdependence on 24 October 2009.

Nick Dearden, head of Jubilee Debt Campaign, will be joining nef’s own Sargon Nissan for an interactive odyssey through the history of economics.

Jody Aked, a senior researcher at nef’s centre for well-being, will be explaining the science behind her project Five Ways to Well-being.

And finally Edgar Kampers, a leading innovator in the field of complimentary currencies, will be joining nef’s Josh Ryan-Collins for an exploration of alternative forms of money which can benefit both the environment and local economies.

Filmmaker David Sington and the founder of LINE (London Islamic Network for the Environment) Muzammal Hussein are the latest confirmed speakers for The Bigger Picture: A Festival of Interdependence on Saturday 24 October 2009.

David is an award-winning documentary maker, who has specialised in making films on environmental and scientific subjects. We’ll be screening David’s film In the Shadow of the Moon, which tells the story of the men who walked on the moon, and their experience of viewing our fragile planet from the outside. You can view the trailer of In the Shadow of the Moon, and the other films we’ll be showing at our new Films page.

Muzammal has been a pioneer of developing Islamic approaches to environmental issues and is the founder of the London Islamic Network for the Environment (LINE).

Both are fantastic additions to an already impressive line-up of speakers. We’ll be publishing details about which sessions they’ll be speaking in soon, so watch this space.

To celebrate The Bigger Picture we are running a special offer. Join nef as a supporter before 24 October 2009 and you could win a fabulous hamper of delicious, fairly traded Divine Chocolate.

You’ll also automatically receive a free copy of The New Economics: A Bigger Picture – the new book by nef’s David Boyle and Andrew Simms. Published by Earthscan in September 2009, you’ll receive a copy of the book as soon as it comes off the press.

In addition to helping create a new economy which values people and the planet, nef supporters receive our regular newspaper, Radical Economics, get 20 per cent off nef publications and ticketed events, invitations to free nef events, and regular updates on nef’s work.

Join nef today.

The World Development Movement has long been a close ally of the new economics foundation, and so we’re delighted to announce that they have decided to join The Bigger Picture as a partner. WDM works to tackle the underlying causes of poverty, and have been instrumental in lobbying decision makers to change the policies that keep people poor. They were one of the first global justice organisations to highlight the damage that climate change will wreak on the world’s poorest people and have been at the forefront of campaigns against new coal-fired power stations being built in the UK. Earlier this year, WDM collaborated with nef to write Plane Truths, a report which showed that the economic benefits brought by the aviation to developing countries is relatively small, and in no way compensates for the colossal loss of lives and livelihoods that climate change – driven in part by aviation – will cause.

WDM are an excellent organisation to get involved with as a volunteer campaigner, and there will be opportunity to do so at the Festival of Interdependence, on Saturday 24 October.