Category Archives: Local

Extinction Rebellion in Hereford

Extinction Symbol

Extinction Rebellion is coming to Hereford. This Saturday, 1st December, we will hold our inaugural action, starting on Castle Green at 11.00 am. I have the honour of being one of the speakers. Each of us has just a few minutes. I doubt if I’ll have time to talk about many aspects, so let me expand a bit here. This is both deeply personal and of planetary importance.

Many of my generation have been active campaigning for ecological sustainability and social justice since the late 1960’s, and before that there was a long tradition of concern and action. Over all these decades humanity made some steps in the right direction, but larger ones in totally the wrong direction. We cleaned up rivers and created national parks and wildlife reserves, eradicated smallpox, lifted millions out of poverty, spread literacy and achieved much else. However over these same decades carbon emissions grew, ever more habitats were lost and species made extinct. As some forms of pollution were clamped down on others expanded rapidly.

The prospect of the extinction of our own species is very real. This is personal. By the time my grandchildren are reaching old age the planet may simply be uninhabitable. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at over 405 parts per million. This is destabilizing the climate and it is also causing the acidification of the oceans. Humanity is utterly dependent on a well functioning biosphere. As oceans become more acidic phytoplankton die, and without phytoplankton the oxygen cycle breaks down, threatening the ability of large mammals, such as human beings, to breathe. Phytoplankton die-off due to ocean acidification is just one of numerous tipping points beyond which we must not pass. To safeguard our existence as a species we need to change our global political and economic systems. The latest science suggests we need to reduce global carbon emissions to zero within twelve years. To do this will require extraordinary levels of commitment. It will require unprecedented action from governments, who currently seem totally unprepared and unaware of the situation humanity is in.

As I’ve said numerous times on this blog, technologically and philosophically there is so much we could do: the obstacles are largely political. Extinction Rebellion has been formed to force governments to take action by engaging in non-violent protest, which will often involve some, but not all participants taking action for which they may be arrested. In London this has largely been blocking roads, occupying government buildings and similar things. Extinction Rebellion groups are now springing up all around the world.

Extinction Rebellion fits into a crowded field of people hungry for change. The school strikes for climate action started a few weeks ago in Sweden with 15 year old Greta Thunberg, and are now spreading fast, with kids from 100 towns in Sweden and over 260 places worldwide on strike today.

We need many diverse voices calling for rapid and bold action on climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and the rest, and we need politicians capable of listening to them and taking the required action. We don’t have long.

 

Three inspirational events

Almere

Almere, pioneering community self building on land reclaimed from the sea.

Apologies, it’s now nearly a month since I last posted a blog. I usually try and write one every week or so. It’s been a busy month. One annoyance has been the General Data Protection Regulation regulations that I couldn’t fathom, which meant that I’ve cancelled the Mailchimp automated newsletter, and I’ll have to work out how to delete the sign-up form from this webpage! Sorry to those of you who enjoyed getting the blogs via the newsletter format.

Over the last week or so I’ve been to three events that each in their own way were inspiring and indicated positive trends. All could do with strong government support to really grow to their full potential.

The first event was the AGM of Ledbury Solar Coop. The coop is doing well and the directors are doing an outstanding job. This is one of the Sharenergy renewable energy coops of which I’m a member, and which I’ve frequently mentioned in previous blogs. To me they seemed to have massive potential to meet many social and environmental challenges. Unfortunately government support has been weak, confused and generally unhelpful, which has certainly slowed the spread of such coops.

The next event was Riversimple’s launch of the Rasa in Abergavenny. It is looking increasingly likely that our car club will be part of their trials for this hydrogen fuel cell car. The Riversimple car and our car club are things I’ve blogged about before. Together they indicate a way of moving beyond the era of individual ownership of wasteful and highly polluting petrol and diesel cars. We could free up a lot of urban space, cut traffic congestion and pollution by moving toward more flexible patterns of mobility.

The third event I’d like to flag up was the launch of Hereford Community Land Trust’s Building Momentum project. They had two outside speakers who I thought were excellent and showed how the UK’s housing crisis might best be addressed. Keith Cowling spoke about the achievements of Bristol Community Land Trust while Ted Stevens gave an inspiring talk setting UK community self build in context with the extraordinary projects being built in many other countries. (eg Berlin)

Together these three events show how energy, transport and housing outcomes could all be improved.

 

Ellie wins for the Greens!

Ellie on election night

Ellie and some of the team on election night

Some great news! Ellie Chowns has just won the Bishops Frome and Cradley council seat here in Herefordshire. This is another emphatic win for the Green Party, following several others in recent months in West Midlands and across UK. (Leominster East, Leominster South & Knowsley, Cannock & others). Ellie was a very strong candidate and will make an exceptionally good councillor. She got 471 votes for the Greens, Robert Carter got 299 votes for the Tories, Jeanie Falconer got 251 for the LibDems and Roger Page only managed to get 19 votes for the Labour Party. This brings the green group on Herefordshire Council up to four. For the last ten years this had been a Tory seat, but before that it had been held for the Green Party by Guy Woodford.

I’ve helped out for the Green Party and before that the Ecology Party in a small way at many elections since the 1970’s. This one was remarkable. We had a bigger and more highly motivated team than I can ever remember. Guy at 82 was fired up with enthusiasm and his encyclopedic local knowledge was invaluable. Mike Abbott organised the many volunteers with a spirit of love and joy that was so at odds with the anger and hate that seems to dominate so much of politics these days. The big team included several councillors and members from It’s Our County, a locally focused political party. They had decided not to put up a candidate themselves and to support Ellie. This cross party cooperation I found particularly rewarding. I wish we had more of it at the national level, and I hope it is a positive sign of things to come here in Herefordshire.

This victory in the picturesque hills and valleys of east Herefordshire was also impressive because many people think of rural Herefordshire as very strongly Conservative, or the kind of old Independent councillors who usually end up propping up the Tories. Most of It’s Our County’s councillors represent the more urban seats of Hereford and Ledbury and the Greens other three councillors all serve the people of market town of Leominster. For a coalition of Greens and It’s Our County to have any chance of replacing the Tories and running Herefordshire Council we will probably have to win some of the many rural seats. This campaign in Bishop’s Frome and Cradley really did show how it could be done! Thanks to everyone who helped out, and most of all to Ellie for being such a great candidate!