Time-lapse film of glaciers melting

Earlier today I posted on the Blog Action Day on water - well this sort of also fits....This week there is yet another letter in the SNJ calling climate change a myth - I do wonder what we need to do to get across the facts. I've been there before on this blog so I wont repeat again. However I did come across a very graphic video which contains time-lapse photography of glaciers melting. It is powerful stuff. See Youtube here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_balog_time_lapse_proof_of_extreme_ice_loss.html

Nine nations have so far set their all-time temperature records in 2010. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record. While a "staggering" new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40 percent since 1950. And then, in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. See Bill McKibben's Grist article on what he thinks here.

As Bill says we need to step up the action. As he says: "Mosrtly, we need to tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is wrecking the one earth we've got. It's not going to go away because we ask politely. If we want a world that works, we're going to have to raise our voices."

Weather is not climate

OK there is still snow and more coming (minus 7.5C on my shed thermometer) - but the cold spell looks set to break - many of us are looking forward to stuff getting back to more normality - however many parts of the northern hemisphere are considerably warmer than usual at the moment. Alaska and much of northern Canada are 5C to 10C warmer than expected - still pretty cold with the air a biting –30C (–22F).

Photos: more local shots

It has also be shown that the first decade of the twenty-first century was the hottest since record keeping began in 1880. The year 2005 was the hottest on record, while 2007 and 2009 tied for second hottest. In fact, 9 of the 10 warmest years on record occurred in the past decade.

Of course Ruscombe Green blog readers will know that Britain's cold snap does not prove climate science wrong - but too many times I've heard folk question it - as Leo Hickman and George Monbiot write in their article: "Climate sceptics are failing to understand the most basic meteorology - that weather is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends."

The other day 40 odd folk went to the Stroud Coffee House discussion despite snow - see report here - Copenhagen was depressing - you can see my previous blog here - existing greenhouse gas reduction pledges will not halt emissions growth until 2040, 35 years after the 2015 target called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By 2020 global emissions from all sources would be some 55 billion tonnes, up from around 46 billion tonnes today.

We are seeing predictions made years ago by climate scientists beginning to come true. Here is what Chris Johnson writes in his excellent The Great Turning Times of this and why many are still finding it difficult to grasp climate change: Annual UK rainfall has increased and heavy rainfall events, where it pours for many days at a time, have become twice as common in Northern England since the 1960's, and four times as common in Scotland. Australia, California and many Mediterranean countries are becoming so dry that wildfires are reaching new levels of intensity. In Africa, reduced rainfall is causing crop failures and increased conflict. The Arctic sea ice is melting, and even more rapidly than forecast by the computer models used for the last IPCC report. Worldwide, weather related disasters have been on the increase decade by decade, with, on average, 300 events recorded every year in the 1980's, 480 every year in the 1990's and 620 events a year over the last decade.

Pic: from Earth Policy Institute - see below

This list could go on and a recent survey of 24,071 people in 23 countries showed that 64% of those polled now recognise climate change as a serious problem. However, not everyone appears so convinced. You may encounter the view that climate change is some kind of hoax, or that if it is happening, the causes are unrelated to human activity. As well as looking at how people become inspired to tackle an issue, we also need to understand resistance and learn how to work with this. Part of this unwillingness to view climate change as a problem is linked to a very deliberate campaign by fossil fuel industry funded PR firms to undermine the science, drawing on their experience of similar well funded campaigns to cast doubt on the dangers of tobacco, asbestos and ozone depleting chemicals. I strongly recommend reading the excellent blog by Dr Jeff Masters where he describes these campaigns in detail. However I don't think we can put all climate change denial down to misinformation. We also need to understand why these campaigns fall on willing ears. It is here that I value what I've learnt from working in the addictions field.

Working with resistance

When we're making a significant change, there's likely to be part of us that wants it and part of us that doesn't. The part that wants it is our motivation. But the part that doesn't is also motivated, except in the opposite direction. In the language of addictions treatment, this is referred to as counter-motivation. What often causes change to grind to a halt is the ambivalence of conflicting motives. To understand resistance, both in yourself and in others, ask yourself "why might I or anyone else, prefer not to think about Climate Change? If I do think about it, what's attractive about the idea that it is a hoax? And if it isn't a hoax, why might I prefer to believe it has nothing to do with me?"

I'm suggesting empathy rather than argument. The danger of arguments, according to behaviour change research, is they tend to increase resistance. Battles can polarise. That doesn't mean we don't speak our truth or share our concerns, more that we recognise how win/lose interactions can give people a motive for discounting information they see as threatening to a position they've taken.

When I put myself in the shoes of the sceptic, I feel an immediate sense of relief. How much more comfortable is the reality that none of this is happening. How glad I'd be if the scientists, and all their measurements, were wrong. It isn't just an inconvenient truth we're facing, but one that can feel psychologically unacceptable. So what's on the other side of the balance? If it is true and as bad as some studies suggest, why might I want to face it? Why might I want to know and also to respond? The way to deal with ambivalence is bring it into the open where it can be worked with and worked through. Part of this involves acknowledging that this stuff can be hard to look at, hard to accept and hard to know how to respond to. If we accept these difficulties, then we can look at how we address them.

Chris goes onto talk more about finding inspiration and finishes with his book of the year: "Social Change 2.0" by David Gershon (High Point/Chelsea Green, 2009). He writes: "Drawing on decades of practice and research into what helps the shift towards sustainability, it describes social change tools that have been proven in the field. The core idea is that while campaigning and protest actions are hugely important, we also need an approach that empowers communities to reinvent our society from the bottom up. That's not a new idea; what is new is the way this book illustrates how community empowerment tools can address the middle bit of change, engaging people and their enthusiasm, mapping out design principles and strategies you can use in promoting the shift towards a sustainable society."

See about science behind recent cold here. Lastly an interesting - but deeply worrying article from the Earth Policy Institute on ice melting. They note that the most notable ice loss in recent years has been the shrinking of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean - see article for full story but here is a bit: "From the beginning of the satellite record in 1979 through 1996, ice area decreased at a steady rate of 3 percent per decade in response to rising temperature. In the following decade, ice area decreased by 11 percent, reaching a dramatic minimum in 2007. In September of that year, sea ice occupied only 3.6 million square kilometers, an area 27 percent smaller than the previous record low (in 2005) and 38 percent smaller than the 1979–2007 average. Summer sea ice coverage has increased slightly in the last two years, but it is still far below the long-term average....Declines in ice thickness and volume are just as dramatic. "

Nuclear-Free Zones nearly cover the world

I think I might have covered this petition before but wanted to highlight it again - if you agree with millions of others that the government should scrap plans to spend in excess of £76bn on replacing Trident with a new generation of nuclear weapons then please join the Rethink Trident movement and join me in signing this petition:
http://action.compassonline.org.uk/page/s/stoptrident

Interestingly combined with treaties prohibiting the placement of nuclear weapons in outer space and the Antarctic, much of the world is now covered by one of five existing nuclear weapons-free zones (NWFZ).

NWFZs have been established through multilateral treaties in regions such as Latin America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and since July, Africa - they play an important element in the nuclear non-proliferation regime. It is a great pity the UK can't also join.

Help Issy get to Copenhagen

Here's another post for blog action day - Issy Ellis-Cockcroft, 18 (see photo below) from Stroud is trying to raise enough money to be one of 21 young people traveling to the Copenhagen Climate Conference 2009 as part of the UK Youth Delegation, on behalf of the UKYCC (UK Youth Climate Coalition).

Issy's letter is below but I should also mention that Stroud Greens were out on the street last weekend (see my photo below) helping to increase the pressure on our government to negotiate for an ambitious, fair and binding climate deal in Copenhagen. Greens had the petition which Issy will take and present to the UK negotiators in Copenhagen. Here's stuff from the local Green party leaflet:

Urgent decisions need to be made at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December that will affect not only us here in Stroud, but much more acutely many of the world's poorest people and the very life support systems of our planet.

Increasing the pressure on our government will help them negotiating for an ambitious, fair and binding climate deal in Copenhagen.

We can all do things in the next few weeks that will help make a difference:

1. Gloucester Climate Change March and Lobby of MPs and MEP – Sat 17th Oct 11.30-12.30 Gloucester – starting at Council Offices and going to the Cross. find out more...
   
2. Donate to support the UK Youth Delegation and the Kenyan Youth Delegation who are attending the conference to give voice to the world's young people and generations to come. Stroud teenager Issy Ellis-Cockcroft is part of the UK delegation – find out how to support them on her blog at www.livingonsunshine.org.uk
3. Sign the Stroud-Copenhagen petition which Issy will take to Copenhagen – and get your family, neighbours and work colleagues to sign too. Download a copy for use at your school, club or social group: click here to download the Copenhagen Petition - please return to John Marjoram (address on the petition) by December 1st.
4. Support Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Milliband on his pledge to fight for a “climate deal that's ambitious, effective and fair”. www.edspledge.com
5. Keep the pressure on Gordon Brown for an ambitious global climate deal by signing to “Back the Bid” at www.actoncopenhagen.gov.uk
6. Support www.350.org international day of action on October 24th and other campaigns for on this issue – see www.tcktcktck.org
7. Get stuck in to a carbon reduction of 10% during 2010 – join Stroud District Council, your Green Party District Councillors and many more individuals, businesses and organisations who have already taken the 10:10 pledge – www.1010uk.org
8. Join the National Climate Demo in London on 5th Dec – www.stopclimatechaos.org
   Watch out for information about coaches from Stroud to London for this big demo on the eve of the Copenhagen Conference.
   

Here's Issy's letter:

If a global deal on climate change is to be in place by 2012 when the Kyoto protocol expires, it must be agreed in Copenhagen, otherwise it will not be ratified in time.

Why is a global deal so important? I’m sure many of you have your own answers to this. My answer is that with each passing year the fact that climate change is not a future possibility but a present reality becomes clearer. From the millions now facing starvation in East Africa to the 22,000 who died in Europe in the 2003 heatwave. And every time, events are shown to be moving faster and happening sooner than the science expected.

The prediction for ice-free Arctic summers has fallen from 2080, to 2050, to 2013. I had the chance to visit the High Arctic in July 2007, as sea-ice coverage hit a record low. I stood on the edge of the polar ice-cap and watched the rain. This shouldn’t happen; it’s like seeing snow in the desert. All of human history has taken place during a phase of relative climate stability. We have never experienced the kind of changes we are setting in motion, yet we play with fire as if we can’t get burnt.

Under Agenda 21 the UN must involve young people in decisions that will affect their future as part of “intergenerational equity”. As a delegation we therefore have seats at the Copenhagen Conference and can speak in the Plenary Hall in front of hundreds of world leaders and decision makers. So if we can get to Copenhagen, we can make ourselves heard. But to get there we need to raise £1500 each to cover travel, accommodation and food. And perhaps more important than getting ourselves there, we also need to raise enough to fund the Kenyan Youth Delegation to get to the conference. Without our help they will not be able to attend. For the Kenyan Delegation climate change is now a daily reality. As they described in their last email to us “over 10 million Kenyans are presently starving as drought continues to ravage virtually every corner of our nation.” Global warming is a global problem; it therefore requires a global solution. But this will not be achieved in an equitable way, if at all, without the strong presence of developing nations.

Between now and December we will all be working hard to spread the message, in our local community and across the UK, that we have to act now to call for a global agreement that will deliver what the science demands. It is 17 years since the Earth Summit in Rio. After 17 years of UNFCCC conferences, endless discussions, and empty promises to cut emissions we have finally run out of time. It has to be now because we won’t get another shot.

On Mon 7th of Sept 10 of us from the UKYCC delegation met with some of the UK’s core team of UN negotiators at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). They spoke about how the actions of UKYCC delegations at previous climate conferences had made a dramatic impact and really served to remind decision makers that this is not just another conference to get through before Christmas, or a stepping-stone in their career. But that the lives and livelihoods of billions of peoples hang on these decisions.

One of UKYCC’s most powerful questions at previous conferences was “How old will you be in 2050?” I will be 59. Most negotiators won’t have to see the state of the world in 2050. Help us raise the funds to get to Copenhagen so that when our futures are on the line, we can remind decision makers that we all have to live in this world and whatever state they leave it in, they are leaving it to us.

And to donate please go to http://act.ukycc.org/copenhagen
Or post a cheque, made out to ‘UK Youth Climate Coalition', to 4 Modbury Gardens, London, NW5 3QE. Please include a note saying you are donating on my behalf. All donations will be split between the UK and Kenyan Delegations.

Find out more and support the Youth Delegation on her blog.

Global Wake-Up Call on climate

Copenhagen is drawing nearer - already Climate Rush visited Stroud Friday and Saturday - although were held up on Saturday getting to the framers Market (see local Green party comment here and here for their website re their tour). I saw them on route to Stroud in Fairford last week when I was there for work - just before (or was it after?) they dumped manure at Jeremy Clarkson's home (see report on that below).

Photo: Green District councillors sign up to 10:10 - see here - more on that locally coming soon

Today is Sept 21 and the Global Climate Wake-Up - the local event will be at sub-rooms in Stroud at 7pm prompt - see here.

Avaaz, who are organising the day are suggesting we phone our own governments - already activists are flooding the media and government office phone lines worldwide with wake up calls for leaders to act - I've just tried on 5 of these numbers and can't get through on any!!!! I will try again....

Prime Minister Gordon Brown
(+44) 020 8144 7459 / 0300 060 4000
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband
(+44) (0)207 979 7777 / 0300 060 4000
Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband
(+44) (0)20 7008 1500
First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills Peter Mandelson
(+44) (0)20 7215 5000 or (0)20 7215 6740 (Minicom)

What Avaaz are asking is that we ask leaders to commit to go to the Copenhagen climate meeting in December and agree on a global climate deal that is FAIR, AMBITIOUS and BINDING (“FAB”), and ask them to register your call and convey the message to the decision-maker. Once you’ve made your call, visit the Wake-Up Hub and post a short update on how it went in the live-blog on the [right] of the page:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/sept21_hub/

In recent weeks, Avaaz have surprised national governments, heads of state and political parties with sudden barrages of thousands of calls. These phonecalls tie up staff and shut down phone lines - but they are never missed, and time after time, we're finding, they work. 14,000 calls reversed the Brazilian President's position on a new climate protection law, 3,000 calls persuaded the German Chancellor's party to engage with climate groups, just a few hundred calls got the attention of top advisors to French President Sarkozy. We have less than three months left until the final UN meeting in Copenhagen, where we'll succeed or fail to get an historic global treaty to place binding global limits on carbon pollution, stop a climate catastrophe and unleash a new clean and green economy. Our leaders are nowhere near success, they're not even planning on going to Copenhagen. We must try and change that!

Other local actions

Also in the run up to Copenhagen locally there is a march and rally in Gloucester on 17th October 11.30 to 12.30 - starting at Gloucester City Council Offices. Then 'International day of climate action' on Oct 24th with the environmental campaigning group 350.org - two local projects at the moment that I'm helping - to build 350 beehouses by 24th Oct and hopefully, if funding comes through, to plant 350 trees at Thistledown near Nailsworth with Woodcraft groups.

Climate Rush in Chipping Norton

Dressed as Suffragettes, seven activists from the environmental group Climate Rush, unloaded two bags of manure, plus a banner bearing the message "This is what you're landing us in", in his front lawn.

Group spokeswoman Millie Forrester, 19, said to the press: "I love Jeremy, I love fast cars, I love progress, but I learnt some things and those things terrify me. I learnt that climate change will make my future unrecognisable. I know that I'll not have the same choices that Jeremy has now. If we keep on loving the fossil-fuelled lifestyle then by the time I hit 49 the world will be too busy coping with the impact of climate change to bother about how big an engine is possible. I'm the biggest libertarian of them all – I'm dumping dung at Clarkson's gates so he might understand that his attitude will land us all in manure."

The group claims to have targeted Mr Clarkson because of his "blasé attitude towards climate change" and have made reference to his recent drive to the Arctic, which they say emitted an estimated 1.7 tonnes of carbon.

The Space Cinema Club: join now!!

The latest programme for the Cinema Club @ The Space: September-December 2009 is now out and I've got permission to republish it below - some excellent films. Membership - £2 (annual) Tickets £6.00, £5.00concs., £3.00 U.20’s Available on the door. EVERYONE WELCOME.

Photo: last week on the wire

Sundays: Doors open 7.30pm Films begin at 8.00pm
Wednesdays: Doors open 8.00pm Films begin at 8.15pm
Unless otherwise stated
For all Cinema Club enquiries contact Rick Vick on 07973 225 694
or e-mail cinemaclub (at)the-space.org

Wed SEP 9 The Namesake(PG) Dir. Mira Nair (2007)
From the director of ‘Monsoon Wedding’ this is the story of the Ganguli family whose move from Calcutta to New York evokes a lifelong balancing act to meld to a new world without forgetting the old. ‘An impressively directed, gorgeously photographed drama that is extremely rewarding.’ - Philip French

Sun SEP 13 Entre Les Murs - The Class (15) Dir. Laurent Cantet (2008)
A young teacher in a tough French secondary school finds his ethics put to the test when his students challenge his teaching methods. Palme d'Or 09. ‘A year in the life of a classroom of enfants terribles in a tough Paris school makes for compelling slice-of-life drama’ Philip French

Wed SEP 16 Soy Cuba - I Am Cuba(15) Dir. Mikheil Kalatozishvili (2006 )
This Russian-made study of Cuba captures the island just before it made the transition to a post-revolutionary society. Moving from city to country and back again, it examines problems caused by political oppression as well as by discrepancies in wealth and power. ‘A work of dazzling cinematographic invention that still has the ability to astound.’- Channel 4 film

Sun SEP 20 Is Anybody There? (12) Dir. John Crowley (2009)
Well-scripted and beautifully shot, the film grapples with the sad truths of getting older and losing loved ones, while maintaining a sardonic wit and sincere warmth though it deals with some of life’s toughest moments. ‘Caine leads an impeccable cast in a story that is as touching as it is funny, turning the mundane minutiae of fading lives into a vibrant display.’ Empire Magazine.

Sun SEP 27 Encounters At The End Of The World(U) Dir. Werner Herzog (2009)
Travelling to the Antarctic Herzog examines Human and Mother nature, juxtaposing breathtaking locations with the profound, surreal, and absurd experiences of the marine biologists, physicists, plumbers and truck drivers who choose to form a research society as far away from society as one can get. ‘Nature at its most mysterious, brutal and implacable - just as Herzog likes it’. Channel 4 film

Sun OCT 4 The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (PG) Dir. Carl Th. Dreyer (1928)
Regarded as one of the greatest films ever made Carl Dreyer’s film is to glimpse the soul of a saint in her hour of trial. The film is more than a dramatization, more than a biopic, more than a documentary: It is a spiritual portrait, almost a mystical portrait, of a Christ-like soul sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

Sun OCT 11 The Boat That Rocked(15) Dir. Richard Curtis (2009)
A fictionalized account of those who, bored by Pat Boone and smooth-faced charmers in cable sweaters, decided to take to the seas off the coast of England to broadcast newer, more modern pop songs from pirate-radio ships. Energetic and funny, it's a praise-song to artistic and social revolution. ‘The film has some truly magical moments that outshine anything Curtis has done before’. - Daily Telegraph

Sun OCT 18 Looking For Eric(15) Dir. Ken Loach (2009)
The story a football mad postman whose personal life is descending into chaos. In his darkest hour, he starts to imagine his hero, ex Man Utd star Eric Cantona, is at his side, a dreamlike life coach, giving him renewed confidence. Cantona, as famous for his philosophical musings as for his prowess on the field, stars in and produced this heartfelt slice of magical social realism.

Wed OCT 28 Fire (15) Dir. Deepa Mehta (1999)
The opening film of Mehta's powerful trilogy is suffused with flame, literally and metaphorically. Beyond its sensuality lurks an allegory for India, struggling with tradition versus modernity and women's peculiar place within that struggle. Young, tomboyish Sita and demure Radha, trapped in loveless marriages, turn to each other for support, companionship and other emotions they never imagined .

Sun Nov 8th The Wrestler(15) Dir. Darren Aronofsky (2009 )
‘Aronofsky has pulled off that rare feat - he's made a great film about a niche subject that will delight wrestling fans and cineastes alike. Rourke's performance is a knockout.’ Channel 4

Wed NOV 18 The Miracle Worker(12) Dir. Arthur Pen (1962)
The true story of Helen Keller and teacher Annie Sullivan. As a young girl Helen is stricken with scarlet fever, leaving her blind, mute, and deaf. Sealed off from the world, Helen’s uncontrollable rages and tantrums are born of the frustration and isolation of her internal prison. Sullivan helps Helen understand the world from which she is isolated, freeing her from that prison forever. ‘ a stunningly impressive piece of work deriving much of its power from the performances’. Time Out

Sun NOV 22 Girl Shy(U) Dir: Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor (1924)
Stroud Arts Festival Films presents at 8.30pm Doors open: 7.30pm Film & Food - One of the best incarnations off Harold Lloyd’s character, Harold Meadows - poor boy, dreamer, stammerer, stoically faces rejection and despair before shaking off the shackles of his shyness and capturing the girl of his dreams. This hilarious silent film will be accompanied ‘Live’ on piano by local musician/composer Albert Lamb. A unique event not to be missed. Tickets: £6.00, £5.00 concs., £3.00 U.20’s. Available on the door

Wed NOV 25 Tales of the River Severn
Stroud Arts Festival Films presents at 8.15pm Doors open: 7.45pm. A unique, specially commissioned collection of archive footage showing the history and life along and around the river Severn. Highlights include pram racing in Tewkesbury in 1957-58, Human Cannonball Mary Connors, the 1947 floods, an amphibious car during the 1960 floods, an Elver eating contest,1958 footage of a man who lives in a tree and much, much more. Tickets: £6.00, £5.00 concs., £3.00 U.20’s. Available on the door

Sun NOV 29 Jazz on a Summer’s Day Dirs. Aram Avakian, Bert Stern (1960)
Stroud Arts Festival Films presents the film plus Music & Food. 7.00pm Doors open: 6.30pm A priceless record of the 1958 Jazz Festival at Newport, Rhode Island. It just doesn't get better than this.Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Dinah Washington,Chuck Berry,Thelonious Monk,Gerry Mulligan, George Shearing, Jack Teagarden, Sonny Stitt, Chico Hamilton, Anita O'Day and Big Maybelle. ‘Even non-jazz buffs will be exhilarated by Jazz on a Summer's Day.’~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide PLUS: 10.00pm ‘til late: Jazz with The Divorcees Quintet led by Emma Ordonez plus others & Soul Food from Star Anise Cafe. Tickets: Film:£6.00, Jazz: £5.00, Film & Jazz: £8.00. Available on the door.

Wed DEC 2 The Yes Men Fix The World Dirs. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno (2009)
Using similar tactics to Sasha Baron Cohen and Michael Moore, troublemaking duo Bichlbaum and Bonanno – aka The Yes Men - pass themselves off as representatives of large corporations and make hilariously outrageous statements on their behalf. They infiltrate TV news shows and conferences, exposing corporate greed and corruption in companies like Exxon and Dow Chemicals, provoking widespread panic among shareholders and politicians.

Sun DEC 13 In Bruges(18) Dir. Martin McDonagh (2008)
Holed up in historic, beautiful Bruges after a horribly botched job, two hit men, play out an often hilarious, sometimes violent series of escapades. Surreal and nerve jangling this film will push all your buttons. ‘Farrell has brought his A-game to this cracking little comedy-noir written and directed by Martin McDonagh. He is absolutely superb.’– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Wed DEC 16 Los Abrazos Rotos - Broken Embraces (15) Dir. Pedro Almodóvar (2009)
Broken Embraces" centres on a quartet of characters in the movie business whose lives are interwoven in a torrid tale of love, power, secrecy, betrayal and vengeance. ‘Pedro Almodóvar reunites with Penélope Cruz for a sensuous film-within-a-film that is a moviegoer's delight’- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

Sun DEC 20 The Unwinking Gaze(PG) Dir: Joshua Dugdale (2008)
Filmed over three years this film offers a unique portrait of the Dalai Lama and provides behind the scenes insight into His Holiness’ work towards a peaceful resolution of the Tibet issue through dialogue with the Chinese government.

New dramatic warning on ice sheets

This week we saw the headline "Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica force UN scientists to issue dramatic warning" in The Independent - yet it shouldn't be a surprise that sea-levels are rising faster than expected. Scientific reports continually reveal that climate change is more serious than we thought previously.

Photo: Artist Marten Junet on politics - we are the hares on mushrooms - the foxes are the politicians

Perhaps what is astonishing is that all three big political parties in the UK still fail to adopt the right targets, fail to pursue the full package of policies necessary to meet even their inadequate targets, and continue to pursue some policies that go in exactly the wrong direction.

As a Prof John Whitelegg, Green Party spokesperson on sustainable development commenting on the failure of the big three parties said: "This is another observable pattern....And another one is the way the bulk of the UK media manage to avoid spelling out the fact that there is still only one political party that has always had the right targets and the full range of policies needed to meet those targets in an economically viable and socially just manner. The public needs to know this. The public gets most of its information on matters like this most of the time via the mass media. In a democracy, this gives the media a significant responsibility. So instead of just reporting on what must be done, and on the fact that it isn't being done, when are Britain's newspapers going to begin stating this simple fact: if you want the right action taken on the climate crisis, you're going to have to elect more Greens."

So what did The Independent say - well sea levels are now predicted to rise twice as fast as was forecast by the United Nations only two years ago, threatening hundreds of millions of people with catastrophe. Rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are likely to push up sea levels by a metre or more by 2100, swamping coastal cities and obliterating the living space of 600 million people who live in deltas, low-lying areas and small island states.

This means that low-lying countries with increasing populations, such as Bangladesh, Burma and Egypt, could see large parts of their surface areas vanish. Experts in Bangladesh estimate that a one-metre rise in sea levels would swamp 17 per cent of the country's land mass. Even Britain could face real challenges in lower-lying areas along the east coast, from Lincolnshire to the Thames estuary, with a much greater risk of catastrophic "storm surges" such as the great flood of 1953 that killed 307 people.

At least on Friday we saw Nicholas Stern, the economist commissioned by Gordon Brown to analyse the impact of climate change say politicians have failed to take on board the severe consequences of failing to cut world carbon emissions. See Guardian article here. Lord Stern, also says he underestimated the risks of global warming and the damage that could result from it.

The good news is surely that there's is now no excuse for not doing anything. We have the knowledge base and we have the technologies, and we have this tremendous realisation that the chance for economic and social development in the future is dire if we don't realise that we need to change our energy sources. What more do we need? A Green vote this June will make the others listen and get us more Greens to show there is a way forward.

Apols but the comment facility has been turned off as I am on a blog holiday until the end of the month - more scheduled blog entries are due before then.

Heathrow runway undermines tougher advocacy of action on climate

Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who says that only urgent action by the new president can halt devastating climate change (see Observer article here). Depressing stuff - especially this last week when our Government has agreed to a third runway at Heathrow.

This Government's decision to press ahead with a third runway at Heathrow drives the final nail into the coffin of its climate change policies. Britain's international advocacy of tougher climate change emission targets will be totally undermined, as no country will take seriously a government with plans to devote our entire oil usage to flying in the years beyond 2020. The runway might be what the BAA wants but it will generate millions of tonnes of additional carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases every year. The Government seems to think that this does not matter, so long as other sectors reduce their emissions or if the aviation industry can trade carbon to somehow get itself off the hook and meet its already inadequate targets.

In short it is a complete disaster - the talk of 'green slots' and environmental restrictions is basically meaningless when you look at the details. The fact is that BAA/airlines ignore and seem to break all such promises. For example at the time of the T5 enquiry they promised no more runways would be needed.

Here is what Caroline Lucas said: "Business Secretary Peter Mandelson's claim that there's a "classic dilemma" between fulfilling the UK's climate change ambitions without losing economic competitiveness only demonstrates how little he understands about either. Our competitiveness will come from creating a sustainable economy in the future, not relying dirty, dinosaur-like industries which are subsidised to the tune of £10bn in the UK alone. Labour has taken the cynical step of playing this decision on Heathrow as a way of creating jobs at a time of rising unemployment, yet many commentators now agree that only a Green New Deal can create hundreds of thousands of high quality jobs that are truly sustainable into the future, through a massive investment in efficiency and renewables.

She continued: “The Government’s claim that including aviation in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme will help make it ‘sustainable’ belongs in cloud cuckoo land. The Commission’s own figures show that the result of the ETS will be that by 2020, instead of growing by 142%, the European aviation industry would still grow by around 135%! Essentially, the weak emissions trading rules will allow aviation to buy the right to emit from other sectors - but aviation itself will continue to grow massively. Furthermore, arguments that Heathrow must expand in order to keep up with other EU airports are misguided at best – or else deliberately dishonest. Research from HACAN shows that in 2007, a combined total of 139 million passengers used London’s airports - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and City. That compares with 88 million who used all Paris airports, London’s closest European rival. Heathrow remains the busiest airport in Europe, and the busiest international airport in the world."

It seems clear expansion that Heathrow will clearly breach EU air quality standards, and could cost Britain millions of Euros in fines if the Commission won't agree to a derogation. It also clear that the notion that a third runway at Heathrow is a good way out of the recession is hugely deceptive - building work won't even start for years to come and to approve expansion at a time when UK airports are reporting a significant drop in passenger numbers seems incredibly foolish.

It has been wonderful to see so many folk protesting - I also just read that Mark Ereira-Guyer, long standing St Edmundsbury councillor and current leader of the Labour group, has resigned from the Labour Party in dismay at the Government decision to give the go-ahead to another runway at Heathrow, and has applied to join the Green Party. He said: "...with a heavy heart and great sadness and after 27 years of Labour Party membership, I have been compelled to hand in my Party membership. I believe that the Party has completely lost its connection with its membership and simply refuses to listen to those it should do."

Indeed the protests look set to continue and there are some who think that the runway will still not happen. Indeed if we are to be serious about climate change it cannot and in the reality of the climate change emergency whoever is in Government will veto aviation expansion as the most polluting and least essential form of travel.

Here is a comment from Cllr Ricky Knight, the South West Green Party Lead Candidate for 2009 European Elections: "Under Labour, UK CO2 emissions have barely changed since 1997 and that’s not counting the contributions from international shipping and aviation. Yet Brown and his ministers strut around the world, mouthing their spurious eco-credentials and claiming to be leading the way in tackling climate change. As the level of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise relentlessly year on year, we face a dangerous and uncertain future. Yet whilst scientists urge us with increasing stridency to cut emissions, Governments and big business spin and weave in order to avoid their commitments. To cram even more jets into the crowded skies over England, Gordon Brown thinks it’s fine to allow homes to be bulldozed, to subject hundreds of thousands of people to more noise, to allow ground level air pollution to rise and for millions more tonnes of carbon emissions to be pumped into the atmosphere. And in case we forget - he wants to do it all over again with a second runway at Stansted. Where the Home Counties lead, the South West, follows: Bristol, Staverton, Exeter, Plymouth, Newquay." See more comments re Heathrow on BBC website here.

Stop the runway

To stop the runway lots of exciting protests are being developed - see Airplot here. Along with actress Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan and prospective Tory parliamentary candidate Zac Goldsmith many are becoming proud owners of a small piece of land within the site of the proposed third runway at Heathrow. You can be a part of it as well - join over 10,000 other Airplot owners to become a part of the opposition that's going to stop the runway. The response has been phenomenal to Airplot - indeed at one point they could not cope with all the email queries. Meanwhile last Monday saw 500 turn out to Heathrow in Edwardian dress - referencing the suffragette movement - to protest about the third runway and have a picnic, with a string quartet, performance artists, art installations and a giant conga line around the departure lounge. They were met by equal numbers in another type of costume, but the protesters managed to keep it up for several hours, and there were no arrests!
Stop geo-engineering experiment

On a different but related topic I was shocked to read that a 'rogue' science ship is poised to carry out risky experimental fertilization of the Southern Ocean. This is likely the first of many coming attempts to begin "geo-engineering" the biosphere as a solution to climate change. RV Polarstern, a German research ship, is to dump twenty tons of iron sulphate over 300 square kilometres of the Scotia Sea, off Chile's coast, near the Antarctic Peninsula. The chemical cargo - normally used to treat lawns and sewage - is likely to provoke a massive algal bloom big enough to be seen from outer space. German and Indian scientists are hoping the experiment will show that such manmade algae blooms can provide a quick fix to climate change by absorbing carbon into the sea. Please write to the German government demanding that the RV Polarstern turn around and return to port. Insist that Germany agree to a permanent ban on large-scale geo-engineering experiments and implementation, until all other options are exhausted, and until global geo-engineering protocols are in place.

Here is one comment: "Is humanity so resistant to change that we will seek to construct a "Frankensphere", with dramatic unknown consequences, rather than reducing emissions, consumption and population?" Take action here.

A ramble of hope for 2009

For me perhaps some of the most worrying news recently has been that scientists have now found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world at least a decade before it was predicted to happen.

Photo: Last of the leeks in the garden

Climate-change researchers have found that air temperatures in the region are higher than would be normally expected during the autumn because the increased melting of the summer Arctic sea ice is accumulating heat in the ocean. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, was not expected to be seen for at least another 10 or 15 years and the findings will further raise concerns that the Arctic has already passed the climatic tipping-point towards ice-free summers, beyond which it may not recover (see The Independent 16th Dec 2008 - and see cartoon re tipping points here).

Our politicians are failing to understand the implications of climate change......It was refreshing to hear Lib Dems talking about a New Green Deal but sadly looking at the detail it does not add up on paper to what is really needed - see local Green party letter here. In the EU matters were worse with them basically proposing a neocolonial approach to climate policy, which would allow rich European countries to continue their own unsustainable development model at the expense of developing countries - see another local Green party letter here.

You can read what George Monbiot said of the recent Government proposals here. If we are serious we need such radical proposals as he suggests like closing key streets to traffic, imposing 'stonking taxes on the extraction of all fossil fuels' and more.

At least news re Peak Oil is better - well better as it is now being properly recognised - last year we had the first industry report re Peak Oil (see here) - now the IEA report which has studied 800 major oil fields around the world has come up the a decline rate of 6.7% (up from 3.6% guestimate in their previous 2007 report). This is highly significant since UK government (and other peak deniers) base their official position on what the IEA says and they're now clearly saying "We are on an unsustainable energy path and need to shift fast!" - they're saying 2020 peak and Hirsch says we need at least 10 years preparations to avoid mega problems...
See Monbiot video here and article here.

Shockingly already 20% of Stroud District is in fuel poverty - now I read that only one in eight households in fuel poverty receives discounted gas and electricity bills, despite a multimillion-pound commitment by the main energy companies to help vulnerable people to endure the winter. This really is an area that needs the Government to wake up.

All this can lead one to feel a little like it is all futile - we are stuffed - but I really don't believe that is the case - there is lots to make us hopeful that we can rise to the challenges - here is a piece from Chris Johnson who writes The Great Turning Times:

I had a conversation with a friend not long ago when I told her the story of the Great Turning. I described how future generations might look back on our times as a crucial turning point in their history. Just when humanity seemed headed for disaster, we somehow found the courage, determination and inspired creativity to bring about a remarkable shift, a change of course, an epic transformation. As I told the tale, I felt my eyes sparkle; the energy of possibility sent tingles down my spine. But my friend wasn't so moved. "I can't see that happening", she said.

The process where a positive vision first grows, but then meets disbelief, may be familiar to you. It can happen within ourselves. It can happen within groups of friends. The process also gets played out within organisations, communities and our wider society. Over the last few decades, the hopeful visionary tendency has taken quite a bashing; on a societal level, disbelief has become the default mode. Yet recent events have powerfully shaken this up. If, two years ago, someone had proposed that the UK government would soon be nationalising banks or that Barack Obama would become the next president of the United States, they might well have met the "I can't see that happening" response.

In May 2006, in an article sympathetic to Obama, Time magazine commented: "The argument against an Obama candidacy is obvious: he is as green as Kermit the Frog. He is a mere 44 years old and has been a member of the U.S. Senate for less than two years. He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but he has zero military and national-security experience. He's a very smart guy, a quick learner, but no one is that quick. If he runs and makes a fool of himself, a very promising political career could be suffocated in the crib."

A year later, a column in the Boston Globe implied Obama was a no-hoper, saying: "the people who've ponied up $4,600 for Obama in this election cycle might as well have piled the money on the kitchen table and set fire to it."

In April this year, a column from the UK Times expressed that same certainty, with a sub-headline proclaiming: "The Democrats must admit it: Obama would lose to McCain"

The point here is the "I can't see that happening" view can be wrong. Remembering that helps when we doubt our vision. As does reminding ourselves of times we've succeeded in doing things that previously we'd thought were impossible (can you can think of any for yourself?). These memories help anchor in us the deep knowledge that something seeming unlikely at one point in time can happen quite naturally at another. Rather than giving up if the odds don't seem promising, positive changes are brought about when we identify what we'd like to happen, and then become part of the story of making that so.

Chris Johnson helpfully points to the Work That Reconnects developed by Joanna Macy and colleagues. This was developed as a workshop methodology to cultivate empowered responses to global issues, the principles and insights of this approach can be applied in a wide range of settings, not just workshops. The central plot-line of this work follows a spiral of four elements: gratitude, honouring pain for the world, seeing with new eyes, and going forth. See more at:
http://www.turntowardlife.tv/joanna_macy_workshop_video/about.htm

Read Obama on climate change here. However while the US maybe coming around, Chris Johnson also quotes a BBC World Service Poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries that showed only 79% saw human activity as a significant cause of climate change, and only 65% believed it necessary to take major steps starting very soon. Astonishingly, a third of Tory MP's who replied to a survey in the UK questioned the existence of climate change and its link to human activity!! In a more recent poll in the UK 42% thought the problem might not be as bad as people say, and only 35% saw tackling climate change and reducing their carbon footprint as a normal thing for people to do in their area. There's clearly still a long way to go.

Chris Johnson suggests we need to help people join the dots between weather disturbances and climate change then perhaps they will be more likely to want to want to take action. Unfortunately, these links are often not made. For example, he carried out a Google news search for articles about Hurricane Ike on 13th September 2008. It showed 79,971 references in a week. When he added the words "climate change" to the search, the tally went down to just 72 (less than 0.1%).

In the US, after hurricane Katrina in 2005, a poll showed a majority (54%) saw the hurricane season that year as just one of those things that happens from time to time, vs 39% who viewed it as related to climate change. One of the issues here is about how we view cause and effect. One type of cause and effect is direct causation, where A causes B. But another, much more common, type of cause and effect is an indirect one, where A adds to a context that makes B more likely.

Scientists would find it difficult to say "Hurricane Katrina was caused by Climate Change". Yet there is strong research evidence that climate change adds to context that makes intense hurricanes more likely. So as Chris Johnson suggests it is about getting the message across that more extreme weather events will be likely - ask people if they think climate change is a factor if the weather is extreme or different from usual. Listen and if appropriate share your concerns. Voicing our concerns is a way we talk ourselves into addressing them. Visibly tackling climate change and reducing our carbon footprint strengthens the context that supports others to do this too - in a way that can feed a positive feedback loop of change. Go for it!

See Earth Spirit Action - a film about Deep Ecology here.

Greens need a sense of humour

My response is below to a letter from Ian Martin who votes Green but was less happy with a couple of our recent letters in the SNJ. I think it was a very useful reminder - few things are sustainable without some fun...there is also another response below..

Photo: delicious coffee today!

Dear Madam,

Ian Martin suggests the Green party needs to rediscover humour if it is to save the planet and he warns that in recent letters we sound more like we have been changed by politics than are changing politics (letters 19/11/08). I thank him for that important warning.

For many of us, every new study about our planet, seems more terrifying than the last: the Great Barrier Reef is dying, the Arctic ice could have disappeared within five years, a third of species face extinction and millions face drought and famine. I am scared. Indeed, one could argue that if you don’t find it scary, you haven’t really understood it. It is perhaps no wonder that there is a seriousness and an urgency to Green letters.

Yet we cannot let fear paralyse or stop us from taking actions. We need to find room to digest the realities and also to see that despite the horrors there are signs of hope - but we need to act fast. We need more than a green vocabulary, we need a green agenda, like the 'New Green Deal' being advocated by ourselves and a growing number of others.

The Green party cannot afford to lose its radical edge and indeed I don't believe we have. The party is controlled by the grassroots members - not by a party elite, whips, PR Gurus or spin doctors. Both social and environmental justice have been at the heart of our policies since the 1970s and our members join peaceful direct actions when other routes are blocked. Greens, like party leader Caroline Lucas MEP, have long been on the front line for justice, years before Former US Vice President Al Gore's recent call for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of more coal plants.

We cannot allow this Government to close it's ears to the radical action that is needed. Please don't just vote Green, join us and inject some more humour into the battle to tackle climate change and the virtually Victorian levels of inequality in Britain today.

Cllr. Philip Booth, Stroud District Green Party.

Here is a different response from a Green party member - the trouble is Ian's comments were about having a sense of humour about ourselves rather than climate change or other topics....nevertheless despite being so caustic it makes a point - indeed I had toyed with ending my letter "Have you heard the one about the polar bear and the icecap?" but am sure that is not as helpful??? Anyhow here was that comment:

The Green Party notes Ian Martins request and thanks him for his support (letters 19/11/08) and will attempt some humour as suggested. If this fails to halt climate change, bring back the third of species that face extinction and feed the millions that face drought and famine (oh and perhaps we could laugh our way into peace in Middle East as well) perhaps he'll be on hand to give some further advice.

Climate change: local talk, march, 'Coalfinger', petition and more

This post is jam packed with info re climate change - including the talk in Stroud, the wonderful Greenpeace video Coalfinger, the London march plus a petition to sign.

Photo: taken from The Ecologist

2007 CO2 emissions exceed direst expectations

News that the world's carbon dioxide emissions in 2007 exceeded even some of the direst predictions of climate scientists is pretty gloomy to say the least - emissions grew 3 percent from 2006 according to the annual report from the Global Carbon Project. The climb in overall emissions last year was especially surprising to many given the economic downturn that was expected to help curb emissions. Plus for the first time, developing nations took the lead in overall CO2 emissions, accounting for some 53 percent of the total. China was also officially reconfirmed as the world's largest CO2 polluter; it alone accounted for some 60 percent of the rise in worldwide emissions in 2007. The report also found that the world's natural carbon sinks, such as oceans and forests that lock away carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere, have been absorbing some 3 percent less CO2 pollution since 2000 than they did in the first half of the 20th century. Richard Moss of the World Wildlife Fund said: "We should be worried, really worried. This is happening in the context of trying to reduce emissions. We're already locked into more warming than we thought."

Methane dangers

Indeed the national press picked up on news that studies this summer of methane release from thawing underwater permafrost off the northern coast of Russia has led to prediction of an abrupt release of 50Gt of methane at any time. I think this is 100 times the current annual methane emissions (if my figures are right).

Indeed hundreds more methane plumes have been discovered in the Arctic raising fresh fears about it's contribution to global warming - see here and here.

Climate talk in Stroud

Climate Change and Stroud, a talk and more being put on by David Drew is now fixed for 5 December at 7.00 p.m. at the Cotswold Playhouse. Sadly I am already committed to organising something else that night but would strongly urge others to support this.

Coalfinger - great short film from Greenpeace

Just in time for the latest Bond film, they've unleashed their own special agent on the world. Graverson Green is on a mission: to expose the dastardly plot of supervillain Coalfinger and his carbon cronies, who plan to cover the world in coal-fired power stations and destroy the climate in Operation Browncloud. Along with his dopey sidekick Dr. Anthracite, Coalfinger (played by Brian Blessed) plans to cover the world in coal-fired power stations and destroy the climate. Can Green (David Mitchell) stop him? Is a top secret hideout involved? Are there plenty of double entendres?

Watch the film to find out - see here. Greenpeace write: "It may be an animation, but I'm sure you recognise the inspiration for the film. Like Coalfinger, E.on and other energy companies around the world are trying to bring about a coal resurgence, despite the evidence of the impact burning coal has on our climate and our planet. Green on the other hand, reminds us that we need to work together to stop dirty coal plants and fight for clean and renewable energy."

Good and bad news on Obama

Al Gore has said that one of Obama's first acts as US president should be to demand a move to 100% renewable energy within 10 years. During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to invest $150bn (£96bn) in renewables over 10 years as part of the plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages, while also cutting carbon emissions. Many hope to see those policies enacted with a far-reaching climate-change bill that would bring the US back into the global environment fold. "

Sadly hopes for US president-elect Barack Obama to change tact on missile defence look less likely - he has told Polish President Lech Kaczynski that he will go ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in eastern Europe despite threats from Russia. See more on previous blogs on this issue here including correspondence with the hunger strikers. See also moves in UK parliament to debate on British involvement in US Missile Defence rather than just accept it - see more at: www.cnduk.org/

Stop EU's Climate Package from being watered down - sign petition

The European Union is currently finalising its so-called "Climate Package" - a set of laws designed to fight climate change and achieve the EU's goal of CO2-reductions. The European Parliament and the 27 Member States will have to agree to a common text within the next month but many fear this is being watered down - see local Green party comment here.

You can help. Write to the leaders of your country and urge them to take the lead in fighting climate change. Major environmental NGO-networks have designed a common website, via which you can send emails easily and quick to MEPs, ministers and heads of states. Go to http://www.timetolead.eu and help keep the temperature low - by putting the heat on the politicians !!!

Local Green party on the new Climate Change Bill

See also here the local Green party welcome the Government’s announcement on its amended Climate Change Bill, but warns that its commitment to expanding aviation and to ‘buying in’ emissions reductions from abroad amount to a ‘double blunder’.

London march on Parliament for the climate

Jonathan Whittaker is organising a coach which will start in The Forest and go through Gloucester, Cheltenham and Cirencester. Details here. Stroud maybe organising a coach but I hope to already be in London for that day.

The march this year goes to Parliament Squareto demand that the government act now on climate. Starts at 12 noon at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park. Climate protest bike ride starts from Lincoln's Inn Fields at 10.30 am: and joins start of march later. See www.campaigncc.org/bikeride.shtml

Speakers will include Nick Clegg MP (leader, Liberal Democrat Party), Michael Meacher MP(ex-environment minister) Caroline Lucas MEP (leader, Green party), and George Monbiot.

To download the leaflet for the National March go to: www.campaigncc.org/resources.shtml

The March on Parliament has four main themes -
1) NO to a 3rd runway at Heathrow and the runaway expansion in aviation expansion.
2) NO new coal - no new coal-fired power stations as planned at eg Kingsnorth in Kent
3) NO to the expansion of agrofuels - with negative impacts on forests, the climate and world food supply.
4) YES to a renewable energy revolution and green jobs

The March on Parliament for the Climate marks the Saturday midway through the UN Climate Talks in Poznan, Poland and we make our demands on the UK government in solidarity with the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities that will suffer worst and most immediately from climate change caused overwhelmingly by the rich long-industrialised countries. We need the government to act now on climate, to stop building coal-fired power stations and new runways - and to begin the renewable energy revolution. We need a tidal wave of people outside parliament to make them act to stop climate catastrophe now! Be part of that tidal wave, be there ! Next year may be too late.

Why so critical now? See: www.campaigncc.org/whynow.shtml

New Zealand elections

Despite their Government coalition partner losing control, the Green Party (with 6.4% of the vote) has increased its tally of seats from 6 to 8, all on the top-up list part of the ballot - it is the third-largest party in the parliament. PR was introduced there in 1996. This canb only be good for raising the awareness and actions to tackle climate change.

My speech for Harvest Festival

A wee while ago I was approached to do a speech on the environment at the Harvest Festival at Whiteshill Church - I wasn't sure - not done that sort of thing before - but agreed after giving myself a wee bit of time to think about it - anyhow this last week I have been thinking up what to put in the speech and scribbling notes - yesterday evening I put it together - wished I'd given it more time but it seemed to go very well this morning - some 50 plus people attended including many familiar faces.

Photos: Church leaflet advertising event and photo below of the church in the Village hall as the roof is being fixed in the church itself

Indeed quite a number of folk spoke to me afterwards to thank me - it was an honour to address the congregation - and I have to say that a couple of the ideas below come from Caroline Lucas Green MEP, a couple of other bits from Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation and the bit about the 'gathering storm' from a Margaret Becket speech last year.

It was interesting looking at how Harvest Festivals have developed over time - of course humans have celebrated since they took to farming several thousand years ago, but the modern British Harvest Festival in churches only began in 1843. That was thanks to the Reverend Robert Hawker, a vicar in Cornwall who invited his parishioners to a special thanksgiving service for the harvest. Anyway here are the notes I used although I didn't quite stick to them all the time...

Harvest Festival speech

I must start with a big thank you for inviting me here to speak. Many will know me as a local resident, a local councillor, a green campaigner or perhaps as a member of the Gloucestershire Churches Environmental Justice Network?

I've not had the privilege of addressing a congregation such as this before, so I hope that what I am going to say is appropriate - it is certainly from the heart.

Harvest time is our opportunity to give special thanks for the abundance around us - to celebrate the food and riches of the land. In Britain where food and clean water are plentiful for most people, many Harvest Festivals in recent times have included in their celebrations an awareness of less fortunate people across the globe. Many of us have taken action or given money to try and tackle the injustices that people face - the damaging policies imposed on poorer countries, crippling debt, war, deforestation, child slavery and poverty.

How can it be right that there is a child dying from hunger somewhere in the world every 5 seconds. How can that be? And now linked to all that, we are starting to grasp the enormity of climate change.

I don't find this easy. Every new bit of news seems more terrifying than the last - the Greenland ice sheets are melting, the Great Barrier Reef is dying, the Arctic ice could have disappeared within 5 years, a third of species face extinction and millions face drought and famine.

These reports fill many of us with fear. I certainly feel scared by these reports. Indeed, one could argue that if you don’t find it scary, you haven’t really understood it. However we mustn't let this fear paralyse us - or trigger some shut-off mechanism that stops us from taking actions. We need to find room to digest the realities and also to see that despite the horrors there are many signs of hope - real hope. We can stop irreversible climate change - but we need to act fast - and time is running out.

Many of you will have read in the national press in August, that based on conservative estimates, a group of global warming experts have said that we have only 100 months to avoid disaster. 100 months to avoid disaster.

Many people have reacted asking: 'how can we be sure these scientists have it right? There are countless computer models and scenarios and isn't this just part of some natural change? Temperatures have gone up and down in the past?'

Of course it is not an exact science but the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and it's in-depth analysis by 2,500 of the world's top climate scientists is in no doubt that we are responsible for climate change and that we need to act with all urgency. Every new piece of research confirms the need to act with all haste. This change is quite different from anything seen on the planet before.

Indeed in 928 articles on climate change published in peer-reviewed journals in ten years, not one of those articles doubted the cause of global warming - yet more than half of articles in the popular press have done just that. It is no wonder if our press keeps questioning the science, that many of us may still have doubts about how dangerous climate change might be. But even if we do have doubts can we really take the risk of not acting?

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today, is the highest it has been for the past 650,000 years. In just 250 years, as a result of the coal-fired Industrial Revolution, and changes to land use such as the growth of cities and the felling of forests, we have released billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. The science shows that if these gases accumulate beyond a certain level - often termed a "tipping point" - global warming will accelerate, potentially beyond our control. This would be catastrophic for life on Earth.

It is time to act. We have less than 100 months before we could reach such a tipping point for the beginnings of runaway climate change. Everything we do now matters. And, possibly more so than at any other time in recent history. Let us not be remembered as the generation that monitored it's own demise so minutely and did so little to tackle climate change.

So what can we do? What must we do?

Archbishop Rowan Williams has said "For the Church of the 21st Century, good ecology is not an optional extra but a matter of justice." Yet as individuals we cannot realistically change the nation's energy, food and transport systems on our own. As the Archbishop has said, it is for governments to be prepared to take difficult decisions on climate change.

So how can we support - and challenge - our politicians to do this? To take those difficult decisions? To make the radical changes we need? We must tell them - write to them, meet with them and let them know that we cannot accept their business-as-usual approach. We cannot accept their plans to expand air travel or build more coal-fired power stations. Former US Vice President Al Gore has even called for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of anymore of these coal plants as he sees them as so damaging.

There are signs that politicians are listening, Gordon Brown this week created a new department for climate change and energy. This is a great step and I sincerely hope that it will lead to the decisive actions on climate change we need, but I know we have much more to do than this. It is for example unacceptable to still argue that because we are under pressure economically we cannot address climate change. As Bishop Browning said at the recent Lambeth conference: “This is a short-sighted position because we will pay...the price we will pay if we don’t act is so much greater.”

Of course Britain cannot act alone but it is delusory to think that developing countries will fundamentally change until wealthy countries take a lead. Let us not forget that a significant share of those CO2 emissions from countries like China and India are to make products that we consume here. And already it is the poorest who are paying for our CO2 emissions. Oxfam show that the average Somali is about 100 times more likely to die from events caused by climate change than the average American, despite emitting roughly 16,000 times less carbon.

But apart from getting our politicians to act there is much we can do locally. We have already seen many actions. Individuals, businesses, councils and organisations are all starting to play their part.

Randwick Village Hall which opened last month, is the country's first carbon neutral village hall. Some 12 eco-homes also opened locally last month to encourage others to take similar pioneering measures - like adding to their homes solar thermal systems, wood pellet boilers, rainwater harvesting systems or extra insulation. Indeed one of the most important measures we can all take is to cut our carbon emissions by seriously insulating our homes.

What else can we do? Save on the food miles by growing more foods locally and supporting local producers. We have two excellent local farm projects which people can join for a weekly box of local organic food. Stroud Farmers market won best Farmers market in the UK award and has now been shortlisted for the BBC food Oscars. We also have our own wonderful village shop - and in the Playing fields the Parish Orchard. Some in the Parish are working to ensure we have some local allotments.

What else? Eating less meat - 70 per cent of the world's agricultural land is now used for rearing farm animals - and many are inhumanly factory farmed - if we all ate less meat that would mean less CO2. The University of Surrey suggests this week that too avoid runaway climate change we need to all ration meat to 4 modest portions a week and one litre of milk.

What else? We have to think about how we travel and whether travel is necessary. Enjoy the beauty of our local Cotswolds rather than travelling further afield. We can switch off our TV and other equipment rather than using the stand-by mode. We can recycle and compost. Support the charity shops and car boot sales. We can look to buy the most energy-efficient products. Best of all though is to consume less.

So there is more that each of us can do - and there is plenty of advice available. I would urge people to take the actions they can - better still take those actions together with others as we are stronger together.

We cannot now avoid significant climate change so while we must work to avoid that 'tipping point' of runaway change we also need to build resilient communities that will cope with the coming challenges like the floods we saw last year. The credit crunch is already hitting the poorest and most vulnerable in our communities. More than ever we need to look out for each other and strengthen our communities.

This summer in Bread Street over in Ruscombe we had a wonderful street party with music, food children's games and even a bread competition - we put it on to get to know each other better - sadly in many of our communities many of us are either alone or leading such busy lives that we hardly know who we live next door to - yet caring for our neighbours and fellow human beings goes hand-in-hand with looking after the planet.

Tackling climate change may seem impossible.

Yet history is full of examples of things happening that previously seemed impossible. The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union or the ending of apartheid in South Africa. Indeed Britain achieved astonishing things while fighting and recovering from the second world war. In the six years between 1938 and 1944, the economy was re-engineered and there were dramatic cuts in resource use and household consumption. We consumed less of almost everything, yet were more healthy.

It was Churchill who perceiving the dangers that lay ahead, struggled to mobilise the political will and industrial energy of the British Empire to meet those dangers. He did so often in the face of strong opposition. Climate change is the gathering storm of our generation. And the implications - should we fail to act - are even more dire.

The best way to avoid the things we fear, is to get on with the job of stopping them happening. If enough people lead the way then the politicians will be forced to follow. These are difficult times but I am confident that we can see them through if we all work together.

I'd like finish with a verse from the poem 'Providence' by George Herbert in 1633. I heard it on the radio this week when the Bishop of Liverpool discussed how Herbert's image of the bee is a suitable one for a sustainable economy. Here's nature showing us how to make a profit without there always having to be a loser: a truly sustainable harvest.

Here it is:

'Bees work for man; and yet they never bruise
Their master's flower, but leave it, having done,
As fair as ever, and as fit to use;
So both the flower doth stay, and hony run.'

Thank you.