DorsetCAN Newsletter 7 ~ October 2021
As always, we're juggling hope and regeneration against fear and apocalypse. For hope and regeneration to win through, we need to keep up the pressure. For the others, no action is needed.
In this issue: what we can do in October to build hope and achieve regeneration.
In this issue: what we can do in October to build hope and achieve regeneration.
Job #1 - Communicate and act
- Send this newsletter to someone who doesn't receive it. (Use this link: dorsetcan.org/october)
- Join the Dorset Green Living Project (details below) to reduce your carbon footprint
- If you haven't, join DorsetCAN as a member to make our voice stronger. Then ask someone else to join
- Ask a local business to join DorsetCAN (see Rupert Read's article on workplace action below)
- Engage with your town or parish council (see the ZERO Hour campaign below)
- Join a DorsetCAN team - Land Use or Transport or Energy Team - help get actions going locally
- Share our posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
- Write a piece for your local paper, (parish) magazine or website - get people to sign up as DorsetCAN members
- Attend the DorsetCAN COP26 Preparation event on 13th October (Zoom Link here - details below)
We have a dream for Dorset: a Dorset with clean rivers, fantastic public transport, chemical free fields, carbon neutral homes for everyone, not just the rich, regenerating wildlife, locally-grown food, resilient town and village communities AND the Girt Dorset Hedge.
Tell someone about our dream. If they share it, ask them to sign up to it at dorsetcan.org
Tell someone about our dream. If they share it, ask them to sign up to it at dorsetcan.org
So... how can I help?
After an extraordinary September, including Great Big Green Week offerings in Bridport, Shaftesbury, Weymouth and Beaminster, the Planet Purbeck Festival and Open Greener Homes across the county, it may be hard to imagine doing more. But we need concerted action to get Dorset Council, local businesses, the government and ourselves to STOP trashing our children's future NOW (not by 2050).
- The Dorset Green Living Project is doing fantastic work to involve groups, communities and families in Dorset in working together to understand climate change, reduce their carbon footprint and create change from the bottom up. They're looking for Ambassadors to start a group where they live and for people to join a group. They have put together The Green Living Guide to help groups and individuals to take action in their community. Please visit their website and see how you can take part.
- If you can see ways that your town or parish council or other local organisation could take action locally -- talk to our Action Team or the relevant DorsetCAN team (see a list here). We'll support and publicise your idea. PLUS: A really useful step to take with town or parish councils is explained in ZERO Hour's 2-step campaign guide for the Climate & Ecological Emergency Bill. Why two steps? By persuading local councils to back the CEE Bill, we can prove support is there, laying the groundwork to ask MPs to join the campaign. Read the ZERO Hour guide.
- [Talking of councils, if you're a county, town or parish councillor -- or know someone who is -- join the monthly Councillors' Climate & Ecological Emergency Support Group. It's a fantastic resource and sharing space for all councillors of any political persuasion. Contact Caz Dennett or Julie-Ann Booker for details of the next one.] The next meeting is on Tuesday 12th October at 12:30, with 3 Environment Agency staff, who will cover flooding (risks, legislation, capital investment, waterways management and flood wardens).
- If you're keen to get involved in our own and other campaigns on the Dorset Local Plan, Questions to Dorset Council, the Portland Incinerator, the Girt Dorset Hedge and getting Dorset Council to stop investing its pension fund in fossil fuels, contact the relevant DorsetCAN team (see that list again).
- We have promotional cards and banners that you can distribute/borrow. Contact dorsetcan@gmail.com for details.
- If you're anywhere near Shaftesbury or Purbeck, get involved with Planet Shaftesbury and Planet Purbeck. They're doing amazing things with energy and commitment. See Planet Shaftesbury's latest newsletter and the Planet Purbeck website.
- Join our online meeting on Wednesday 13th October at 19:30. Climate Reality/COP26 ~ Hear from: Local Dorset organisations with plans for COP 26 ~ Ellie Wills & Elena Cantarello - members of Climate Reality and both working at Bournemouth University ~ Neil Morisetti, former UK Climate and Energy Security Envoy and specialist on the implications of climate change for security and strategic planning. Then it's your chance to share views and decide which actions to prioritise and amplify for COP26. Zoom Link.
Climate Thinking
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Rupert Read's moderate workplace approach to climate activism
In an article written for the Green House Think Tank - and flagged by Planet Shaftesbury - Extinction Rebellion founder member and spokesman Rupert Read suggests that the time has come to pivot climate action strategy from the radical to the moderate. Most people who understand the gravity of the climate crisis still don't want to get arrested, or become a laughing stock or embarrass their children. So where can we can take action? At work. At work we have different roles, we have a responsibility to customers and the public, we can be part of a wider movement and we can achieve large-scale change. Read Rupert's article here. |
Michael Dower's Special Powers
Writing of Beaminster's recent experience of involving and engaging the public in local issues (including climate change and zero-carbon homes), Michael Dower highlights three keys to doing it well: The power of a team ~ The power of practical example ~ The power of public opinion. An inspiration and case study for any Dorset town, Michael's piece describes Beaminster ECO Committee's first public event – the Big Green Day held last month – involving a dozen local organisations and over 40 local people. It also looks at the impact of the town's part in the Dorset Greener Homes programme this year. Read Michael's article here. |
Lest we forget why we're doing this...
The climate is collapsing, the ice cap is collapsing, with irreversible implications for the future and STILL WE DON'T LEARN.
We must STOP NOW investing in fossil fuels, emitting CO2, polluting rivers, poisoning insects and the soil (not by 2050)
We must STOP NOW investing in fossil fuels, emitting CO2, polluting rivers, poisoning insects and the soil (not by 2050)
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Ice Cap Collapse
Last month Christiana Figueres (former Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) visited the Russell Glacier in Greenland. She writes: "... the backdrop was collapsing. We’d arrived in Greenland a few days after the first ever rain was recorded on the ice cap. It was warmer than London. Ice was melting into rivers. Millions of pieces of the glacier were floating on open water. Annual snowfall can no longer replenish the melting ice from Greenland's ice cap: the entire ecosystem is in a state of collapse. Witnessing this first hand, I felt the precariousness of our situation more deeply than I ever have. We cannot avoid the inevitable sea level rise this melting will bring, not to mention other interconnected impacts to our weather systems and ocean currents." Read Christiana's blog & watch her film on globaloptimism.com |
Race to the bottom: the disastrous, blindfold rush to mine the deep sea - One of the largest mining operations ever seen on Earth aims to despoil an ocean we are only barely beginning to understand. Read the Guardian article
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(Inter)NATIONAL & LOCAL NEWS
Celebrating the good news | Facing the bad
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Electric ferries
Stena Line has signed a contract to put electric ferries on a 3 hour route between Sweden and Denmark. These are big vessels, carrying vehicles and up to 1,500 passengers and the battery size of 60-70 MWH seems to be far larger than any other electric ship on the seas today. Stena said the cost would be about 20% more than conventional equivalents. Recharging time will be about an hour, requiring powerful new electricity connections in the ports. EV sales in Europe
In many places new car sales remain depressed but the share held by EVs is rising rapidly. In France and the UK, EVs captured just under 20% - almost doubling market share in a year. In Germany, the number was almost 28% of total sales. The Netherlands reached 30%. Sales of pure battery cars, as opposed to plug-in hybrids, are growing faster and selling better than diesels in many countries. TED Countdown...
is a global initiative (from TED Talks) to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, turning ideas into action. There's a summit ahead of COP26 and opportunities to bring talks to your community. Read more and Join |
Affordable homes in Dorset
In its March 2021 response to the Dorset Council’s draft Local Plan, Dorset CAN called for a radical increase in the annual total of affordable houses built in the county. (The Council had announced with pride the construction in 2020 of 301 affordable houses, while reporting a waiting list of 6,000 needing affordable homes!) So we welcome the announcement that Magna Housing, in partnership with Curo & Swan Housing Association, intends to build 2,425 new affordable homes across Dorset and Somerset over the next five years. This is made possible by grant funding of £160.4 million from Homes England. Paul Read, director of new supply and sustainability at Magna, said: “The project will start with 300 new homes, all delivered through our innovative modular homes programme. These homes will be all-electric, net zero from the outset.” Building sustainable modular homes will help to reduce running costs and carbon emissions. Magna will provide a mix of social and affordable rent and low-cost shared ownership homes. Read the Bridport News article |
Prospects for COP26
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Gloom…
Alok Sharma, UK cabinet member and President of COP26, has been trying to persuade governments internationally to commit to a sharp cut in gas emissions. With the same aim, Boris Johnson co-hosted a summit of world leaders on 20 September at the UN in New York. But two new reports show that key targets may be far off track. On 17 September, a UN report showed that current pledges on emissions would result in an increase of 16% in emissions by 2030 compared with 2010 levels (rather than the required cut). And an OECD report showed that climate funding from the rich world to developing countries to help cut emissions and cope with extreme weather, is falling about $20 billion short of a long-standing target of $100 billion a year. UN Secretary General, António Guterres, warned of “a high risk of failure” at COP26: “The world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7° of global heating. It is clear that everyone must assume their responsibilities. We need more ambition on finance, adaptation and emission cuts. This is a crucial question of trust between nations.” |
...and Optimism
Cutting methane emissions. The USA and the EU have pledged to cut global methane emissions by almost a third, in a significant step towards fulfilling the agreement made at the Paris climate summit of 2015. The US/EU pact sets a target of cutting global methane emissions, based on 2020 levels; by at least 30% by 2030. (Guardian 24/9/21) Popular pressure Two new national pressure groups – Insulate Britain, and Green New Deal Rising – are calling for urgent policy changes in the face of climate change. Insulate Britain wants all homes in the UK insulated by 2030 in order to cut carbon emissions, tackle fuel poverty and create jobs. GND Rising wants to make the climate crisis the “defining public political issue” at Westminster, putting MPs on the spot over whether they support the green new deal to tackle the ecological crisis, inequality and ”disintegrating public services”. These campaigns are part of a rising side of civil society pressure leading up to COP26 and beyond. Tens of thousands of people from civil society groups and protest movements from across Europe are expected to gather in Glasgow to make their voices heard. |
What Else Can I Do?
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Can you sing?
Music Declares Emergency aims to place action on climate at the heart of public thinking for COP26 by mobilising choir networks to create the largest musical event ever seen in the UK. How to take part. Are you involved in housing provision as a builder, estate manager, council employee, architect, planner?
The Biodiversity Toolkit for Housing Providers covers planting trees and shrubs, sowing lawns, vertical planting, green roofs, container gardens, ivy, insect hotels, hedgehog management, ponds, hedgerows, bats, herbicides, water butts... everything you need to know. Here it is... If you can't install a heat pump... try HVO
HVO - renewable liquid fuel - is a very low carbon option: Housing and heating need the most urgent action in tackling climate change in the UK, with domestic heat making up around 20% of our carbon emissions. Decarbonisation will hard for rural households, as they face the high cost and disruption of installing new low carbon heating systems and many are older, larger, poorly insulated properties which need expensive home energy efficiency improvements. See the article at Politics Home. |
Know your peduncle from your pericarp
The Autumn Seed Harvest Handbook is a guide to collecting, treating and sowing the seeds of British trees, then raising them to saplings. It's a lovely book and a way for anyone with even a space in the corner of a yard or balcony to touch the magic of sowing and growing trees. Here's just one quote from the book: “Trees act as pegs, fountains, oceans, pipes and dams, their work ramifying through the whole economy of nature. They hold up the mountains. They cushion the rain-storm. They control the flood. They maintain the springs. They break the winds. They foster the birds.” |
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
4 online talks from Stour Valley Park:
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Rewilding Rivers
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- Dorset CAN's Land Use Team recently held an evening on the Dorset National Park - there'll be a report in the next issue of this newsletter. But coming up on 10th November is a talk entitled 'Restoring Nature’s Networks', presented by Nicola Hopkins of the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group and David Westbrook of Natural England. It should be an ideal springboard for the Team's 'Girt Dorset Hedge' campaign. Watch for updates or email: julie.leah150@gmail.com for details.
- Dorset CAN's Transport Group has its next meeting on Thursday 7th October 16.00-17.30. If you're interested in coming, please contact Helen Sumbler at helensplanetpurbeck@gmail.com.