Voicing Sustainable Wales support and scaling up climate action together.
The future is here
Listen to the Climate Clever Conversations discussions
A follow up meeting Climate Clever Conversations was held on 14 February 2024 above SUSSED, James St Porthcawl. Listen to the recording here.
Read MoreSuccessful Launch of Sleepwalking Into Climate Change? films
Monday, 29th January saw the public launch at the Hi Tide, Porthcawl of three short films highlighting, especially young people’s concerns about climate change -‘Sleepwalking into Climate Change?
The event was great, with close to 100 people attending, including the leader of Bridgend CBC, Cllr Huw David , Cllr John Spanswick and Town Councillor Jonathon Pratt.
Porthcawl and Bridgend will not be immune and so the films were made on location in Porthcawl, to also challenge and recognise that we all have a role - public, politicians and pundits - NOW.
Discussions were held after each film and the politicians joined in the conversations. We were delighted with the public response.
Notes were taken of concerns and opinion and many comments were filmed. These will be sent to the Welsh government’s ‘Climate Conversation’ team, who are gathering evidence across Wales from public events to help inform a new policy. The aim to help guide organisations to plan for net zero in a fair and just way called ‘A Just Transition Framework‘ to be published this year.
However, the next meeting for those who want to help propel a sustainable future is on February 14th 2024 6.45pm in the Green Room above SUSSED. Porthcawl CF36 3BG Snacks and refreshments will be provided – it’s Valentine’s Day!
Earth Day 2022
Earth Day Livestream – April 22nd – Nature in the Race to Zero
https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2022/
EARTHDAY.ORG, together with our partners, is proud to present the Earth Day Climate Action Summit. We need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century to keep the global temperature below 1,5°C. Join us to learn about some key solutions that will help us deliver the greenhouse gas reductions needed by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/zLqk6VTF97c
12:00 PM EDT Environment in Time of War
Kathleen Rogers, President of EARTHDAY.ORG
Iryna Stavchuk, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for European Integration, Ukraine
Carl Bruch, Director of International Programs, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)
Stefan Smith, Senior Programme Manager, Disasters & Conflicts, UNEP
Michael Bothe, Professor Emeritus of Public Law, J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main
José R. Allen, International Environmental Lawyer, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)
Jenipher's Coffi at COP26 watch the Wales & Uganda discussion
Watch Jenipher Sambasi and Elen Jones from Jenipher’s Coffi discuss the creation of Jenipher’s Coffi and the climate change implications of agroforestry.
(Jenipher’s Coffi is available at SUSSED)
Wales and Uganda – collective communities action | #COP26
Health and wellbeing impacts of climate change Infographics - from Public Health Wales
Public Health Wales has published a series of infographics highlighting the importance of climate change impact on the health and wellbeing of the population of Wales, and to support public bodies and businesses to take action to address any impacts.
Launched to coincide with the Council of Parties 26 (COP26), the infographics focus on the relationships between the natural environment and health, the population groups affected and some of the key health and wellbeing impacts of climate change and those population groups who could be affected.
Download the infographics from Pubic Health Wales, examples from the multiple page infographics are below.
Click to enlarge
Back the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill
Updated July 2022
Visit https://www.zerohour.uk/bill
From the https://www.ceebill.uk/ website:
CEE Bill - Creating a Constituency Campaign
Download guide doc here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nWngEAQlccKnG8NoXay4Q2int5hUd5suHFQ0CXlN3kM/edit
Parliament declared a Climate Emergency back in 2019 – but actions haven’t matched their words. An emergency requires strong, decisive action to reverse the climate and ecological crisis.
Enter the Climate & Ecological Emergency Bill.
The Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill is a Private Member's Bill first presented in the UK Parliament in September 2020 by Caroline Lucas MP, along with supporting MPs from seven political parties. Over the last year, it's gathered the backing of over 140 MPs and Peers from all major parties – as well as from hundreds of organisations, businesses and local councils. For the full list of our supporters, click here. In June 2021, we took the opportunity provided by the new 2021-22 parliamentary session to update and strengthen the Bill, which you can read in full below. You can also read more about Private Members' Bills on this website.
WHY?
Why do we need the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill?
Drafted by scientists, legal experts, ecological economists and environmentalists, the CEE Bill is designed specifically to reverse the climate and ecological breakdown we're facing.
The Bill requires the UK to take responsibility for its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions, to actively restore biodiverse habitats, and to stop damaging our natural world through the production, transportation and disposal of the goods we consume.
Tabled by Caroline Lucas MP (Green), the Bill now has support of 110 MPs across 8 political parties, representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Seeing both the wood and the trees
Guest Blog by Peter Adamson
The place where I’ve lived for the past ten years is abundant in trees. All kinds of them. It is an ex-coal mining valley, but you wouldn’t know it if you were not from around here.
The old pit site, a stone’s throw from my modest old miner’s cottage, where I’ve retreated in my middle age, is green and lush after the intensive planting of trees in the last decade or so.
Hazel, rowan, birch, sycamore and willow are now well established throughout the site, though they are by no means mature yet.
What was the pit site has been landscaped and is now called Parc Arael Griffin. It is home to the Guardian statue, erected as a memorial to a mining disaster that happened here in June 1960.
The site, being on a hillside, gives the visitor good views. You cannot help be struck by its scenic location, encircled by thickly wooded hillsides.
Some of this woodland is native beech, oak and birch. But then there are plantations of pine and fir trees, some of which are larch. For a pine tree the larch is unusual as it is deciduous.
Recently, feeling depressed about seemingly out of control climate change – we are in a run of years where each successive year is warmer than the last – I was casting around for some shred of comfort. I began to think about some of the mature trees I see in the woodlands near where I live.
Some of the plantation trees are now impressively tall. They’ve been left alone and have had the space(forgive the pun) - to truly branch out. The woody mass of these trees is concentrated in their trunks and not in their branches. These are trees planted for their commercial value: straight trunks that rapidly put on weight.
Then there are the beech trees. These are not plantation trees but native woodland. Again, they have been left alone and rather than being tall they are often squat. Hulking, burly fellows that they are, the circumference of some of their trunks is something to wonder at.
Every year these trees expand in size. Depending on the variety, they will continue to expand indefinitely. And each year of growth is more than the last. The increase in size is increasingly steep as the years go by.
There is a levelling off of growth eventually, or they die, or get blown over in storms, but with the correct variety and given a good site, trees can get to be an enormous size.
Thus trees all over the world are soaking up carbon dioxide on an annual basis, and holding it there. If global emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is not yet under control, some comfort should be taken from the knowledge that trees will increasingly draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and neutralise it in the form of wood, timber or, to use a more technical term, biomass, for years to come.
Trees are also democratic. We can all support them, either by planting in a garden or scrap of urban wasteland. We can watch out for them when they are in danger from developers.
To help us with this there are charitable organisations like the Woodland Trust, and Tree Aid, which will be more than happy to plant trees on our behalf, or give advice on planting our own. And if you’ve never done it before, autumn and spring are the seasons for planting.
One of my favourite trees is the beech. They seem to do well in upland areas. I have spent a good deal of time walking and hiking the hills over the years, and I have developed a great affinity for them.
It is a tree that can live for a very long time, centuries even. Some of them with their bulk, and grey hide, might be compared to animals like whales or elephants. I’m drawn to place my hands on their flanks sometimes, to feel a greater connection with them!
The grey bark of the beech is skin smooth. Not that dissimilar to our own skins. And the shape and form of the trunk and branches is often startlingly similar to the human body, with a curly-wurly and muscular quality to them. Some of them could be Greek gods or goddesses.
Trees have traditionally had many uses, providing basic materials for all manner of things from buildings to boats. In this area, wooden pit props would have assisted in the mining of coal.
Today, they help filter polluted air in our cities and towns, and, as we’ve already explored, they are an already existing ‘carbon capture and storage’ solution for us.
But they can also be an inspiration for our inner, creative lives too, so we should cultivate and celebrate that aspect of trees.
‘The wood is a person,
Nature’s old pensioner.
Crabby and crooked,
Wilful and wayward,
Watching the river,
Hugging the hill.
Wearing green garments -
Leafy cloaks and hats -
Changing her fashion in autumn
To something more dashing,
Gold, red and tawny,
Before she goes naked.
Decorating herself
With lichen and bracken,
Accommodating small animals
And birds in her hair.’
From The Mink War by Gene Kemp
Port Talbot Steel Works
Notes on ‘June 20: The Ratling’ & ‘June 24: Razors’ - Robert Minhinnick
Utopia Street’ is a proposed long prose work by Robert Minhinnick. Here, he described two excerpts, published in issue 4 of ‘The Lonely Crowd’ literary magazine, in May 2016. It will be followed by linked essays on ‘Cog y Brain’ and ‘Solar:from Park Avenue to Solcer House to Masdar City’.
This work references climate change and mass migration without attributing causes. The whole is fiction, fragmentary, unscientific, and features characters inhabiting the duneland of Swansea Bay. There are few crowds, many individuals.
The main participants are twins. Cai feels himself overshadowed by his resourceful sister, yet capable of heroism. Ffresni (Ffrez) shows authority, and is also a musician who records the ‘natural’ world.
Utopia Street includes extracts from an ‘archive’ of writings about Sicily, Iraq and the ‘Persian Gulf’. This is the work of ‘the Old Man’, the twins’ grandfather, who spends his days watching a film he once made in Babylon, searching for an image he remembers. This will “explain everything”.
The archive includes notes he made while at ‘Festival Island’ in the Persian Gulf. The Old Man spent a year there, paid in ‘solar dirhams’ (solari) until repelled by its ‘solar fascism’. But whatever reputation he once had is compromised. A new generation has turned against artists who accepted the munificence of that island emirate. A young PhD student has denounced him.
‘Festival Island’ is fictional but based on Saadiyat and Zaya Nurai, off Abu Dhabi. ‘Mazdar City’, now under construction, is another influence. According to its publicity it is “a dhow-shaped island in a solar sea”. Nearby Yas Island in reality incorporates ‘Ferrari Land’ and similar concepts. Indeed, the Arabian Gulf is rich in islands, natural, man-made or in process of volcanic creation.
Utopia Street developed from ‘Mouth to Mouth: a Recitation Between Two Rivers’, a long poem that might appear as ‘a book within a book’ in a collection from Carcanet. Also, ‘Letters from the Future’ (available on this site), by a host of authors, is part of its genesis.
Utopia Street comprises a series of linked short stories, also featuring Elmet, Sparkle, and several ‘east Europeans’. They live in an abandoned farm, finding refuge in flood-damaged houses.
New arrivals in the group are other young women and an older man called Shader, based on the Glyn Jones’s ‘Seven Keys to Shaderdom’. Elmet’s past in Bristol, his Somali heritage, and his arrival in the dunes, await development.
Where these people live is subject to both flooding and drought. Meanwhile, the Old Man’s archive includes his letters from ‘Festival Island’, saved by Ffrez. As he has malaria (as do others in Utopia Street) it is difficult to ascertain everything he writes.
What occur are descriptions of ‘The Works’, based on ‘Port Talbot steelworks’, for me spectacular from the outside, sinister when within. A few scenes derive from camps in Calais and the US/Mexico border, but all the characters have to live as ‘scavengers’, ‘beachcombers’, ‘trespassers’.
Particular imagery concerns surveillance, especially by drones. There is pursuit but this might be by horseback as much as modern means. And pursuit by whom?
However, I don’t find the use of mobile phones/cameras /internet easy in fiction. I’m moved more by evidence of old technologies. That’s why I wrote about derelict areas of ‘The Works’ in Limestone Man (Seren, 2015), and why Ffrez becomes frustrated with the Net when she gains access:
“Now, if I press a switch, she thought, it will reveal sites like ruined temples. Which gods were worshipped there? What foolishness pursued?”
Realistically, this project might never be ‘completed’. Yet I thank ‘Literature Across Frontiers’ for the opportunity to visit the Abu Dhabi Book Fair, April/May2016, which allowed me to work on Utopia Street and other writings.
Image: Jo Mazelis
Robert Minhinnick is a poet, novelist, short story writer and essayist. He has won Wales Book of the Year and the Forward Poetry Prize. He has read at literary festivals around the world.
Copyright © Robert Minhinnick, 2016.
First published in: THE LONELY CROWD NEW HOME OF THE SHORT STORY
Notes on ‘June 20: The Ratling’ & ‘June 24: Razors’
Robert Minhinnick
Issue Four / Spring features ‘June 20: The Ratling’ and ‘June 24: Razors’, two possible excerpts from Utopia Street.