“It’s hard not to see the Glasgow Climate Pact as an elaborate suicide note couched in the language of blah-blah-blah”: Tom Scott’s powerful COP26 report. I returned home from a few days at COP26 in Glasgow more bone-tired than I think I’ve ever been in my life, and watching the news coming out of the […]
Decarbonising transport – we’ve got it sorted. The UK government has been vocal in its support for electric cars as THE carbon-free future for travel. The transport carbon challenge solved! Or is it? The generously-funded motor lobby is powerful at getting its message across. We could be forgiven for thinking that electric cars are the […]
As part of COPnes26, the novella in verse – ‘Brixham Chimes‘ – will be performed to live music and lights in St Mary’s Church, Totnes, on Saturday 13 November at 18:30. Written by the film maker who made Sky Atlantic’s series ‘Fish Town’ about Brixham, this book sets an apocalyptic story firmly in the Brixham area and uses local […]
We are all being showered with news and comment about COP26 … but what is the Spanish context regarding the environment and climate change, and how is the climate conference viewed in Spain? Crucial! El Mundo reported on 30 October that the COP26 ‘guerra del clima’ (climate war) was starting in Glasgow “in the midst […]
The government is pursuing its by now familiar strategy of ramming through hideous legislation on very short timescales with no time for scrutiny. Why else did the government publish its plans late on Friday? In the hope that we would have no time to analyse or react. BIG MISTAKE. Feargal Sharkey posted this today, alerting […]
Our prime minister and wannabe eco-hero is photographed here sitting next to the greatest living eco-warrior and true hero, Sir David Attenborough (aged 95). Johnson is breaking the conference rules. Of course he is. It’s what he does. He is showing zero regard for the health of those around him. Of course he is. He […]
We’ve seen Insulate Britain emerge onto their M25 stage in the last couple of weeks with their brave and dangerous protests. They are prepared to go to prison as campaigners try to wake the population up to the fact we are careering headlong into the worst crisis humanity has ever faced. The M25 is an […]
We are posting this tweeted excerpt from Sir David Attenborough’s powerful and passionate speech and will bring you a report from COP26 later today.
The next two weeks are absolutely critical for the planet and West Country Voices will be featuring articles on the climate crisis, the conference and the parallel event being run in Totnes with our support. We will be watching closely to see if this government lives up to the green credentials it so frequently claims […]
Did you know that seagrass meadows are thirty-five times more effective at carbon capture than the typical tropical rainforest? Seagrass meadows account for only 0.1 per cent of the sea’s bed, but an estimated 10 per cent of its carbon capture. They are great for biodiversity, too. Scientists have found that they provide a habitat […]
COP26 is set to dominate the news over the next two weeks. Where does this leave our region and local communities? Totnes has started its own parallel environmental event to COP called ‘COPnes26’, continuing the town’s now well-established tradition of environmental and sustainability awareness. Here are some highlights: One of COPnes26’s roles is to enable community […]
I was surely not alone in feeling nausea and dread watching Mark Zuckerberg’s promo video for Facebook’s new incarnation (not to mention disgust at Nick Clegg trotting out insultingly complacent platitudes about regulation and data security). But disgust at the absolute sellout by someone who once seemed half decent is as nothing to the emotions […]
In a few days I head up to Glasgow for COP26. I have no formal role, indeed I don’t know why I’m going there really, and I can only be there for the first week, but I feel drawn to being there. In 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks did the same thing, the Civil […]
Peat is an accumulation of slowly decaying plant matter formed in cool wet conditions. It is a remarkable substance and one of the most important stores of carbon on the planet. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), globally the remaining area of near-natural peatland (more than three million km²) contains more […]
Hmmm! We thought we were celebrating but…whilst all of us who wrote, shared and spoke out against the sewage scandal have had an effect, we aren’t there yet… Flooded with negative press, irate public, powerful memes and fantastic pressure from social media, the government have SEMI-capitulated in an attempt to arrest the political and public […]
By now there can be very few people who have not seen the headlines about the astonishing number of Tory MPs who voted down the Lords’ Amendments after clause 78 of the Environment Bill to require sewage companies to make improvements, and to demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage. […]
George Eustice, Conservative MP for Camborne, Redruth & Hayle, and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The professional Cornishman stood for that famously green political party UKIP in the 1999 EU Parliament elections. He lost. He doesn’t promote his former affiliation on his website, of course, but if I were George Eustice […]
This government is trying to con us into believing that the trade deals being struck benefit the UK. They don’t and now there is talk that the NFU are resigned to the demise of cattle farming in the UK and are prioritising compensation for farmers put out of business by Brexit. And this film from […]
At 6pm on Saturday 30 October, I’ll be standing on my doorstep banging a saucepan more often used for stews. Not because I’ve taken leave of my senses (yet) – it’s part of a big national action called ‘Clang for Climate’ that’s encouraging people in communities across the country to raise the alarm about the […]
The BBC’s new docudrama The Trick dramatises events around ‘Climategate’ – the hacking and subsequent false representation of thousands of emails between climate scientists, just before the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. It’s an episode that can now be seen as a blueprint for a later – and even more devastating – disinformation operation. Writer Owen […]
COPnes26: 31 October – 14 November 2021 COPnes26 is a two-week series of planned events across Totnes, an opportunity for the town and wider community across our region to respond to the global climate crisis. Mirroring the international COP26 negotiations held in Glasgow during this same period, the town’s inclusive, conscious community will lead reflection […]
On Friday I took part in the launch of 26 Voices for Change, a new anthology of work by Cornwall-based writers responding to the climate and ecological emergency. Held in the splendid new performance space at The Cornish Bank in Falmouth as part of the Falmouth Book Festival, the event showcased an incredible diversity of […]
With just weeks and days to go until COP26 – the international global climate crisis summit – the environment is centre stage in the news. Hardly a day goes by without a fresh release of scientific data stating some bald and hugely concerning facts about the state of our natural world and ecosystem. Now (almost) […]
West Country Voices have been sent a copy of this letter from South Hams Cimate Action Network to MP for Totnes, Anthony Mangnall. It was sent on 15 September. To date there has been no response. Dear Anthony Action, not promises Thank you for setting out your reasons for saying no to Devon County Council’s […]
There have been a lot of letters in the Western Morning News about methane emissions from cattle sparked by a columnist claiming that there was a “spurious and completely unfounded presumption that methane from cows is a problem.” The columnist is a Dartmoor farmer and his response was, in my view, misleading. Methane is a […]
Watching Priti Patel tossing chunks of glistening legislation to the rapt audience at the Tory Party Conference is to be powerfully reminded of feeding time at the zoo. The same Pavlovian flutter of audience hands at the applause lines; the same salivating eagerness for yet more blood, yet more political protein; the same smacking of […]
As a lifelong linguist, I am only too aware of the power of language: its power to communicate or obfuscate, impress or offend, please or disappoint. Language is power. Years of study, experience and teaching language have blessed – or cursed – me with an acute sense of the value of language, and a feel […]
As is so often the case, the biggest barrier to the required step change for us to reduce our transport emissions is the media. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they are pushing electric cars as part of the solution to the climate and ecological crises. Electric cars are part of the problem. Globally […]
“It’s only one garage”, I was told when I mentioned that there was no HGV diesel at Lomond Gate earlier this week. But is it really not an issue when only some garages have no fuel? A thread: Lomond Gate is the last garage on the A82 going north that is really suitable for trucks. […]
“It’s crazy that our banks and pensions are investing in fossil fuels, when these are the very things that are jeopardizing the future that we are saving for.” Sir David Attenborough Campaigners from across the South West set up camp on the lawn outside Devon County Hall in Exeter for four days to demand that […]