Category: Climate crisis

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Methane: a threat and an opportunity.

Mick Carter

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 […]

Le mot injuste…

Mike Zollo

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 […]

The media: the biggest obstacle to addressing transport emissions

Caspar Hughes

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 […]

The final hurricane : Inspiration4 comes at a great cost to the planet

Graham Hurley

Cape Canaveral, home of the Kennedy Space Centre, is in Florida.  The Sunshine State has long been the favourite destination for hundreds of thousands of tourists, many of them British, in search of warmth, fabulous beaches, and the many excitements of Disneyworld.  More recently, along with neighbouring Alabama and Louisiana, it has also become ground […]

“Code red for humanity”

Belinda Bawden

“Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying” Surely no-one could have missed these headlines on the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on 9 August 2021? The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the Working Group’s report was nothing less than “a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening and […]

Everything we love is at stake at COP26

Tom Scott
Gyllingvase Beach

So many of the things we hold dear in our communities and local environment are threatened by the accelerating climate emergency. Tom Scott writes of one spot in Falmouth that’s close to his heart. As Cornish beaches go, Gyllyngvase Beach in Falmouth is pretty modest – without the thundering surf and miles-long stretches of sand […]

Police called to peaceful ‘McSit-in’ climate protest in Taunton

Catherine Cannon

Climate activists held a sit-in protest at Taunton McDonald’s on Saturday, demanding that the fast-food chain moves towards a plant-based menu. Branded a McSit-in, they brought their own plant-based lunches and occupied areas of the restaurant for over two hours, insisting that the fast-food chain takes responsibility for the destruction they say it causes on our […]

“The Politics of Climate Change:” – what can WE do?

Belinda Bawden
art work of politicians trying to avoid drowning in climate emergency

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published on 9 August 2021 was clear: “Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying” The Guardian’s verdict on the IPCC report: “As a verdict on the climate crimes of humanity, the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report could not be clearer: guilty as hell. The repeatedly-ignored […]

Climate emergency: a step change must be made NOW – letter to the editor

Editor-in-chief

Every day on the television news and in the newspapers we see huge parts of the world on fire and other parts submerged beneath exceptional flooding. The recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report makes it clear that this is undeniably the result of global warming caused by human activity. This report goes […]

Electric cars: the rhetoric vs the reality

Anna Andrews
empty road under beautiful sky

“We bought an electric car thinking we were doing the right thing… but it’s cost us a lot to set the whole thing up.” So said my friend Trisha, after she read my “Net zero” article in West Country Voices and thought our readers might be interested in her experience of buying her first electric […]

Net zero: delusional ambition or deliverable goal?

Anna Andrews
industrial pollution

“This country led the world in innovation during the Industrial Revolution, and now we must lead the world to a cleaner, greener form of growth. Standing by is not an option. Reaching net zero by 2050 is an ambitious target but it is crucial that we achieve it to ensure we protect our planet for […]

Shock at ‘pre-crime’ attack on peaceful XR craftivists comes ahead of Patel’s draconian bill to suppress dissent

Rosie Haworth Booth
Xr protest placard

Leave our arts and crafts alone and free the press, say local activists. Extinction Rebellion activists in North Devon have been shocked and angered by police action in London ahead of last weekend’s demonstrations by many campaigning groups against the new government bill drawn up by the Home Secretary which, says young North Devon climate […]

G7 in Cornwall: greenwash, gibberish and glorious rebellion

Tom Scott
Giant globe centrepiece of climate change protest in Falmouth showing world on fire or flooded

It’s been a crazy few days here in Cornwall. The skies have been buzzing with police drones and weird-looking military aircraft, like monstrous black insects. Police with machine-guns have been hovering around the entrance to my local Tesco. And down at Carbis Bay, inside their ‘ring of steel’, world leaders concluded their deliberations on the […]

Is the G7 being held in Cornwall or Cloud Cuckoo Land?

Tom Scott
massive cruise ship in Falmouth to house police for G7

The government’s claim that the G7 in Cornwall will be “carbon neutral” is unadulterated greenwash. I just walked to the end of my road in Falmouth to have a look at the MS Silja Europa, the massive cruise ship on which a thousand police personnel will be housed during the G7 summit in Cornwall next […]

A ban on the use of peat…or is it?

Mick Fletcher

News that the government is contemplating a partial ban on the use of peat in horticulture is welcome but needs to be put in context. A government that is serious about tackling climate change would have to take some really tough decisions. To reduce emissions from air travel for example it would have to face […]

“Why I was arrested blockading Rupert Murdoch’s printing press”

Caspar Hughes

On 5 September last year I was part of the Extinction Rebellion group that blockaded Rupert Murdoch’s printing press. We knew we were going up against a powerful group of men who own the Sun, The Times, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, all of which are printed at Rupert Murdoch’s printing press in Hertfordshire. […]

Natural remedies: how you can help address the bio-diversity crisis

Anna Andrews

“The UK has ‘led the world’ in destroying the natural environment” The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) produces a ‘Red List’ of threatened species. Of 8341 UK species assessed under IUCN criteria, 41 per cent have declined since the 1970s and 15 per cent are threatened with extinction; 133 are already extinct. Those […]

Are XR being targeted in Cornwall? Letter to the editor

Editor-in-chief

Dear Editor, According to Cornwall Live, on 5 May “Truro Farmers Market’s biggest event is cancelled because it’s now a site for G7 summit protests. The market has had a terrible year and now its biggest event has to be called off”  Truro’s Lemon Quay was to have hosted a special 5 day market during […]

Somerset Green New Deal Economy Forum 22 May

Editor-in-chief

Somerset Green New Deal Economy Forum: Social Justice and a New Economy. Taunton and West Somerset Build Back Better Campaigns (Green New Deal) are committed to a post COVID-19 recovery that embeds social justice and health and wellbeing in all its manifestations – including philosophy, politics and practical actions. The forum will be held on […]

Act now to stop the Parley waste incinerator

Sadie Parker

According to the latest edition of the Spectator, the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November this year is seen by Number 10 as a chance to relaunch ‘Brexit Britain’ as a green superpower. Hmm. To be a green superpower, you actually have to be green – and two-jets Johnson is taking us backwards in […]

This Good Earth – recording of WCB event now available

Editor-in-chief

For those who missed the West Country Voices event on 11 Feb 2021, the director Robert Golden has produced an audio record of the proceedings. As it was a recording of a zoom event, the sound can be erratic so please make allowances. The event was a special Q&A session following the release of Robert […]

Nigel Farage and a very murky forest

Tom Scott

Nigel Farage has joined forces with a Dutch fund manager found to have misled the public to promote “carbon offsetting” through forestry. The conspiracy theorist behind Cornwall’s weirdest hotel is also involved. So how exactly does this motley crew intend to save the world? Eyebrows were raised yesterday when a company calling itself Dutch Green […]

Dartmoor’s wounded land – part 3: what can be done?

Tony Whitehead

In the first two parts of this series I looked at the parlous state of the Dartmoor Special Area of Conservation. I gave reasons for how it came to be in such a poor state, and covered the influence of post war agricultural policy. In this final part, I will look at what can be […]