Past articles
Articles:
March 2021: Changing Your Electricity Supplier
March 2021: Pond tidyup by Elsie Rogers
March 2021: The benefits of having a pond
December 2020: Ethical gifting
June 2020 4 Initiatives
April 2020 Don’t mow let it grow
April 2020 SEAG Grow Your Own Projects_Veg Patch Pals April 2020
March 2020 Our Beautiful Planet Writing Competition
February 2020 Public Meeting February 2020
November 2019 I’m Dreaming of a Greener Christmas
April 2021: New tennis ball recycling scheme started in the village.
Update March 2021: It is now over a year since we held our first public meeting and despite the pandemic and restrictions, we have continued to meet virtually and work at those aspects of environmental concern that the people at our general meeting highlighted. We have supported many environmental petitions nationwide and shared these with our mailing list to encourage government to put Climate Change at the top of their agenda. Our Veg Patch Pals initiative will be up and running again this year and sharing not only seeds and equipment but also advice and knowhow. (contact Monica Dent 07511733199).
Our wildflower meadow at Ridgley’s Field will be blooming soon, all being well, and we encourage everyone to take part in the No Mow May campaign to support pollinators in our gardens.
Over the Spring and Summer look out for our campaign to help us all reduce our carbon emissions at home and as we travel around. Check out your own Carbon footprint on the WWF website. https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/
Any comments, thoughts and ideas or to join our mailing list please email seag@btinternet.com.
Bucks County Council released their Climate Change Strategy last week. You can access it at https://buckinghamshire.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=337&MId=337&Ver=4
SEAG is affiliated to Bucks Climate Action Alliance. Please access the website: https://bucksclimateactionalliance.org Here you can see a considered response to this strategy and the work of a wide variety of groups around Buckinghamshire.
The Way Forward after Coronovirus
Coronavirus has affected us all, some much more than others and there is no doubt that life will be different in many ways in the future. Just how this new life will develop depends on whether we take this opportunity to reflect on the benefits accrued from a calmer, quieter world. It may help initially to consider what has contributed to this pandemic.
Scientists are still investigating how this virus started and there is rising demand for a full international enquiry to establish the facts. However, there are some facts which are well known and have been in the public domain for a long time. This coronavirus is one of a number of zoonotic viruses which have developed in response to the way humans interact with the natural world. It is thought that the virus may have developed as a result of cross contamination in the wet markets of Wuhan, China. The way we keep, slaughter and consume animals across the world has caused similar diseases. Also, we know that deforestation, increased global temperature and climate change are playing their part alongside fast-moving global travel and economic structures.
It is important to see the connections between this pandemic, climate change and devastation of the natural world. They are all interconnected.
Scientists have been warning us about the threat of climate change and bio-diversity loss. They say that the next ten years will be critical in working to keep global temperatures below a 1.5 degree increase and prevent hundreds of plants and animals becoming extinct. Yet no country on earth is currently pursuing necessary policies to prevent terrible consequences in the future. We could be heading for temperature rises in the region of three degrees with all the attendant threats to life on earth.
But we have to have hope now and for the future. Every day we hear stories of the way communities including our own have come together to lend help, guidance and comfort at such a difficult time. As we have been coming out to clap on Thursday evenings, we have been saluting the amazing people who work in the NHS, care homes and all the other essential services. Their work has never been so essential or appreciated. We have shown just how we can come together and work together. It proves that we have amazing abilities to do good, to create, invent and care.
At the same time the government have put huge sums of money to help businesses and individuals which would have seemed unthinkable in the past. Out of this awful situation we can salvage real hope for a better future. We have shown that significant change is possible – that we can make a better future, a better normal. We can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, we can work from home, drive less, share more, give more, take better care of nature and animals instead of exploiting them for profit and cheap produce.
Every part of life has been affected by this pandemic and it seems as if life will be very different for ever and it is now up to us to make this different as good as possible.
SEAG is interested to know from you what you have appreciated over the last few months and how these good things could be adapted and continue into the future. We have included some websites to visit to read more about this subject and welcome your ideas.
It has been suggested that we should all take up more of a plant- based diet and so we include on our page below some easy but very tasty recipes for Speen folk to enjoy. Happy cooking.
May 2020 update: as we continue to strive to overcome this pandemic and cope with the tragedies that have unfolded, we will hopefully soon be able to make some tentative steps towards life beyond lockdown. Many of us have recognised the positive effects of this quieter world. What aspects have you appreciated and how could we embrace these changes for the sake of our environment, our young people and a sustainable future? This is an excellent BBC article (below) that may inspire some thoughts, and SEAG is very interested to hear your ideas.
Give a gift and benefit the planet and wildlife at the same time
November 2020:
Open letter to Cllr. Martin Tett, Leader of Buckinghamshire Council
In July, Buckinghamshire Council, under your leadership, committed to taking meaningful action on climate change, and to produce a Strategy and Action Plan by February 2021.
At a council committee meeting on November 12, the results of a survey of Bucks residents were published, showing that 95% were concerned or very concerned about climate change.
Yet at that same meeting, one of your Cabinet team announced a surprise delay in the production of the promised Strategy, and a planned public consultation on a draft was pulled at the last minute. No proper explanation was given for the delay, no indication of a revised timetable, and no summary of the emerging thinking.
We recognise that producing and implementing a comprehensive strategy is not a quick or easy task, and we remain ever ready to work constructively with you to help achieve this.
But where is the necessary sense of urgency and purpose? And where is the evidence of actions being taken now to address the climate emergency, actions that do not need and cannot wait for a “perfect” Strategy to arrive?
The situation demands that consideration of climate change impacts has, without delay, to be a key factor in all decision-making across all council functions and all policy areas. This is not about spending money we haven’t got – it is about HOW we spend the money, about investment now for a better and less costly future. And one without runaway climate change.
Please, Cllr. Tett, demonstrate to the 95% that your Council is serious about delivering on your climate action promise.
Mike Chadwick, Coordinator, Bucks Climate Action Alliance, a non-party political alliance of organisations concerned about climate change.