Past events
Quakers and Transition
On 24th - 26th June 40 Quakers gathered in Woodbrooke in Birmingham to talk about Quakers and Transition. Transition Initiatives are community led responses to the pressures of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and the economic system. They aim to build resistance and drastically reduce carbon emissions. All those present were involved in a transition initiative or wanted to get more involved. We shared, built connections, visioned and planned about how Friends are and could link with the movement. Friends already seem to be doing alot!
This event was co-facilitated by Sunniva Taylor (QPSW), Pam Lunn (Woodbrooke), Jasmine Piercy (Living Witness and Quaker Voluntary Action), Gordon Matthews (Evesham Quaker Meeting and Transition Evesham Vale) and Catriona Pickering from the Transition Network.
Read about some of what we did and learnt on the blog of Pam Lunn:
http://woodbrookegoodlives.blogspot.com/2011/06/quakers-and-transition.html
Big Climate Connection
QPSW worked with the Methodist Church, Baptist Union of Great Britain, and the United Reform Church to produce a briefing pack to help people lobby their MPs as part of the Big Climate Connection. The mass lobby date has passed now but you can go and visit or write to your MP at any time, and we encourage you to do so! This pack outlines key climate change asks, and provides details to use in your discussion with your MP, as well as ideas of where to go for further information.
Download the briefing pack here [PDF: 631 kb].Key asks are:
- Ensure that the UK leads by example by putting in place a strategy to enable us to meet our domestic emission reduction targets.
- Put in place a legally binding global deal that delivers the scale and speed of emissions cuts necessary to keep average global temperature rises as far below 2 degrees as possible.
- Provide predictable climate finance to enable developing countries to develop low carbon economies and to combat some of the impacts of climate change.
Report from the Climate Change March – 4 December 2010
A number of Friends took part on the annual march organised by the Campaign against Climate Change from Hyde Park to the Houses of Parliament on Saturday. This year the focus was to achieve zero carbon by 2030, with the deliberations at Cancun also in mind, and the call for a million climate jobs in the UK prominent on many of the placards.
We chose to march under the banner Quakers for Justice, brought along on the initiative of Young Friends, which provided a good gathering point for us. There were many others groups represented: Greens notably, CND, Socialist Workers Party, socialists, communists (Marxist-Leninist), FoE, Greenpeace, vegans, amongst them. Labour, Lib Dems, and Conservatives I did not see, though they may have been represented.
About 750 to 1000 took part, I would estimate. We met many lovely, caring, committed people, including other Quakers, Kim from the Wandsworth Meeting, Ros Sweetman who took the picture, and a RC priest.
There were some inspirational speeches at Westminster, across a spectrum of approaches, especially:
- Caroline Lucas, commenting on how David Cameron devoted three days to lobbying of the England world cup bid in Zurich - but will not be going to Cancun; she seemed also to be arguing for direct action on climate change (echoing Clive Hamilton in Requiem for a Species) in view of the inertia displayed by mainstreams politicians
- Labour MP Michael Meacher, claiming bravely, optimistically, and against the grain, that Copenhagen had achieved some good
- Maria Souviron, ambassador from Bolivia, the country leading the charge for developing countries
- Paul Allen from the Centre for Alternative Technology who spoke of the practical solutions and possibilities that we need to embrace
- Sophie Allain as spokesperson for the Radcliffe 20 Direct Action activists facing imprisonment and/or fines, who have been arrested for planning to close down the huge coal-fired power station at Radcliffe-on-Soar safely for a week.
As an expert witness James Hansen is reported as saying at the trial of the Radcliffe 20: "...individual efforts to reduce carbon footprints would at best only delay the inevitable. Phasing out coal completely, on the other hand, would solve 80% of the problem: 'We need to leave it in the ground!' "
The Campaign against Climate Change as an umbrella organisation needs our support: money especially, to keep going. As Quakers we need to give and to march next year if we are can and are so minded.
This report by Colin Hall, Luton Meeting.
