Section: Environment

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The Climate and Nature Bill: it’s an urgently-needed gamechanger

Liz Moore

The Climate and Nature bill currently has the backing of 175 MPs, 231 scientists and 731 nature organisations in the UK. Zero Hour, the campaign that is pushing for the bill to be enshrined in law, says that the bill guarantees a “comprehensive and joined-up approach” to tackling the climate crisis, but what does the […]

Challenging JP Morgan’s greenwash campaign

Extinction Rebellion BCP

Extinction Rebellion (XR) used shocking photos to puncture the pretensions of climate crisis funders JP Morgan’s Greenwash campaign. On September 10, 2024, XR arranged a hard-hitting visit to the Sustainability Department of one of the biggest funders of climate breakdown, which they called the ‘most staggeringly pointless and hypocritical place in the UK’. Global investment […]

Power, land and pie

Mike Hannis

Britain woke up on July 5 to find that fourteen years of Tory government was over. Sunak was gone, and his predecessor, whose 49-day tenure was even more disastrous than predicted, had capped her sparkling career by struggling to find her way offstage after unexpectedly losing her very safe seat. Older readers may remember watching […]

Are we feeding climate change?

Plastic Free Axminster -

In the UK it is estimated that 140 meals per person (70kg) are wasted each year and that 70 per cent of wasted food comes from the home, mainly from fresh fruit and vegetables. Additionally, those statistics do not take into account the inordinate waste created by enveloping fruit and vegetables in single-use plastic.  WRAP […]

Challenging Perenco on EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis

Daniel Glennon

On 15 July 2024, Extinction Rebellion groups from Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole (XR BCP), Wimborne and Purbeck, took their continuing campaign against Poole Harbour oil company, Perenco, to their offices and facility in Furzebrook. The campaign was sparked by Perenco’s spill of 200 barrels (approximately 31,600 litres) of reservoir fluid, consisting of 15 per cent crude […]

Have you been conditioned…

Plastic Free Axminster -

… into thinking that fabric softeners, conditioners and dryer sheets are absolutely essential to good housekeeping? From all the adverts to which we are subjected, we could be forgiven for thinking so! Perhaps we need to take a closer look. First there are all the millions of plastic bottles which get discarded every year in […]

“In case of medical climate emergency break glass”

Annie Mitchell

As a psychologist, I know only too well the varied ways that we humans are distracted from painful knowledge that conflicts with our wishes, or our prevailing world view, or with wider political ideologies. And along with others, I see how citizens in the UK and beyond are increasingly confronted with the painful consequences of […]

Let’s get filming – let’s change the world

Phil Shepherd

YouTube footage from the climate change conference COP 26 in Glasgow in 2021  reveals scores of delegates chanting “Another world is possible”. It reflected their disillusionment at the compromised conference process and at the lack of governments’ commitment to meaningful action in the face of the escalating climate crisis. While, unsurprisingly, the footage was not […]

Do you fancy being a nighttime bat detective?

Editor-in-chief

STOP PRESS: ALREADY FULLY BOOKED! BE QUICK NEXT YEAR, IF YOU WANT TO TAKE PART! A leading local conservation charity is calling on people in Devon to help it discover more about the county’s bats. Devon Wildlife Trust is about has embarked on the ninth year of its Devon Bat Survey. The research is believed […]

I used to get irritated by the dawn chorus

Anna Andrews

Yes, you read that right. It would wake me around four or five in the morning – even earlier in May and June – starting with the twitterings of robins which were soon joined by blackbirds, chiffchaffs, and many others, and which would grow to a crescendo before fading as the birds began to get […]

A silver bullet or a smoking gun?

Plastic Free Axminster -

Marketed as a way to help those seeking to give up smoking cigarettes, vapes are now considered trendy, especially among teenagers, and with the range of flavours, one would think one was choosing sweets rather than something that causes harm to the environment and to human health! According to the UK Government website, “use among […]

Dorset landowner accused of exploiting Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland

Joanna Bury

Members of Extinction Rebellion Wimborne staged a colourful protest at the gates of St Giles House, the seat of the Earl of Shaftesbury, in Wimborne St Giles on Monday March 18, 2024, which was the St Patrick’s Day Bank Holiday in Northern Ireland. We wanted to raise awareness of the Earl of Shaftesbury’s exploitation of […]

A new deal for the eel

Mick Fletcher

England’s eels are in trouble. Since the 1980s, the numbers in our rivers and wetlands have declined by some 90 per cent. Without urgent intervention, a once-common animal could face extinction. There are several reasons for this dramatic fall. One of the most obvious is the growth of man-made barriers blocking access to suitable habitat. […]

Poole Harbour oil spill, one year on

Greg Lambe

The BBC have reported that ‘Perenco UK pledges no repeat’ of the oil spillage in Poole Harbour. In reply, local activists from Extinction Rebellion say the only way for Perenco to honour this pledge is to stop oil extraction in Poole Harbour now. Extinction Rebellion (XR) groups from Bournemouth-Christchurch-Poole (BCP), Wimborne, Purbeck, East Dorset Friends […]

Are we awash with misleading claims?

Plastic Free Axminster -

Greenwashing is claiming something is eco-friendly, green or sustainable when this is not the case and is not linked to any clear evidence. It makes consumers think they are helping the planet by choosing those particular items. Ingredients in a product being described as “natural”, “organic” or “eco-friendly” or “green” leave us assuming that the […]

Climate and nature café to open in Wimborne

Editor-in-chief

A new climate and nature café is to be launched by Extinction Rebellion (XR) Wimborne for people suffering from eco-anxiety over the climate and nature crises. The pop-up café is at the Cafe @ The Allendale in Wimborne on Thursday 15 February from 4pm to 6pm. XR Wimborne say it is an opportunity for people […]

Don’t Pay for Dirty Water campaign vows to get 10,000 to boycott water bills

Daniel Glennon

A bill payers’ boycott targets Wessex Water and demands they fast-track infrastructure upgrades and stop dumping raw sewage in our seas and rivers. Extinction Rebellion Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (XR BCP) has launched a new campaign calling for ten thousand people nationwide, including Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) residents, to stop paying their wastewater bills. […]

Anthony Mangnall MP’s cynical silence on climate change

Simon Oldridge

Global average temperatures in 2023 exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, conditions never before experienced by human civilisation.  Though crossing this iconic milestone for one year doesn’t mean that average warming has yet reached that point, it was only in 2018 that UN climate experts, the IPCC, predicted that we wouldn’t reach 1.5°C until around 2040. […]

Dartmoor is leaking – carbon, biodiversity and actual water…

Harry Barton

The much-anticipated Independent Review of Protected Site Management on Dartmoor was published on 13 December 2023. It was overshadowed by the COP28 deal, but locally it’s just as significant: after all, Dartmoor is by far the largest area managed for wildlife in the south-west, and its peat bogs hold carbon stores equivalent to an entire […]

Dartmoor Review: yes, but where’s the urgency?

Tony Whitehead

Dartmoor Environmental campaigner Tony Whitehead looks at the Independent Review of Protected Site Management on Dartmoor published this week and asks whether it will help nature restoration in this precious landscape …  When I first skimmed through the Independent Review of Protected Site Management on Dartmoor that was published this week, my initial reaction was […]

Dartmoor at risk!

Jim Funnell

Does Lib Dem-led South Hams Council know what the Freeport really means for our wild spaces? Jim Funnell questions whether the council is in control of the full facts… Last week I wrote to all the South Hams councillors with wards bordering on Dartmoor. I expressed my concern that South Hams District Council has failed […]