The Parish Grasslands Project decided that 2020 was the year when we should actively start to address the climate emergency. When we were set up nearly 20 years ago our efforts were focused on wild flower meadow conservation. While that is still our principal concern, over the years our scope has widened to include all aspects of the environment. It seemed appropriate therefore that as an environmental organisation we should engage with the most fundamental environmental problem of the age.
2020 marks the beginning of a decade during which, sooner or later, we will all have to make changes in how we live to try to reduce the rate of global warming. By the end of the decade we will have no choice, we will have been forced to adapt many aspects of our daily lives in response to its effects. The storms of February 2020, which brought flooding into the heart of our own community, were a reminder that climate change is a problem which does not only affect those in distant continents.
The goal is to find ways in which our two rural parishes, St Briavels and Hewelsfield & Brockweir, can work together to reduce our combined carbon footprint. After discussing this ambition with others in the community, we formed a working group and decided to break down the problem into five areas of action: energy, transport, food, land use and stuff (consumption/waste). We have set up hubs to address each of these areas. We launched the scheme with a meeting in the Mackenzie Hall, Brockweir on February 1 2020 (report below). The various hubs act relatively independently and hold meetings to plan their activities and events.