Author Archives: johnbelljubble

It’s not just me

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It’s not just me.  There are people and groups active all over the country creating a more caring society.  A week ago Sunday, I organised for people from 11 different Transition Towns in my area meet to work out how we can help each other.  I kept getting thanks for setting it up, although it was so simple to put into place I felt a little bit of a charlatan.

The story starts late last year, when four mature students from Ashridge Business School did a project to help a local organisation get more organised and strategic.  We were very grateful that they chose Transition Town Berkhamsted (TTB) as their subject.

After spending time interviewing members of TTB and talking with other Transition Towns, they put together a presentation to let us know their findings.  They told it to us straight, about how far from being well organised we were.  We needed to be clearer about our vision and strategy, have a decent communications strategy and get serious about funding.  While on the one hand this was not easy listening, on the other it gave me confidence that we were heading in the right direction.

One particular recommendation they were keen on was to form closer ties with the Transition Network and with other local Transition Towns.  Together, we could potentially pool resources and get an office or hire someone.
Transition Town BBH - gathering in motion
So when Andrew Davies and Lena Sunblad offered to facilitate a meeting on any subject we pleased, the natural choice was to get the local Transition Towns together.  I felt slightly guilty about the enthusiastic thanks I got at the end of the day as it had been so easy.  The facilitator was already in place, the resplendent Box Moor Trust venue fell into my hands thanks to Marion Baker organising another workshop on local food (“Best Food Forward”) and the attendees almost invited themselves.  That only left getting the marker pens and colourful post-it notes.

Abbots in Transition, Change4Chalfont, Haddenham in Transition, Hemel in Transition, Low Carbon Chilterns, Transition in Kings, Transition St Albans, Transition Town Letchworth, Tring in Transition and Winslow Transition have all achieved a huge amount in the past few years, from apple presses to solar farms, orchards to thermal imaging cameras, guerrilla gardening to recycling for fetes.
Transition Town BBH - Ideas
The baking skill that went into those delicious cakes that everyone brought was something to savour.

We will hold another gathering in a few months’ time, and in the meantime will share with each other where we have templates for starting community energy projects and event recycling as well as physical gizmos like a bike with a smoothie blender attached.

I will be following up with Mike Thomas at Transition Network about how they can help with this process, such as using their website to share resources or assistance with setting up a regional conference next time.

It is uplifting to realise the number of people who are actively creating the inevitable new normal, where happiness, fulfillment, kindness and love are more important than the endless chase for more stuff and more money.

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke

Byd Bach Tew

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Last Wednesday we held the first ever Ashlyns Lecture.  Here’s hoping they will become famous.  The speaker was Professor Ian Roberts, author of the acclaimed book Energy Glut.  And when talking with Ian I discovered one of those incredible coincidences that seem almost unreal.
Ian Roberts giving inugural Ashlyns Lecture
Transition Town Berkhamsted have been forming a partnership with the comprehensive secondary school in the town, Ashlyns: Hence the name of the lecture series.  We are going to be holding three of these talks per year, one in each school term.

A few short weeks of hectic meetings over a bowl of crisps, putting posters and Facebook posts culminated with about 100 people making their way up the hill to the school to hear Ian Roberts talk about his book and research.  He co-wrote the book with Phil Edwards, who happens to be a childhood friend of one of the members of my curry club, Nick.  I’d met Phil sitting round a fire at Nick’s 40th, although neither of us was in a fit state of mind for a sensible conversation.

But that’s not the coincidence.  Before the lecture started, I had a chat with Ian about his slides, which were resting on my laptop.  One of the slides showed a rather harrowing picture of a child war victim, which we agreed to drop.

“I hear you’re from Anglesey” Ian quizzed.

“Yes, I was brought up there.  How did you know?” I replied.

“Bruce mentioned it over dinner,” said Ian – he’d eaten earlier with the main man behind the Ashlyns Lectures.  “Where did you live?”

“Beaumaris.  Do you know it?” I asked.

Ian stared back at me with a look of surprise.

“That’s where I grew up!” he revealed.

Turns out we went to the same primary school and both went to David Hughes secondary school in Menai Bridge, if at different times.  Talking of Beaumaris Primary, I asked whether he remembered any of the teachers.  How about Mrs Thomas?

“Yes!” he said, with a characteristic drawn out pronunciation.  “The one with the big hug!” he mimicked a very recognisable bear hug that was unmistakeably Mrs Thomas.

We didn’t have time to reminisce further, as I was rushing about getting water and welcoming the audience, and he needed to refresh himself of his slides.

The talk started with Ian describing the subject of his very accessible book, which shows how our full roads lead us to increasing levels of fatness and are curtailing the freedom of our kids.  He described his motivation for writing the book.  It stemmed from the guilt he felt when once he promised a young girl that she would be OK after a horrific car crash.  He then put her under for an operation that she didn’t survive.  He is a medical professor, you see.

It seems obvious now.  As we drive more, we move less, which is making us fat.  We drive more still, because the roads are too dangerous to walk or cycle, and we’re able to carry more food home, so we eat more as well.  Our children cannot roam freely and are being brought up in a world where you stay still more than you run about.  We’re talking world society as a whole here, not just the UK – in general we are all moving less, driving more and getting larger.  And of course, all those extra car journeys are contributing to climate change.

Ian and Phil have written papers on the financial, individual and societal benefits that would result from more people walking and cycling.  A relatively modest shift would lead to thousands of fewer deaths from cancer and heart disease, which would be a great saving for the NHS.

One interesting factoid was that for someone over 40, the extra years of life from the fitness gains of cycling far outweigh the risks of injury.

I’m getting a bike for my birthday.  Today.

Following up via email the following day, I thanked Ian for his excellent talk.  It turns out that not only did we grow up in the same village, but our parents are still in the same village and know each other well.  My mother and his father are both on the board looking after the Canolfan in Beaumaris as the townspeople take it over from the council.

Byd bach tew.  Small, fat world.

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke

Kids taught me another lesson

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Maddie reminded me again on Saturday how much I can learn from my kids.Kids in back of car

We had just spent a pleasant, lazy afternoon in town having a late lunch, exchanging books in the library* and buying marker pens for a gathering of Transition Towns the following day**.

I’m afraid to admit that we’d driven to town, even though it is walkable.  It was the lazy option, both mentally and physically.  You need to be organised to live a low carbon life.  We had no food in the house and had left it too late to walk.

We’d arrived back home, and Rowan was getting the buggy out of the boot, and I was trying to manage a little tiff that Maddie and Emily were having while still strapped into their seats in the back of the car.

Maddie was reading the blurb of the three Enid Blyton books she’d got out of the library.

“If you don’t give me one of those books, I’ll punch you again” threatened Emily.  She slightly lisped the “ch” at the end of “punch”.  “And if I ask you and you don’t give me another, I’ll punch you again”.

There followed a typical little exchange between the two of them where we established that Emily had indeed been the aggressor.

“But it was very lightly” Emily protested quietly.

To be fair, it probably was.  It’s difficult not to laugh when she gently closes a door in a fit of pique.

“You might need to go on the naughty step if you don’t say something to Maddie.  What do you think that would be?”

“Sowwy Maddie” she apologised.

“It’s not good to punch people if you want something.  Then again, Maddie, it would be good if you could share with Ems.  If she asks nicely for a book, maybe you could give her one?”

“Please can I have one of your books?” Ems asked, eyes turned downwards.

A book was handed over, Maddie hanging her head as well.

“I think that if you both treated each other as though you love each other you’ll both be happy,” I said, veering into preachy mode.

Still looking at her feet, Maddie said “Daddy, I think Mummy would be happier if you helped her with the boot”.

Game, set, match small people.

I got out of the car to help Rowan.

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke

* I took “Prosperity without growth” back without opening it – not had time – I’ll get it out again when I’ve finished “The Long Earth”

** 22 people from a dozen different local Transition Towns are gathering (have gathered by the time this goes live) talk about how we can work together.  In a classic example of “build it and they will come”, a friend Andrew Davies, author of the Future Café, had offered to host an event for me for free, on any subject.  The idea of getting the local TTs together came after we’d decided to have a meeting.  I’ll write a post about it soon.

100 things to do before I die

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I’ve had a bit of fun delving into my inner self to figure out what I want to do with my life.  Not that death is just around the corner.  Partly it is to give me a sense of purpose, partly just out of interest.  I’ve surprised myself.

I’m writing it from the perspective of the me that started university, at the point that I started to know myself for the first time.

Which means I can put a few things on here that I’ve already done, so I can feel good about myself as I tick a few things off.

Here we go.

    1. Get a degree. DONE
    2. Get a job. DONE
    3. Get married. DONE
    4. Own a house.  I kind of do, but there is a whacking great mortgage to go with it, so that doesn’t really count.  UPDATE: Mortgage paid off a couple of years back, so now DONE.
    5. Have children. DONE
    6. Read the Bible and the Koran. DONE
    7. Accidentally slip on a banana skin. DONE Was a difficult one to achieve, ‘cause you can’t do it deliberately.  Happened outside Euston station one night on the way home from work.  How I chuckled.  Says something that it was the homeless that came to see if I was alright, even if they did ask for change when they saw I was fine.

Banana skin

  1. Write a book.
  2. Get a book published.  Makes sense at the moment – might need to revise that one in the digital age.
  3. Make a leap of faith.  I.e. Find God or decide He’s not there.
  4. Have a photo of a miniature I’ve painted printed in a magazine.  Yes, I still hold on to that obsession from when I was a spotty teenager.
  5. Play a musical instrument, probably a violin.
  6. Speak another language fluently.  Climate change jargon doesn’t count.
  7. Live in an idyllic house in the country where we can live off-grid.
  8. Write a list of 100 things to do before I die.  This is hard.
  9. Catch a thermal under a hang-glider.  To date, I’ve only ever managed short flights or ridge soaring with ropes attached to the wing tips.  UPDATE: Have done a couple of solo paragliding flights, but not yet caught a thermal.
  10. Parachute jump.  How I’m going to get up there without a plane I have no idea.
  11. Travel round the world.  Without flying, of course.
  12. Ride a bike with no hands.  I don’t mean the bike has no hands, I mean I haven’t got mine on the handlebars.  Of course.  Obvious.  UPDATE: Did this last year, before lockdown.  DONE.
  13. Run a marathon. DONE Fantastic experience.
  14. Swim a length under water.
  15. Get pecs.
  16. Go to a celebrity party.  Why on earth?  Shallow.
  17. Get a scientific paper published in a reputable journal.
  18. Patent an invention.
  19. Start a business (not a stupid one – see http://www.onlinetaskmanagement.com). DONE
  20. Sell a business.  UPDATE: Sold Bellvedi April 2019. DONE.
  21. Cook a really good roast with roast potatoes like my Mum used to makes.  She still does.
  22. Win the treble on Championship Manager.  DONE Did it with Cardiff in the middle of the nights while looking after Maddie when she was a baby.
  23. Achieve Enlightenment.
  24. Reach 100 with full use of my faculties.
  25. Keep chickens.
  26. Become a doctor.  Non-medical, I’m assuming.
  27. Get some sort of award, like a MBE.
  28. Make a will.  UPDATE: Completing that now (Dec 2020).  DONE.
  29. Appear in a blockbuster film.  As an extra is fine.
  30. Hit a 180. DONE
  31. Become my own boss.  DONE
  32. Make a pot using a turntable.
  33. Walk up Ben Nevis.
  34. Walk up Snowdon. DONE
  35. Ascend Snowdon via Crib Goch.  Tried it once but left it much too late, and my brother was in a cast, so we sensibly turned back.
  36. Learn how to chop food really fast like a chef.
  37. Bake a moist, tasty fruit cake.  Maybe a Christmas cake.
  38. Make a timelapse animation.  Like Morph.
  39. Truly realise I don’t need to do any of these things.  Not just say so.
  40. Walk my daughters down the aisle.  If that’s what they want to do.

I’ll give it a rest there.  I need to leave room for a future me to think up a few more things.

And then I found an old list I wrote a couple of years ago, where I’d only got to number 26.  But it did contain some other things that aren’t in the list above:

  1. Finish The Hobbit BBC microcomputer game.  I am tempted to take this off the list, but can’t bring myself to do it.  How do you get past those pesky elves?
  2. Read the full works of Shakespear.
  3. Live in a house with a fireplace.
  4. Learn how to plumb.
  5. Learn how to do electrics.
  6. Go to the Globe theatre.
  7. Show a painting or picture in a gallery.

Which leads me to think of a few other things:

  1. Learn how to work with wood.
  2. Learn how to survive in the wilderness.
  3. Teach my kids some practically useful skills.
  4. This one just in.  Thank you Trevor.  Tell my son, in no uncertain terms, that he is a man, at the point that he becomes a man. And tell my daughters they are a woman.  UPDATE: This one hasn’t aged well.

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke

How I did it

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Rain was forecast.  It didn’t surprise me that the sun was high in the sky.  It was a friend’s 40th and we were on a circular stroll through the ancient Ashridge woods, from and to the homely Valiant Trooper in cossetted Aldbury.  Lovely food.  A friendly conversation with a couple I’d just met lead me to realise I’ve not covered how I reduced my emissions in this blog.
Colours of Autumn | Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire, UK | Autumn vi
I was chatting to Will and Anne, friends of the birthday boy.  I’d barely had time to christen them “Will-I-Anne” (oh, I am a funny man) before we got on to the inevitable subject of what we each “do”.  Will is a TV producer and Anne a financial solicitor.  I had more trouble describing what I “do”, but inevitably it lead to a discussion about climate change.

I described this blog and how I’ve been trying to show that a low impact lifestyle is thoroughly fulfilling and worthwhile.  They asked the obvious follow-on question – what would I recommend that they do to reduce their own emissions?

For me, it’s been a roundabout journey.  I guess it really started only a handful of years ago around the time I got involved with Transition Town Berkhamsted.  I was concerned about climate change but hadn’t really made any concerted changes in my own lifestyle.

It was probably setting up and running an Eco-team that kick-started me into action.  The idea is for a few friends to measure their energy, petrol-use, gas, water and even to weigh your rubbish and recycling, and then to progressively look at reducing each in turn.  We’d go through a few hints and tips for each and implement them.  I learned about the 10-second rule for idling cars, put a hippo bag in my toilet cistern, got a new boiler and the solar panels installed, started using washable nappies (not me, the baby), and looked for produce without packaging.  I saw a huge decrease in my consumption – of about 30-40% for each of gas, electricity, water and rubbish.

So first step I’d recommend would be to measure your foot-print to find out where the major problem lies.  It’s the same way a business might approach the job of reducing costs or a computer programmer might look at making a process more efficient.

Once you’ve worked out what the big hitters are in your lifestyle, you’ll need to work out how to cut them out.  It is likely though that the biggest changes you can make concern your travel habits and how much stuff you buy.  One holiday at home rather than flying is going to be worth an awful lot of recycling.

Don’t get me wrong, I did make those obvious little changes that save money and avoid waste, such as getting cavity wall insulation or replacing high-energy light-bulbs.  That’s just not the whole job done, by any means.

Turned out that Will-I-Anne had made quite a few changes in their lives already, but were not convinced that making further changes on their own would be worth it – they argued that it needed central co-ordination from government rather than individual action.  Though they did amiably agree that just because government aren’t forcing change does not devolve you of responsibility.

In the end they decided that they would offset for their remaining big emission habit – flying to Oz to see relatives – by paying someone to sequester some carbon dioxide for them.  While it would be better to avoid the emissions altogether, at least this will mean that their emissions now are lower than they would have been.  If everyone offsets the capacity for offsetting will be reached and the price will go up, then they will need to look again at their habits.

I hope that helps.

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke

I’m not standing for it any more

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Does anyone believe what they read in the paper without checking around?  I reckon we generally do if it sounds like something we want to believe*.  Unfortunately 80% of articles in Murdoch owned media are misleading on climate science, from emphasising the short-term trends when it suits to giving a platform to outright deniers such as Nigel Lawson or James Dellingpole.  It may be pissing into the wind, but I’m going to try to do something about it.  Have a look – do you think this is a waste of time or could help move opinion and attitudes?
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch addresses a session of the World Economic Forum in Davos
I mentioned in a recent post that I have been in touch with a number of organisations about my idea of opening up press complaints around climate change to the public.  So, this is what I’ve been up to.

The idea has evolved following conversations with John Cook at Skeptical Science, Avaaz, The Tree, Friends of the Earth International, The Climate Reality Project, the UK Press Complaints Commission and with Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute.

I sent them an email describing where I’ve got to, below:

Idea as it stands

A web page will be put together (host to be agreed, possibly Climate Reality) allowing members of the public to identify press articles that appear to be factually inaccurate, misleading or biased on the subject of climate change.

A volunteer base will be set up to:

[1] List the inaccuracies, bias and misleading content, with reference to a database of the scientific facts (e.g. that of Skeptical Science in Australia, the Carbon Brief in the UK and/or Media Matters in the US).

[2] Draft an official complaint template letter to the relevant independent authority.  In the UK this would be the Press Complaints Commission.  The scheme would start with the US, UK and Australia but could be built with a mind to opening this up at a later date.

[3] An expert volunteer would check the template letter and list of inaccuracies.

The public would then be asked to write an email to the editor, facilitated by the site, with their own personally written content.  Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute said that he thought that this would work.  If the emails are identical, they will be ignored, and similarly if there is only one purporting to represent a lot of voices.

The site would also collect individual public endorsements of the template complaint, and allow comments with a view to updating the content if necessary.

If the editor has not agreed to publish an apology or redaction prominently, then after a few weeks and before the time limit relevant to the local press complaints body (2 months in the UK) the template complaint will be submitted to that authority and taken from there.

The number of people who sign up plus statistics on numbers of biased etc articles by paper could be published online.

Benefits / outcomes

The main benefits and hoped for outcomes would be:

[1] Reference point for each article for the truth.

[2] Actively engage and empower more people to be able to speak out.

Background about complaints to the UK Press Complaints Commission

On speaking with Simon Yip of the UK PCC and with Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute (who has raised 5 complaints in the past), I understand the following about the procedure in the UK:

[1] The PCC look for the complaint to be dealt with in correspondence with the editor, possibly facilitated by them.  It is only as a last resort that a complaint is taken forward.

[2] If an article is identified as opinion and acknowledges there are other different points of view, it will generally not be upheld if it gets that far.  If the editor offers to print a letter from the complainant then that will be seen as sufficient.

[3] If there are several complaints, then one will be chosen by the PCC at their discretion to represent all of the others.  They will judge this based on whether all of the points are covered and whether they feel they will be able to work with and reach a compromise with the complainant.

[4] The total number of complaints has no bearing on the outcome and is not reported by the PCC.  Or so I was told.  You can understand my surprise when the total number of complaints on the Daily Mail article about Ed Milliband’s was announced on Newsnight.

Do you reckon it could work?

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke

* As a little aside, a little tongue-in-cheek anecdote about someone trying not to let their own predication influence their thoughts – this from my brother, describing his new flat in Qatar:

So it’s a bit more comfy, plus there’s beer in the fridge for me, a rice cooker for Noy and a cupboard of new toys for the little one (and for me actually; I’ve been itching to get stuck into that lot! I remember one time in Kuwait, when the ladies were in Thailand, I still ended up racing two cars across the tiled floor – good fun! And no one could beat the silver car because really I didn’t want it to lose, and tried to convince myself that I wasn’t pushing it just that little bit harder… and if you just angle it slightly into the other car, the other car might just spin off a little bit and go under the cupboard; and wehey! Silver is champion again!)

Tumtups & Pom Pom

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In a departure from the seriousness of my usual posts, I thought I’d share with you the beginnings of a childrens’ story I’ve been writing.  I made it up over a few bedtimes with the girls after we had got bored of reading the same old Mr Man books, great as they are.  I’ll give you a snippet from the start – let me know what you think.

It’s great giving priority to time rather than money.

CHAPTER 1: Tumtups and the Shop with No Name

Tumtups was restless.  School was done for the day and the sun was still high in the summer sky,  so she decided to drag her little sister Pom Pom out of the house and walk to town.  On the way, they went via Alex’s house.  He needed no persuading that a jaunt outdoors beat watching telly, and came along with them.  Ethan took a little more coaxing, as usual.  Once he is comfortable on the sofa he is difficult to shift.  It is just because he is a little scared of the world, really.

So it was that the little group of four were walking along the street in town.  They took a slightly different route than normal, as they got distracted on the way down by the idea of a game of Pooh Sticks (Pom Pom won, using the old technique of throwing the stick under the bridge).

“That’s odd” exclaimed a bored sounding Ethan.  They all looked up and saw the object of Ethan’s uncharacteristically lengthy speech.  There was a shop looking down at them, one that they’d not noticed before.  The strange thing about it was that it didn’t have a name.  It was still an open shop, seemed to be clearly selling things, but it just didn’t have a name.  It seemed more somehow than the sign just not being there – somehow it just didn’t have a name, and the kids got an unsettling feeling that it felt sad about it.  They didn’t say anything to each other about this of course – they didn’t want to appear stupid.

Ever the intrepid explorer, Tumtups allowed her curiosity to hold sway over the unsettling feeling of the nameless shop.  She peeked in through the large shop window, pushing her long, straw coloured hair from her face to get a good look.

“I can’t see anything in there.  There is someone serving, but there doesn’t seem to be anything on sale.  The shop-keeper looks like he ought to be a jolly fellow, but he just looks a little sad, standing there alone behind the counter.  Shall we go in?”

“Oh, no” stammered Ethan.

“Well, I’m not sure” Alex announced decisively.

Pom Pom didn’t say anything.

Tumtups just shrugged her shoulders, and went in through the tall shop doorway.  Even the sound of the bell ringing as the door opened sounded forlorn.

“Hello, Mr Shopkeeper.  My name is Tumtups” she said bravely.  Pom Pom trotted in behind her, with the others sneaking part way in, trying not to be seen.

“Hello, Tumtups.  Pleased to meet you” replied the jolly-but-not shopkeeper.  “I used to have a name, but it’s gone now, just like the shop.  You see, the shop is a magic shop.  But it’s broken – everytime a magician comes in, something magically disappears.  First it was all of the interesting magical nick-nacks, which was bad enough.  But when they were all gone, our names started to go.”

….

I’ll leave it there for now.  Hope it’s left you wanting more.

John Bell

Ordinary Bloke

Quick thought from my daughter

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I thought I’d share some words from my daughter Maddie (aged 7).  It may sound as though she’s got this from me in some way, but I can honestly say that I had no involvement.  Other than to send her to a religious school because we wanted her to pick up strong moral teaching.  We’re not religious ourselves – as I’ve mentioned previously I’d describe myself as an active agnostic.

The children at her school were all asked to write a prayer for the harvest service at the local church.  Hers was selected as one that will be read out.

Without further ado, here’s over to Maddie:

Dear God

Help and raise enough money for Ethiopia to have more food.  Help all the farmers to collect more honey and let them have more equipment.

Sorry that we are not being fair enough.  We are working on it.  Please help the farmers to harvest their crops.

Amen

John & Maddie Bell,

Ordinary dad & extraordinary daughter

Don’t pin your excuses on US & China

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There is no point in trying to reduce your emissions because of China or the US. You may think that or at least you may have heard it said. As it turns out that is no excuse – they are doing their bit, you need to take responsibility and do yours (and life is much better if you do).

  • In April, the US and China made a joint statement that current mitigation against climate change was inadequate and that it is “essential to enhance the scale and impact of cooperation on climate change”.
  • Since they have shown that they are getting serious about climate change.
  • In the words of US Secretary of State John Kerry (No. 2 in the US):

Obama_and_Wen_Jiabao
“This [the 5th IPCC report] is yet another wakeup call: Those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire.

Once again, the science grows clearer, the case grows more compelling, and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that anyone with conscience or common sense should be willing to even contemplate.

Boil down the IPCC report and here’s what you find: Climate change is real, it’s happening now, human beings are the cause of this transformation, and only action by human beings can save the world from its worst impacts.

This isn’t a run of the mill report to be dumped in a filing cabinet. This isn’t a political document produced by politicians.

It’s science.

It builds on the most authoritative assessments of knowledge on climate change produced by scientists, who by profession are conservative because they must deal in what is observable, provable and reviewable by their peers.

If this isn’t an alarm bell, then I don’t know what one is. If ever there were an issue that demanded greater cooperation, partnership, and committed diplomacy, this is it.

What one country does impacts the livelihoods of people elsewhere – and what we all do to address climate change now will largely determine the kind of planet we leave for our children and grandchildren.

With those stakes, the response must be all hands on deck. It’s not about one country making a demand of another. It’s the science itself, demanding action from all of us.

The United States is deeply committed to leading on climate change. We will work with our partners around the world through ambitious actions to reduce emissions, transform our energy economy, and help the most vulnerable cope with the effects of climate change.

We do so because this is science, these are facts, and action is our only option.”

Less work means more

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Funny how life works out, isn’t it?  The business is going through a lull, resulting in more time for organising a workshop for Global Power Shift, getting the next steps on the B-Hive sorted, developing an idea for tackling misinformation in the press and moving to a farm…

An email went round in my business circles recently, stating that the Department for Transport had identified a potential problem with the software I have specialised in.  I felt a little down for a few days, as the work dried up, but realised what an opportunity had opened up.  I now have a few weeks of time on my hands to devote to the other aspects of my life.  The opportunities for the climate change work are opening up.  Glad to have more than one iron in the egg basket.

The disparate group of young activists involved in the UK team of the Global Power Shift are starting to get organised, and I’m giving as much support as I can.  Would you believe I am almost the grandad of the group.  I am helping organise a weekend away to allow them to spend a decent amount of time together to develop the general direction of opening up the climate change movement to a more diverse and non-traditional cross-section of people in the UK and to sort out their own governance.

The date for this weekend is 26/27 October, which coincides nicely with a trip to Wales to see my folks.  We’ll be taking the kids to a Halloween party at the Leisure Centre my mother is running in her retirement.

With Transition Town Berkhamsted, we’re starting a series of talks called the Ashlyns Lectures.  They will be one per school term at the local secondary school.  We had comedian Mark Stevenson lined up for 5 Feb, but then had the opportunity for Polly Higgins to come in during late Jan, which seemed a pity as it would be too close to Mark’s talk.  But as luck would have it, Mark had to postpone, which opened up the door for Polly.  The real coincidence was that Mark suggested a revised date for his talk, which happened to be the already-booked provisional date for the third Ashlyns Lecture on 21 May.  Thank you Mr Fate, whoever you are.

You may have noticed that climate change is getting more press recently, in the run up to the release of the 5th IPCC report on 27 Sept.

Don't let them do it to you

Don’t let them do it to you

  This has led to a spate of factually inaccurate, misleading and biased articles appearing in the primarily Murdoch-run papers and news channels.  We shouldn’t allow this propaganda to get out there unchallenged.  While jogging in the woods it came to me that we could set up an easy mechanism for people to make official complaints about these articles, based on the science.  It’s early days, but conversations with John Cook at Skeptical Science, Avaaz, The Tree, Friends of the Earth International and The Climate Reality Project seem to be going somewhere fast.  Watch this space.

The lull has also offered me the chance to organise the next steps on the B-Hive town consultation I have been involved with.  The architects are meeting tonight to pull together the ideas of the townspeople.  I’m also setting up a meeting of all of the Transition Towns in the area to get ourselves organised – that’s 20 Oct.

Then there is the potential community purchased of Ballspool Farm in nearby Kings Langley.  I’ll get involved with that if it looks promising enough, to help lead to my dream of creating a self-contained community of like-minded individuals which treads lightly on the environment but is also capable of living through any kind of breakdown in society.  Yes, that could easily happen.

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke