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Forward from Luke: Hey! I’m excited to host Ed Revil (traveling up from his small holding in Swansea) at the Meanwood Community Farm in Leeds this Thursday 21st Nov 18-20.00 it will be an inspiring and challenging presentation from his 20 years experience of building soils, capturing carbon and producing food using DIY appropriate technology to make bio char. Hope to see you there! Luke

I am working to improve Hockerton Housing Project’s educational programme and have come across a useful collection of teaching resources in a publicly open Google Docs folder. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RIdW5qi_Rddp9T77V6yd8kjWIL65-WIoVTEnK4UsPiI/mobilebasic

In this folder there are a 14 climate change related lesson plans that will encourage students to think more sustainably. I have summarised these lesson plans so that they can be easily used for teaching purposes when school groups make site-visits to Hockerton Housing Project. For example:

Lesson 2 – Donald Trump Climate Quotes and Climate Denial

Summary:

• Fake News or ‘What Donald Trump Said’ activity – great activity about 15-20 mins long
• BBC News article on psychology of climate change denial. Students need to read this and complete an activity sheet asking them to summarise the article.

Google Docs Outline:

1. Starter: Trump or Fake News – Show students the quotes from Donald Trump relating to climate change. Ask the students to decide whether the quote is ‘Trump’ or ‘Fake News’. Use the information sheet to elaborate on the meaning of his words. Ask students their opinion of Trump’s attitude? Should he be allowed to have these views?
2. Scientific Consensus – Why does Climate Denial still exist? Explain the animated graph showing temperature models for a variety of organisations around the world all showing a similar trend. 98% of scientific evidence suggests recent climate change is manmade. Is there still a debate?
3. News Article – Brain Biases. Direct students to read the BBC news article. Using the worksheet students should read and then reread, pulling out different pieces of information as they go.
4. What’s the main reason for our inaction? – Students should rank the suggested factors and in pairs, develop reasons for why they think this might be the most powerful factor.

Open the document below too see my summary of all 14 lesson plans.

Liam Cox

This is a great book which gives the carbon facts about our consumption in a relatively easy way to understand. Mike has covered all aspects of life including a detailed first chapter on food but also travel, money, investment  and values. Whilst he is very clear about what needs to be achieved to prevent 1.5 degrees of climate change he offers choices about our consumption in a way that left me feeling empowered and not guilty.

This is an essential read for us all! My response to this book has been to give a copy to all in the executive team at my hospital and to all of our current cohort of medical students. Those with the power to make high value decisions and the senior leaders of the future need to be thinking about this. In between , each one of us can use this book to guide us to reduce our carbon emissions urgently. I urge you to buy it, read it and pass it on to someone else.

Helena Tilley

Synopsis

Feeding the world, climate change, biodiversity, antibiotics, plastics – the list of concerns seems endless. But what is most pressing, what are the knock-on effects of our actions, and what should we do first? Do we all need to become vegetarian? How can we fly in a low-carbon world? Should we frack? How can we take control of technology? Does it all come down to population? And, given the global nature of the challenges we now face, what on Earth can any of us do?

Fortunately, Mike Berners-Lee has crunched the numbers and plotted a course of action that is practical and even enjoyable. There is No Planet B maps it out in an accessible and entertaining way, filled with astonishing facts and analysis. For the first time you’ll find big-picture perspective on the environmental and economic challenges of the day laid out in one place, and traced through to the underlying roots – questions of how we live and think. This book will shock you, surprise you – and then make you laugh. And you’ll find practical and even inspiring ideas for what you can actually do to help humanity thrive on this – our only – planet.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press 
ISBN: 9781108439589 
Number of pages: 302 
Weight: 380 g 
Dimensions: 216 x 138 x 17 mm

Its important for movers and shackers to read this book. We gave a copy to our MP at the Mass Lobby in London. Other people had opinions too!

We have cut the cost of our public tours that we host six times a year to our ecohomes. This is thanks to an EnviroGrant for £990 from Veolia (Nottinghamshire County Council’s waste contractors),

The tours are a unique opportunity to visit a co-housing development that has shown zero carbon housing is not only possible, but also desirable. A resident takes visitors on a walk around the 15 acre site to look at how we manage our needs in terms of food, energy, water and transport. The highlight is a visit to one of the five private ecohomes on the development where you will see, and feel, the difference of the homes’ design. It uses the warmth of the sun and the fabric of the building to maintain a comfortable temperature year-round, whilst also maximising sunlight and providing flexible living space.

Tickets have been reduced to £5 for people outside the local area, and remain £2.50 for NG25 residents and free for our close neighbours in Hockerton. The next tour is on 4 November 2017. The fund will support tours up to September 2018, and places are limited so please book your place now.

The EnviroGrant Scheme is run by Veolia and offers a helping hand to a wide range of grassroots community, voluntary and grassroots projects. Over the years support has been granted for a range of projects such as providing outside classrooms, supporting forest schools, enabling recyclable material and updcycling workshops to take place, providing recycling bins at a youth centre; and assisting in the creation of numerous school gardens and biodiversity projects.

We remain on the lookout for ways to support schools and universities with the costs of visits, please let us know if you are aware of any such funding.

• Do you want to help improve the energy efficiency of homes in your area?
• Are people in your community struggling to pay their energy bills?
• Confused by the Green Deal and ECO? Not sure what other forms of funding are out there?

On 15 March 2014 Hockerton Housing Project is hosting a free training event for the Community Climate Action Network that will help you to help your community adopt energy efficiency, lower their energy bills and cut their carbon emissions.

• Try out practical tools for assessing how your community can best lower the carbon footprint of their homes and reduce their energy bills.
• Hear about inspiring projects in other communities.
• Find out about funding to help households install energy efficiency measures such as solid wall insulation, new boilers and renewables.
• Find out how you can lower energy use in community buildings.

For further information please contact Caroline Harmon: ccan@mea.org.uk / 07748 508704.

The event will end with a Bring Your Own Lunch and the option of a tour of the Project. This must be booked separately and there is a charge.