Category: Climate crisis

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Growth, growth, growth

Malcolm Baldwin

Listen up! Pay attention! This affects us all! There can hardly be a politician anywhere in the world who does not yearn for economic growth. It was the mantra that won Liz Truss the key to number 10, and now economic growth is central to Kier Starmer’s vision for the future: he wants to achieve […]

Uxbridge: letter to Keir Starmer

Carl Garner

Dear Keir Starmer, I heard you may be thinking of further watering down environmental pledges in light of the narrow loss in Boris Johnson’s old seat. I certainly hope this isn’t true in light of the raging fires in Greece and the absolute necessity to tackle climate change and reach net zero even faster than […]

Bournemouth mass bike ride and rally, demanding sustainable transport

Editor-in-chief

Bournemouth residents today joined Extinction Rebellion Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (XR BCP), who gathered at Horseshoe Common while chanting and ringing bells. The group cycled around Bournemouth in a mass bike ride, in support of better sustainable transport infrastructure. Cars were slowed by the procession cycling around Bournemouth centre, while protesters carried placards and flags […]

Traffic reduction in coastal towns – a suggestion

Dr Richard Lawson

As a young man I took a holiday in the West Country in my van, carrying a small home-built sailing boat, looking for beaches and slipways from which to access the endless ocean. The map showed a slipway in one small town on a beautiful Cornish estuary, so I headed off the main road and […]

Are you wiped out?

Plastic Free Axminster -

We’re well into Plastic Free July and here’s another area where you can cut your plastic usage and help stop the blockages in our sewers and the pollution in our waterways. Wet wipes – why are we so addicted to them?  Surface wipes, face cleansing wipes, floor wipes, make-up remover wipes, baby wipes, personal hygiene […]

The future is brighter than you think

James Miller

Renewable energy specialist James Miller finds reasons to be cheerful as the demise of the fossil fuel industry looms into view. We’re bombarded daily with doom-laden stories about climate breakdown and natural disasters that threaten our very existence on this planet, and many devastating aspects of climate change are already inevitable. But emerging from the […]

Climate campaigners take oil drilling case to the Supreme Court

Sarah Finch

Two women from the South West were among a group of campaigners at the Supreme Court last month fighting to ensure that fossil fuel developments are not given planning permission without a proper assessment of their climate impacts. Sarah Finch, from Exeter, fronted the case on behalf of a network of campaigners called the Weald […]

An everyday tale of climate breakdown

Caspar Hughes

I was recently invited onto the board of trustees of an inclusive cycling charity called Wheels for Wellbeing, which is doing amazing work, changing attitudes and the road network, to make it safer for everyone who cycles, regardless of ability or disability. I had to go to London for a meeting with the other trustees; […]

Unite to survive

Rosie Haworth Booth

Not a single arrest of climate, ecological and societal crises protesters: a report from the front line at Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) United Action, April 2023 I and around 50 others from North Devon and Torridge attended the massive climate and ecological crisis event in London, on 20-24 April 2023. This report is from the XR […]

Will you be spending an eggstreme amount this Easter?

Plastic Free Axminster -

New Year resolutions have been made and broken, Valentine’s Day has come and gone and now we are about to be bombarded with Easter consumables, most of which are encased in single-use plastic! It is estimated that the UK will spend a mind-boggling £800m at Easter; £381m on eggs (ouch that’s a lorra, lorra calories!) […]

‘Regenesis’ by George Monbiot – a review

Anthea Bareham

Farming from the ground up – George Monbiot’s latest book puts food production under the microscope. It’s time to harvest the last of the main crop potatoes, but I have a dilemma. How do I get them out of the ground without disturbing the soil? I have been reading George Monbiot’s book: Regenesis. He devotes […]

Review of 2022 – part 2: the articles you may have missed

Editor-in-chief

For the second part of our review, here are some articles which were read by hundreds rather than thousands. We think you might have missed some of them! We are particularly anxious that the passage of time and the power of propaganda does not wipe our memories of some of the terrible people who have […]

The future? It’s flinty!

Stuart Reynolds

BREAKING: a public inquiry is due to get underway at Newton Abbot Town Hall today into the controversial proposal to reopen the Bullers Hill Quarry at  Haldon, near Teignmouth. The site is designated as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) as it contains outcrops of flint-bearing gravels. It is one of the few places […]

No more greenwashing, Barclays! XR action in Exeter

Michael Puleston

On October 29, there was an excellent turnout of activists at Bedford Square Exeter from local Extinction Rebellion groups (Exeter, Totnes and Teignmouth/Newton Abbot), co-organised by Exeter XR and Exeter Samba Band. The objective? To call out Barclays yet again: the dirty bank of Europe. Barclays remains the number one bank in Europe and number […]

Who gives a damn – part 2

Malcolm Baldwin

Warning: contains reference to a distressing incident of animal cruelty. Ed Some notes towards understanding why we find ourselves so alienated from nature. Isolated events can sometimes coalesce together to make a coherent pattern. On a scorching day at the end of August I was driving past some pasture-fed cattle in a parched brown field: […]

You, too, can be a warrior in the war on plastic!

Anthea Bareham

I met Kay Pike when she brought the Plastic Free Axminster stall to All Saints, a village on the outskirts of Axminster. Kay is keen to stress that she is no expert on the subject – I beg to differ. The more she talks – passionately – about the subject of single-use plastic, the more […]

“Honour our knowledge… or get out of the way.”

Stefan Simanowitz

Stefan Simanowitz on a new platform for Indigenous voices ahead of COP and the Brazilian elections At the opening session of the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow last year, Maori activist India Logan- Riley laid down a challenge to delegates: “Learn our histories, listen to our stories, honour our knowledge…or get out the way.” A […]

No excuses! Do NOT let this climate-denying government fool anyone

Belinda Bawden

Climate Emergency! This government and its over-influential fossil fuel and fracking-loving, regulation-hating, climate-wrecking corporate backers should not be allowed to ditch decades-worth of scrupulously researched and negotiated health and safety protections, workers and consumers’ rights and environmental and Net Zero commitments. We have to stop them! Everyone at every political level can step up to […]