Photo: counting wading birds (including Canada Geese) on the flooded Taw last Sunday
On Saturday 28 March there will be a TOGETHER march in London against the far right and for the Palestinian cause and the rights of refugees / asylum seekers. It is likely to be one of the largest gatherings of recent times - but will it be covered by television news or feature in the UK press? Please keep an eye and ear out.
Last week I worked with the Town of Culture 2028 team, North Devon Council’s Climate Action Team, Swimbridge parish council planning committee, South West Heritage, the Bridge Trust, the North Devon Athenaeum, the Growforward Project, Bishop’s Tawton Parish Council, the Taw Torridge Estuary Forum Planning & Consultation Committee and the Westcountry Rivers Trust. There was also a North Devon Green Party gathering - a really enjoyable social for new members.
Monday’s Green Press Briefing included a roundup headed by this dreadful news - Police have launched an investigation after four ambulances belonging to the Jewish community were set on fire in Golders Green, north London. The arson attack is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime. The roundup ended with: Extremist Jewish settlers have carried out a spate of attacks on Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank, setting fire to homes, vehicles and agricultural fields, the BBC reports.
Antisemitism is terrible but isn’t genocide worse? The Nakba (catastrophe) has continued since 1948. We have moral clarity on the Israeli government’s outrages from the Pope but not from the U.K.’s Chief Rabbi. Should we stop referring to the ‘Israeli government’ and - given its efforts to undermine democracy and the rule of law, plus its illegal wars - refer instead to ‘the Israeli terrorist regime’?
Tuesday’s Green Press briefing included this:
The World Meteorological Organization says that our planet is gaining much more heat energy than it can release, driven by emissions of warming gases such as carbon dioxide.This record “energy imbalance” heated the ocean to new heights last year and continued to melt our planet’s ice caps. And scientists fear that a natural warming phase called El Niño – expected to begin later this year - could soon bring further heat records. In response to the report, UN Secretary General António Guterres reiterated his call for countries to move away from fossil fuels to renewable energy to “deliver climate security, energy security and national security”.
None of this was mentioned in the Today programme’s discussion of further exploration and licencing of oil and gas in the North Sea. Similarly, preventing Iran having nuclear weapons is not discussed alongside its enemy Israel being allowed them. ‘Only connect’, wrote E.M. Forster. ‘Only disconnect’ is what we get from the BBC and most news media. Another example from the BBC: while Russia invaded Ukraine, Israel ‘crossed into’ Lebanon.
The always incisive Fintan O’Toole wrote in ‘Signifying Absolutely Nothing’, his latest article for the New York Review of Books, of Twerp’s casual, baseball hatted, declaration of war on Iran ‘from his vacation home at Mar-a-Lago because it is a kind of leisure activity’. Meanwhile the FT shares another win for Twerp: ‘For a decade, Gustavo González López oversaw Venezuela’s torture dungeons and spy networks. Now, the country’s US-backed interim president has promoted Venezuela’s brutal spy chief to defence minister.’
We are not ecological gardeners. If we were we would leave all the thickets of brambles. During the recent fine weather we removed many of them (still lots left) to help other plants and trees flourish - like the sea buckthorns in the photo above - and for the look of the place. While uprooting brambles I listened to such a lovely range of birds: blackbird, chiffchaff, jackdaw, pheasant, robin, thrush, wood pigeon, wren, all in full voice at the same time.
A beekeeping friend of ours - we campaigned with XR together - is installing eight hives in our garden. Various shrubs are in blossom - at present camellia, clematis and magnolia, alongside cherry and plum. There are also willows laden with pollen and the various wildflowers I’ve mentioned before. (The latest arrivals are bluebells and wild strawberries). In addition, not far away are fields of rape. There are hectares of rape flowers but presumably also plenty of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides - possibly also a dose of glyphosate in due course to dry out the crop before harvesting? Who’d be a bee? On a lighter note, here is a lamb our neighbours looked after at home overnight. There’s info about an event right at the end. Thanks for reading.
Date for the diary: The next Climate Forum will be held on Saturday April 18th, 11.00am to 1.00pm, in Barnstaple Library, Room 3b (top floor).
The Forum will focus on the National Emergency Briefing given in Westminster in November 2025. The audience of 1,200 included 120 MPs as well as business and community leaders. It was presented by leading UK experts in climate science, food security, health, economics, national security and nature. The briefing has now been edited into a 45 minute film, titled the People’s Emergency Briefing, which presents a calm, evidence-based overview of how the climate and nature crisis is affecting everyday life in Britain and what the science says about future risks and responses. We will show the film which will be followed by a 45 minute structured discussion. The initiative is explicitly non-partisan and supported by a wide range of organisations, including the National Trust, WWF, the Royal Meteorological Society, UK Health Alliance, National Education Union, Exeter University, Church of England and many others.