"Living differently"

Molly Scott Cato MEP came hotfoot from a sitting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg to address the United Nations Association Gloucestershire County branch this evening. She addressed a packed Friends Meeting House on United Nations Day on the theme chosen for One World Week this year, "Living differently", and answered all the many questions her speech raised - and more besides.

It was an appropriate theme, she reflected, as "people in the South-West are already living differently" to those in other parts of the UK. More energy from wind power is generated in the South-West than in the whole of the rest of England put together, for instance. And the wish of so many to come here and to live more in harmony with nature was the likely reason she had been elected as an MEP in May this year, the first ever for the Green Party in this region.

While working in Brussels and Strasbourg for further harmony, Molly was deeply suspicious of the move towards "harmonisation" of regulation - and the fact this was being considered in secrecy. The proposed free trade agreement between the EU and the United States ("the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership") would, she thought, serve to emphasise the power of corporations over that of citizens: a combined effort was needed to prevent it coming into force, but it worried her, how few of the 751 MEPs truly "represented" the interests of those who had elected them.

Having been thrown in at the deep end in this Summer of conflicts (in Ukraine and elsewhere), she felt that, as a delegate to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, she could make a positive contribution from her academic background. "We need to learn from the South," she maintained, warning that our imposition of carbon limits upon the poorest countries was seen as "neo-colonialist: we need to start with ourselves, and ask how we can share technologies and change our lifestyles." After all, it’s only in recent years that our (UK) total historic carbon contribution has been outstripped by that of the USA.

She ended by quoting Nelson Mandela, "To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." 

Professor Malcolm Evans OBE, chair of the UNA Gloucestershire, chaired the meeting and proposed the vote of thanks. A stimulating evening.

I wrote this for the Gloucestershire Echo, but they published instead one submitted on behalf of Transition Town Cheltenham. Fair enough, though I would have preferred to see a report on the “normal” news pages to one pigeon-holed in the paper’s green corner.

"Myth" busting

My friend Adrian emailed last week. He wanted me to consider writing to the local paper, to respond to a letter headed "Addressing the global warming myth" - printed with no inverted commas round the word myth! He had replied to the same reader's earlier letter on the same theme, and "We must knock this nonsense on the head," said he (quite rightly). So, write I did (for the second time within a month), and today, not only mine, but two other (sensible) letters are published - following on from one yesterday from Kit Braunholtz.

The Year of Faith

Here we are, well into what the Pope has decreed to be the Year of Faith, and what am I doing about it? Well, not a lot I realised; so I thought the least I could manage was to dash a letter off to the local paper to staunch the flow of anti-Christian sentiment that's flooding its Letters page. I used to write to the Gloucestershire Echo quite frequently, but today's is the first for many years: not that it will have any great effect.

Cheltenham wind

I photographed these wind turbines whilst on the Mersey Ferry in May. Seldom enough in the British Isles do you see them in this sort of setting - to which even David Bellamy would have a job to take offence.

Good news therefore that our local Borough Council's Planning Committee have passed, without a dissenting voice, an application to build a 60 foot turbine tower in a park on the West side of Cheltenham! It's estimated to be able to generate about 17% of the electricity needed for Springbank Community Resource Centre, which seeks to regenerate one of the town's most deprived areas. Project advocate Andy Hayes was interviewed by the Gloucestershire Echo following the decision: "I think," he says, "the turbine is a thing of beauty - it represents very successfully the fight against climate change and the need for more renewable energy."

And on a rather different scale, one day earlier this month Spain saw over 50% of its electricity come from turbines. Chris Goodall as always writes positively and authoritatively on the background to this story in Carbon Commentary.

Be and queue

My sister Sarah is staying with us for the Literature Festival: she is keen to see as many events as possible, whereas we (old hands) are feeling rather semi-detached about the whole shebang, as I foretold when the brochure first came out. (The local paper published that ill-humoured blogpost in the form of a letter to the editor, attracting some supportive comment; but will they listen?)

Long queues snake round the tented village in Imperial Gardens, for the events themselves - often three or four starting simultaneously - and also for book signings. I wonder how many of the books bought in the vast Waterstones' tent will be read.

Why are people so restless in a queue? On Friday evening I was manning the stall which the Friends of the Festival put up each year inside the Town Hall, to help raise funds towards sponsorship of future Festival events. For this cause, a wide range of cards is on display - including a basket of my own photogaphic cards - but not many people were in the least interested: either the place was deserted (during the events) or punters were stationary in a distracted queue which waited for the doors to open, and completely ignored my presence alongside it. Perhaps the atmosphere will be different when I am on the stall for another stint this evening.

"The cross and the wheel"

"The cross and the wheel" is the heading of an article in this week's edition of The Tablet reporting on the Dalai Lama's recent meeting with Catholics at Blackfriars, Oxford. Several observers noted," the article ran, his "cheerful demeanour" - conversations "punctuated with laughter, something that at first sight seemed odd given the suffering of the exiled Tibetan leader has endured."

One of the Dominican theologians present pointed out that laughter was part of the life of the Trinity, something which tied in with what I recalled Frank Regan had said at Woodchester last month. It corresponds with the cheerfulness of the Dalai Lama, springing from his life-long dedication to the practice of meditation.

He would certainly have enjoyed the photograph and headline - above - which appeared in our local paper, the Gloucestershire Echo, at the time of the visit: Cheltenham's MP, Martin Horwood, might have been amused at his star billing too.