Category Archives: Uncategorized

Meeting on Weird Weather Thursday October 3rd

ww1

Recent Weird Weather in the UK:

March 2012 was the third warmest on record. Summer 2012 was the second  wettest on record. Spring 2013 was the coldest in 50 years. May & June 2013 the wettest on record.July 2013 the hottest this century.

Speakers:

Ed Sears (University of Exeter)
Ed is a member of the Earth System Science group at Exeter University.  He will report on current scientific understanding of what is influencing our weather and how it connects to climate change.
Dave Green (Fire Brigades Union)
Dave is a fireman and is the National Officer for Floods for the Fire Brigades Union.  He will talk about fighting floods, the potential dangers, and the proposed cut-backs to the Fire Service.
Chris Williamson (Derby North MP)
Chris Williamson is the Shadow Fire Minister. He will talk about the need for Government to tackle Climate Change, and how to respond to impact of erratic weather.

-0-0-0-

We’re used to unpredictable weather and all sorts of daily variations – that’s why we talk so much about the weather in Britain!   But the extreme weather of recent years is new.

We in Derby, cocooned by our central heating and air conditioning, may find it difficult to attribute the exceptional and unpredictable weather changes to climate change. We soon forget the freezing weather we had this spring, or the rather warm autumn two years ago, and the floods.

However recent years have seen the deadliest ever tornados in the  tornado belt in the USA, unprecedented flooding in Australia and Pakistan, heat waves and fires in Australia and other parts of the world. And the list goes on.

We brush off the fact that scientists have warned for a long time that global warming would be accompanied by a break down of normal weather and we would see more extreme fluctuations and unpredictability. The Met Office held a meeting of experts in June to find out what the reasons are for this new feature.  Everyone agreed that the movements of the ‘jet stream’ have changed but what is their cause?

Photo shows floods near Barrow upon Trent, Derbyshire, Nov 2012.

 

Meeting on Fracking

Fracking has been in the news and a couple of us in Derby  organised a public discussion,  at very short notice. We invited people to come in to share ideas, and not to have a dogmatic view about fracking. The idea was not to have a ‘expert’ from outside but use our collective expertise.

Despite it being the summer and very short notice, 15 people attended and the discussion was very good, and well informed. A couple of people cam from Nottingham and some people came who we hadn’t seen for some time. We started with the interview with Caroline Lucas from the today  programme on Tuesday.  . 

We also copied the article from  Monbiot 21/8/2013, and some exchanges from the Climate Alliance site on the subject.

This led  us resolving to take the issue up with the Council, and also inside the planned meeting of the Derby Peoples Assembly.

Survey shows residents want council to keep kerbside recycling and give more leadership on climate change.

Derby Climate Coalition delivered 1000 surveys to residents in the New Zealand area of Mackworth ward, Derby asking about recycling.  Over a quarter of these were returned.  Most residents wanted to continue to have a kerbside recycling service – and of those expressing an opinion, four out of five do not think the council is doing enough to address climate change.

Continue reading Survey shows residents want council to keep kerbside recycling and give more leadership on climate change.

The Council consults on it’s plan to scrap inner-city recycling

Paul Robinson,  Derby City Council strategic director, came to speak to the Derby Climate coaltion on May 17. As a result we sent him this letter on the May 23rd, copied to the leader of Council, Paul Bayliss and to cllr Ranjit Banwait 

Dear Paul,

Thank you very much for coming to speak to the Climate Coalition last Thursday. As you know, people were very engaged. We agree with you that that many of these streets do have problems with waste management and that a move to a simpler system may help.

Since last week we have had a further discussion among ourselves and as a result, there are a number of issues that we wish to explore with you further. Continue reading The Council consults on it’s plan to scrap inner-city recycling

Proposals to cut staffing on Railways will affect all of us!

Over the next six years train operating companies are embarking upon a new programme of cost-cutting (refer to the McNulty report http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/12658.aspx) that could see:

  • over 20,000 railway jobs put at risk,
  • the closure of 675 ticket offices and
  • a 50 per cent increase in the number of unstaffed stations.

Train companies are driving through the cuts in an attempt to find £3.5bn in efficiency savings by 2019, as requested by the government.

If the cuts go ahead one in ten staff currently working on the railways – including train guards, maintenance workers, and ticket office staff – could lose their jobs and around three-quarters of all the UK’s railway stations could become unstaffed.

This is not a case of creating a million climate jobs but of saving 20,000 Climate Jobs. The better and more attractive the railway service, the easier it will be to get people off the roads and to stop catching planes to places within the UK like Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Therefore Derby climate Coalition supports the TUC led  Action for Rail campaign

 

actionforraillogo

 

 

 

 

Story of our involvement in Bombardier

In June 2011 the news came through that the Canadian multinational Bombardier had not won the Thameslink contract. The implications for employment and Derby were horrendous, the direct loss of 1400 jobs in Derby, and many more indirectly in the region. This decision was made with no consideration given to the social & economic impact on the UK in awarding this contract overseas. The loss of the contract could have led to the shutdown of the last railway manufacturing plant in Britain, and one might argue that this has not happened because of the mighty fight back by members of the public and the unions.This case study explores how climate activists can work alongside trade unionists in what was at first appearance merely an ‘industrial’ dispute, about jobs. Continue reading Story of our involvement in Bombardier