Climate festival

 I had been so busy preparing my talk for the climate festival that I hadn't really thought about what else was going on! I knew there was a bike event; I had been added to the WhatsApp list. But I didn't know anything more. 

In the morning I went to the park around the corner where there would be bicycle activities. I didn't know if I could add anything to this, but I did want to show my face. I like bikes!

I immediately found Pete, who was organising this. We are both in the sustainable transport working group of the valley. It was already quite busy! And people were creating a little obstacle course for the kids. That was quite busy used. The idea was as well that people could try out different bike set-ups. Analog bike, electric bike, bike with trailer, cargo bike, bike with tag-along…

Kids immediately using the obstacle course even though not even half of it is built yet

It was nice to see all this activity, and have a little chat with the people there. But I didn't think I could add much. I went back home! And had lunch. And when that was done I went to Neuadd Ogwen. 

I thought the talks would be in the main hall, but they were in the new lean-to! And that was for the better; it was not busy. People would have drowned a bit in the main hall.

I just caught the tail end about the initiative Egin, that wants to use neglected spaces to grow community food. It sounds like an excellent idea! Then there was a talk about creating a hub for cooperatives. There are some cooperatives already active in the area; there is, for instance, a timber cooperative, and there is a farm that does vegetable boxes. The whole foods cooperative is technically speaking not a cooperative I heard! This hub sounded great as well.

Then it was my turn. I placed global warming in a bit of a longer context. And everyone who comes to the climate festival already knows about climate, but it was true that these were timescales they weren’t particularly familiar with. But I also did the shorter timescales! I just showed them the data from the weather station in a nearby village, and how much had changed there in 30 years. Minimum and maximum temperatures had gone up by 0.7 and 1°, respectively. In just 30 years! The whole world did that in more than 100 years. And precipitation had gone up. This is a bit worrying; this village sometimes is the wettest place in the entire country, and quite unsurprisingly sometimes has a flooding problem.

I ended by saying that progress was clearly being made. Britain is cutting down on its emissions! But we really need to get down to 0. And we need to do it fast. So we can't become complacent.

There was an interesting discussion afterwards. And then we moved onto local energy! And after that there was a gap; I took that for going to the loo, but then I decided to go out. There were things going on outside as well!

The energy people didn’t use PowerPoint

On the little space opposite my street, there was a bit of a small festival spirit. There was a man making music, and a nature of school for kids, and several other stalls. I had a little bit of a chat with the people I knew there. It was quite nice! But things were coming to an end. I helped the people from the organisation put their materials back into the office. And then I went home!

The outdoor space

I think this was a bit of a day of preaching to the converted, but it also was a way for the converted to keep each other updated on progress on the various initiatives in the valley. And that is useful too!