Breaking the Law

Edible Mach signs, on standby

Every Wednesday evening in Machynlleth there is a talk. It can be on any topic, given by anyone. It's free to attend, you just turn up. It's called Mach Speak and it's great.


On 19th September last year there was a Mach Speak titled “Climate Change: Why we are heading for extinction and what to do about it”. Someone called Roger Hallam was giving it, I hadn't heard of him. It was a provocative title. Anna and I decided to go and check it out. It was a provocative talk. 

Roger, an organic farmer turned academic turned activist, wanted a lot of people to get arrested for the sake of climate change. He believed the IPCC reports were too conservative, that things will get a lot worse a lot faster than they predict. He spoke of the extinction of the human race as a distinct possibility. He told us he was going around the country giving talks like this, calling people to civil disobedience in order to bring about change. It was all going to begin in November, he said, and wanted to take our contact details to join the Extinction Rebellion.

A pianist on a bicycle at a recent Seedling Saturday

It's not often you're challenged to break the law for the sake of your conscience. It was true that too little is being done to avert climate breakdown and the sixth great extinction, but would I go to prison for it?



In October a group of us began to meet each week, as a local “Affinity Group” of Extinction Rebellion. Quite a large group of 15 to 25 each week. Clearly Roger's words had made an impact, even though we were not all clear about what Extinction Rebellion actually was or whether we were all totally aligned with its aims and methods. We decided that we would organise local awareness-raising events that would be (more or less) law-abiding, but also encourage and support those who would join in with the national actions planned in London.



Just six months later, Extinction Rebellion (XR) is becoming a household name. It's all over the mainstream news. Michael Gove is meeting XR representatives this week to discuss their demands. And how? Because Roger Hallam and others have inspired a new movement of people who are not afraid to block central London for days on end for the sake of getting attention on the biggest issue facing this world. I can hardly believe it is happening, but it is.

Trees above the Dolgoch Falls coming into leaf

What are their demands? 1) The government tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency. 2) The government act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025. 3) The government create and be led by the decisions of a Citizen's Assembly on climate and ecological justice.



I can't see Michael Gove agreeing to all of those straight away but it'll be very interesting to see what happens next. We are at an extremely important point in history for the sake of all life on earth. Let's get involved and be part of the solution.

Lullaby in Birdland

On an Edible Mach volunteer session

We sat at the breakfast table eating our porridge. It was 7am. Through the window we gazed at our usual view, the leafless trees on the other side of the steep river bank partly obscuring the neighbour's sloping garden. Crows cawed and flapped above a distant oak.

Suddenly two pied wagtails flashed into view, spiralling together up from the water below, and then they were gone. A few seconds later they were back, black-on-white, white-on-black, spinning round each other, one chasing the other or possibly the other way round. They landed in next door's yard and we had to avert our eyes from what happened next.

As we were scraping our bowls they reappeared on our newly-constructed picket fence, one picket apart, shyly looking the other way, enjoying each other's company. We marvelled at their differing plumage, one having a black bib, the other a brilliant white strip on its tail.

Had that been all we would have been well content. But out of nowhere a grey wagtail appeared, perched on our nearby wall just a few feet from our window. Despite its name it has a glorious yellow belly which it seemed to be enjoying showing off. It had no partner with it unlike its pied namesakes in the background.

After all that excitement, the robin that swooped in afterwards was sadly not given nearly as much attention. Poor little redbreast, far too common a sight around here!

The wonder of it all, none of these avian miracles appeared to be aware that Britain is exiting the European Union. Or if they are, it's not clear they are fully cognisant of the risk that the humans in this country might end up relaxing the rules that currently (to some extent) protect our wildlife. If there is a second referendum, I hope Britain's birds are given a vote.

Coffee and Climate Cake

My home in Forge, on the left, with the Dyfi Valley beyond

What is the appropriate response to the knowledge that us humans are the cause of the ongoing sixth “mass extinction event” in the Earth's long history? Just over a year ago 15,000 scientists signed the second World Scientists' Warning to Humanity (coming 25 years after the first), more than any other journal article ever published. In it they state “we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century.”

Look the other way? Hope someone is doing something about it? Feel smug because you always do your recycling? Or give up because it's too late for us to do anything about it?

Anna constructing a fence in our back yard to prevent people plunging down into the shallow river 

Perhaps there is something we can do. A new movement called Extinction Rebellion (XR) has appeared and it is calling for massive change. It caused the centre of London to grind to a halt last November leading many to be arrested in the hope of bringing this issue to the centre of our nation's conversation. We can expect more civil disruption this year. XR's three core demands are

- the government tells the truth about the climate/ecological emergency

- the government enacts laws to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2025 and reduce consumption levels

- creation of a national Citizen's Assembly to oversee the changes.

You can laugh these off as hopelessly unrealistic. But if drastic action is what is needed to avert a calamity, then that must be what is called for, realistic or otherwise.

I've joined the local XR group in Machynlleth which is getting 20 or more people each week turn up, buzzing with ideas. Some of us have joined in with the big events down in London. We helped organise a petition which led to Machynlleth council declaring a Climate Emergency, the first town in Wales to do so.

People queueing up to add post-it notes at our Climate Coffee Morning

But we're also wanting to do things locally, and yesterday we held a “Climate Coffee Morning” in the church hall. A hundred people turned up!

The focus was on how climate change is affecting us here in the Dyfi Valley and what we can do about it.  We had two short talks from a scientist and Paul Allen from Zero Carbon Britain, some Q&A, and then lots of chat over coffee and cake, whilst some wrote ideas on a board for ways we can work together to tackle the problems.

It was a fantastic event, and so encouraging to see people from different parts of the community come together to discuss this terrifying threat to the existence of much of the beauty and diversity of life on earth. Including ours.