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.