Category: Counting On …

Reflections and actions during COP26 and going on

Counting on … update

We can count on our corporate efforts as individuals to bring about change!

Green Peace reported: “28 December 2021: Today the Grahamstown High Court in Makhanda ordered Shell to immediately cease its seismic blasting along South Africa’s Wild Coast, while ordering Shell and the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy to pay the costs of the application for the interim interdict.”

This is good news for the local people and for the whales and other marine life. And it demonstrates that people can work together against international businesses for the common good.

Counting on … day 45 

29th December 2021

A New Year’s resolution is a good way of setting our own targets for a more sustainable, climate friendly life-style. What will you choose?

Buying from sustainable sources. Consuming smaller quantities of higher quality goods. Giving up the private car. Furnishing our wardrobe from pre- loved sources. Supporting tree planting, bog restoration and re-wilding projects. Volunteering. Switching to green energy suppliers, and ethical banks, insurance, mortgage  and pension providers. 

Counting on … day 44

28th Deecember 2021

A message from the COP26 Coalition: ’Because of our collective action, the climate justice movement is more powerful, educated and connected than ever before. Our movements are growing by the day. Climate justice is no longer on the fringes – it’s now been brought to the centre of every struggle. We’ll continue to build power and challenge governments and corporations across the world.

Across the world and across movements, we are seeing a new wave of resistance, global solidarity and grassroots organising. The world is at a crossroad as the crisis of climate, covid pandemic and inequality further exposes the inequalities within and between our societies. We can either intensify the crisis to the point of no return, or lay the foundations for a just world where everyone’s needs are met.

The era of injustice is over, the time for climate justice is now.’

Counting on … day 43 

27th December 2021

The January sales: retailers and manufacturers may wish to count on our appetite to buy more things to clear back stock or just simply to sell more things, but the well-being of the world may be counting on us consuming less so that we do not deplete limited resources nor take more than our fair share.  Green Christians have coined the apt phrase “Joy in Enough”. The season of Christmas lasts 12 days, may they be days of joy not depletion. 

 Counting on … day 42

26th December 2021

The feast of St Stephen features in the story of King Wenceslas. In the midst of a cold and snow covered winter, the King sees a poor man suffering fuel poverty and goes to help him, taking both fuel and food. Sadly many people even in Britain suffer from both fuel and food poverty and have to count on charities such as the Trussel Trust for help. 

Between 1 April 2021 and 30 September 2021, food banks in the Trussell Trust’s UK wide network distributed 5,100 emergency food parcels a day to people in crisis.

Counting on … day 40 

24th December 2021 

A word for whales. Whales are important as tiller of the oceans. They circulate nutrients that are essential parts of the food chain and in particular nutrients needed by phytoplankton. These serve the same function as leaves, absorbing carbon dioxide and sunlight to create oxygen. As we count on whales doing their bit to maintain the global ecosystem, so they should be able to count on us not to harm them. 

However as has been widely reported, various groups are launching a last-chance bid to stop Shell using shockwaves in the Wild Coast of South Africa – a fragile ecosystem that is a vital whale breeding ground. The applicants, which included Greenpeace Africa and fishing groups, had been seeking to stop the survey on the basis it could cause “irreparable harm” to the marine environment, especially to migrating humpback whales in the area. (Yahoo News)

Do check out this Green Peace petition:  https://pages.greenpeaceafrica.org/shell-wild-coast?_ga=2.165965239.820789156.1640103673-781902025.1640103673

 Counting on … day 37

21st December 2021

Christmas is often a time when we have more to recycle and possibly a reduced collection service. Both recycling bins and recycling lorries have a limited capacity in terms of volume. Now is a good time to see your recycling box as a Tetris puzzle. By careful stacking, interlacing and flattening, how much can you fit it?