This is a guest post by Debby Cobbett, who is part of the York Stitches for Survival movement, which will be hosting a drop-in session during the week of 18-26 September, which is not just York Environment week but also the nationwide Great Big Green Week – see the “Other events” section at the bottom of the events page.
We’ll be busy with climate action in York from 18-26 September with many events in York Environment Week, and now that many of us are used to meeting on zoom, here are a couple of events you can attend without leaving wherever you are reading this.
First up, here’s one from a favourite place of mine, the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth in Wales. They are running this free webinar on Wednesday 22 September at 7.30: Kevin Anderson and Zero Carbon Britain: responses to the climate emergency. They say: ‘Join us as Professor Kevin Anderson lays bare the scope and scale of the climate crisis and offers thoughts on what needs to happen at COP26.”
Architects CAN or Architects’ Climate Action Network are running a series of events called Everything Needs to Change, starting on 9 September and running through till 11 November, and bookable using links here . Talks began with Why must everything change? There are many more topics, such as: How can urban planning be radical and transformational? How can we reimagine living environments? The first event showed that there’s plenty of creative thinking and plenty of food for thought.
Locally, there are several events linked to the arrival of Young Christian Climate Network relay walkers on 20 September, on their way from Cornwall to Glasgow for COP26, with the theme Same Storm, Different Boats, aka global climate justice. Full details are here. There’s a talk online or live at York Uni, on Thursday 23 September at 1.30, run by Christian Aid, with the Archbishop of York and others, including students from the university and young people from the relay walk.
Another thing to do in YEW/GNGW is to invite your MP to an event and tell them about Great Big Green Week and there is a template for that here. We know that Rachael Maskell supports climate action and has knitted with York Stitches for Survival who also have an event in GBGW. Rachael is one of 113 MPs who support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill, which aims to ‘reduce the UK’s entire emissions and ecological footprint, urgently and fairly.’ Note ‘entire’ emissions, meaning all the supply chain stuff that’s being blamed on China and all those flights people like to think they can pay to offset. What if we got York City Council and York Outer’s MP to support this? You can read the summary of the Bill here, and the whole document here (only 10 pages) and tell politicians what you think.
If you missed the deadlines for YEW, why not put your event on the Great Big Green Week website and search there for more events? Just remember: YEW is also GBGW and YCCN residency, and you’ll find lots to do.