Green Action ELTCo-Director of ECS - English Country Schools - residential English Language summer courses for children and teenagers. Coordinator of ELT Footprint UK aiming to promote environmental responsibility in UK English Language Teaching.
A nice cold martini is undoubtedly better for the planet than global warming. Unfortunately it would require 11 quadrillion Air Vodka Martinis to make any kind of significant impact. Still, it’s a start.
See here for this and other more serious environmental reasons to look forward to 2021.
Season’s Greetings from ELT Footprint UK this December 2020. Here’s to a better and even greener 2021!
Congratulations to everyone involved in Mock COP 26, the virtual climate change discussions organised by young people in the absence of this year’s postponed climate talks in Glasgow. The result is the Mock COP Treaty which on education states:
14. Article 12 of the Paris Agreement commits the Parties to cooperate in scaling up and strengthening climate education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information on climate change.
15. Education on climate change and biodiversity, based on the best available science and data, needs to be made available at schools and educational establishments at every level, including informal education. School, college and university buildings and estates must lead by example on sustainability as they form the subliminal curriculum.
16. The Declaration on Children, Youth and Climate Action prepared in 2019 by the Children’s Environmental Rights Initiative (‘CERI’), the United Nations International Children’s Fund (‘UNICEF’) and YOUNGO (the Children and Youth constituency to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), already signed by twelve countries, underlines the call for climate change and environmental education, and children’s rights, including the right to a healthy environment.
That is a very useful and clear statement of what needs to happen – indeed should already be happening – in education. Let’s make sure we act on it.
ELT Footprint discussion, Thursday 10 December at 16:00 hrs UTC / GMT
Did you know that the internet is thought to produce carbon emissions on a par with the aviation industry? Digital technology provides wonderful opportunities to reach and engage others, often in ways that aren’t possible using offline methods. But digital does have a significant environmental cost, which most of us aren’t conscious of.
Join ELT Footprint UK with technology expert Hannah Smith on Thursday 10 December, 16:00 UTC, for insights, discussion and practical advice on reducing your digital carbon footprint at work and at home.
More here.
Great publicity on the UK’s Channel 4 news the other day for the young people engaged in Mock COP, an international youth-led climate conference, mobilising around the postponement of COP26. Tune in on You Tube at midday UTC tomorrow (Tuesday 1 December) for the live closing ceremony and global statement.
It’s good to know where we stand. ELT Footprint UK is part of sustainable education and sustainable education is part of sustainable development.
Just take a look at the UN’s sustainable development goals to see the connections.
So in that light, the UK government’s recent decision to break its manifesto promise by cutting overseas aid by one third should concern us all.
A recent radio programme – The Moral Maze – allowed its speakers to expose some of the spiteful justifications for the decision. Why is it? – asks one person – That some of those who call most ardently for charity to begin at home often have that very belief desert them when it comes to increased welfare spending?
But to be honest, the arguments are not always black and white and the programme aired some persuasive views on the actual efficacy of foreign aid.
In the end though, considering the subject from every angle, every right-minded person will surely agree that the decision to reduce overseas aid was a shockingly poor one. BBC radio at its best.
It was one of those bad nights. I suppose most of us experience them from time to time. When sleep doesn’t come easily and you lie awake in the small hours turning things over in your mind.
In my case worrying about family issues, the effects of Covid and Brexit on our business; feeling I need a holiday yet knowing with Covid restrictions I can’t have one; wondering whether I am taking too much on my shoulders with ELTFootprintUK.
So, unable to sleep, I decide to get up early, 6am, still dark outside and take a walk.
A cold morning with a crystal clear starlit sky and the first really hard frost of the season on the cars. I’m lucky that where I live I can step straight out into the countryside and I soon find myself in a dark spot where I can view the sky properly.
The River Isbourne – really not much more than a stream – gurgles away quietly nearby and as I look around I can feel my cares dropping away. There is Orion’s belt on the horizon; The Plough (Ursa Major) right overhead; and Venus rising, shining brightly in the East.
I watch a couple of satellites move across the sky in unison and wonder if I have caught my first glimpse of SpaceX. I think about strange people like Elon Musk who put it there, how they must somehow manage to see the bigger picture to make their dreams come true; and yet how they still get caught up in the petty squabbles and jealousies of earth.
It gives you a sense of perspective, the night sky. You can feel at once insignificant and at the same time totally alive in the consciousness of observing it.
And though not a religious person, I have to ask the philosophical question that, when humans sooner or later leave this earth, who or what will be left to observe the glory and beauty of the night sky? And so back home for a cup of warming tea, feeling fortified for another day of work.
Despite being couched in the ridiculous ‘world-beating’ language that failed us so badly during the Coronavirus pandemic, the UK government’s recent promise to spend around £4 billion pounds of new money on a 10-point green recovery plan should be welcomed. But the timing of the new money is vague and the figure is dwarfed by the subsequent announcement to spend an extra £4 billion every year on military spending for the next four years. That is on top of existing commitments, leading to a total increase of £21.5 billion on military spending until March 2025.
This at a time when the government has resisted funding free school meals for children during the holidays and is set to reduce the overseas aid budget from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%
Other than reducing spending elsewhere, the government has not told us how the increased spending will be paid for. It risks saddling the country with extra debt that it can ill afford, especially given the self-inflicted shock to our economic system that is likely to follow our exit from Europe. Nor, given the blatant cronyism we have witnessed during the Coronavirus pandemic, can we have any assurance that the money will be well spent.
The difference in spending on green recovery compared to the military is grossly disproportionate. The government justifies it on the grounds of ‘defence of the realm’, a rather quaint and comforting term. But if the environmental crisis is not addressed with the urgency that it demands there may not be much of a realm left to defend. You cannot fight climate change with clubs. That is a bit like King Canute trying to stem the tide. The best defence of the realm is not more spending on boys’ toys but a genuine and sustained commitment to addressing the single biggest threat to our existence, the climate and ecological crisis.
Cambridge University Press is holding a virtual ELT conference, Global Schools Festival, 24 – 26 November 2020, with many session of interest to environmental educators: Education for a Sustainable Planet, 3 ways to bring sustainability into the primary classroom, Taking a stand; inspiring students to take action, There is no Planet B? What can I do? (with Mike Berners Lee) – and more! Highly recommended. Explore more and sign up here.
This international, youth-led climate conference, mobilising in the absence of the postponed COP 26 UN climate talks, aims to bring the passion and energy of young people to address the world’s climate and ecological crisis.
It begs the question as to why young people can organise a virtual conference like this while their elders have to fly around the world and stay in expensive hotels. Takes place 19 November to 1st December.
Why not show the MockCOP programme to your students to see what interests them?
Then follow along for motivating, challenging, real world content to discuss with your students.