Categories
Opinion

Fit for the Future

image by anncapictures at Pixbay
image by anncapictures, Pixabay

In these days of Covid-19 it may feel that demands to respond to the climate and ecological crisis are just another burden.

But Covid-19 has also provided us with time and opportunity to consider a better future while many of the solutions to Covid-19 also offer solutions to climate change.

So let’s use this time wisely to make the changes we need to help our industry come out of Covid-19 fit for the future.

Categories
Opinion

The Consolation of Nature

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.

Categories
Big picture

The time is now: why UK ELT needs a green transformation

The idea of prioritising climate action may feel like one task too many right now. But the climate crisis isn’t a remote event but a reality we are already seeing in extreme storms, fires, floods, displacement and loss around the world. The time is now. And English language teaching must act and help address climate change.

What’s more, the current upheaval gives us an opportunity to shape what comes next. We don’t want to ‘go back to normal’ if it led us into environmental destruction, a pandemic and climate crisis.

Instead we can seize this moment of change to build new ways of working and living that are sustainable, fairer and safer for everyone.


2020 – a historic moment and an opportunity

Covid-19 has badly hurt UK ELT, taken far too many lives and many fear for their jobs and homes. But it has also shown us we that we can dramatically change how we work, relax and travel to save lives and protect our communities. It may have even given us a glimpse of the way forward.

We have seen the inequalities and suffering we want to avoid; realised the essential services, from shop workers to bus drivers to nurses, that we must strengthen and support; we have glimpsed roads turned in to safe spaces for exercise and play; been delighted by the wildlife wandering back into our quieter world (the Llandudno goats were a favourite!); and covid has reminded us of our vulnerability to natural disasters.

Those who have been lucky enough to be able to enjoy time off through furlough or mothballed businesses, had the opportunity to reflect on life’s direction and priorities. To imagine a better future with more free time, less travel, more flexible working and slower living.

Now we have a better idea of what we have to lose and to gain. And we have seen the change we are capable of. So let’s take action to create a better world and help our industry come out of the Covid-19 crisis on the right side of history. The time is now.

Plus – many of the actions necessary to limit climate change will also help prevent the emergence and spread of diseases and novel viruses.


The problems we face are interconnected

Hundreds of thousands live in poverty, food bank use has increased by 74% in five years (and that’s before coronavirus), hate crimes have doubled, the NHS is struggling and the country is politically divided. Shouldn’t we address these problems first?

We absolutely must address these issues. And we must tackle them together with climate action.

When we talk about the effects of climate change, we are talking about disasters that hurt and endanger people. We want to protect each other from suffering, save people’s homes and livelihoods. And these goals cannot ignore inequalities and injustice. Especially when climate change disproportionately affects poor people, marginalised people and people of colour.

We need to look for multi-issue solutions and holistic system change to create a better, greener world for everyone.

We face many challenge and the time to address them is now. Take a look at our tips and green guides to help you begin (or continue!) improving your environmental impact. And please share your environmental activities, ideas and challenges with us on Twitter and Linked In – we must speak up and prioritise #GreenELT.

Categories
Inspiration

The Time is Now

The very first – Summer 2020 – edition of Bloomberg Green climate magazine aims to chronicle a new era of climate solutions alongside a frank appraisal of climate facts and figures: “The world has been brought low by the Covid-19 pandemic, but it has the means to rebuild itself better. Let’s take this era of climate solutions as seriously as our real fear of reaching a dead end.”

Categories
Consumption, waste and recycling Finance and money

Your Money or Your Life?

money or life?

With shops in the UK reopening today the government seems desperate to get back to business as usual. And while no one wants to see the misery of high unemployment, it’s good to be reminded about ‘the absurdity of our “real world” politics and economics’ in the face of the physical reality of climate change.

So how do we build back better?

This article suggests we should learn from nature.

Categories
Opinion

We are the meatballs

‘We’re in the queue to vote for the meatballs.’

Why does this photo make me want to laugh and cry at the same time?

On the one hand, I’m amused that people would want to queue (socially distanced) for hours in a car park – as the caption says – for meatballs. Or at least for something flat packed that can probably wait.

On the other hand, I’m depressed that the lure of consumerism is so deeply ingrained in people that they feel the need to do this. Then there are the journeys these people have presumably made to get here, every one of them I would guess ‘non essential’ and contributing to the pollution load on our planet.

I loved the silence of lockdown, the clean air, the bird song, the empty roads briefly colonised by wildlife (and cyclists). But photos of shoppers queuing outside furniture stores and fast food outlets somehow suggest we have learnt nothing.

Especially this photo, from the air: the people look like ants, every individual choice adding up to a collective failure to understand that they are part of the problem. The store looks like nothing so much as a factory or a machine. People being fed into it.

We are the meatballs.

Categories
Inspiration

Covid-19 upside

Spring countryside

Has anyone else noticed how beautiful the countryside is at the moment? Yesterday I was out for my allowed one period of exercise in the UK, which I intend to make the most of.

The absence of traffic is a delight. The countryside is quiet, the air is clean and the skies are approaching the depth of blue last seen during the Icelandic volcano airspace shutdown.

The night skies, too, are a joy.

Let’s try to recognise and remember this and *not* go back to business as usual when Covid-19 is over, instead using it as a springboard from which to continue resetting our relationship with the planet.

See here

Categories
Community action

Climbing out of Covid-19

Many of the responses to Covid-19 are also good for the planet: see here. Let’s take advantage of this crisis to *not* return to business as usual. Here are some ideas:

      • Instal protected cycleways across Britain,
      • Create safe Mini-Holland neighbourhoods
      • Mass installation of solar-panels
      • Insulate all UK homes
      • Plant vast new biodiversity rich forests
      • Restore our precious peat-bogs
      • Build fleets of electric buses and emergency vehicles
      • Electrify our railways
      • Convert heavy industry to renewable hydrogen
      • Build great new offshore windfarms
      • Fund the switch to soil protecting organic agriculture
      • Re-create community orchards and allotments

Discuss

Categories
Opinion

Coronavirus and The Climate Crisis

Crisis can be an opportunity. Some of the measures we are using to tackle Coronavirus could help to maintain the planetary conditions that humanity needs to survive. Excellent article here.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial