Much support for national Climate Coalition week of action, just days after Truss govt’s #AttackOnNature
On Saturday 1st October Deal Market hosted a stall with nothing for sale, but with much food for thought. Market-goers were invited to experience a display laying bare the urgency of the climate crisis, and campaigners were overwhelmed by the huge amount of positive response and appreciation from passersby.
A soil-filled wheelbarrow at the stall’s entrance referred to its contents as the “living skin which so many of us take for granted. Plastic containers combined as stark sculptures speaking of plastic’s toxic effect on human health, wildlife of seas and land, biodiversity and soil quality. Suspended footprints highlighted small steps ordinary folks are taking more and more to reduce pollution and rein in climate breakdown. The ‘Green Barrows’ climate action display team gave a lively performance too!
Like with almost all of the events reported here, our local Green Party members were involved as part of a bigger team participating in a non-party-political action.
The stall marked the end of Great Big Green Week and was hosted by East Kent Climate Action and Deal With It-Transition Deal. The previous weekend had seen a well-attended Community Beach Clean around Deal Pier, and a Community Forage for all the family by Lucia Stuart from Deal’s Wild Kitchen.
Elsewhere in Dover district, Transition Dover were giving out Climate Change Action Packs to young people on Sat 24th at Dover’s Urban Fete run by Dover Big Local. Again there were very many positive, enthusiastic responses from the public despite the wet weather. Another event during the Climate coalition’s week of action week took place at the East Kent Ploughing Match in Little Mongeham on Wed 28th, where supporters of Nature Friendly Farming Network were handing out copies of ‘A Practical Guide to Farming for Climate’, and working with East Kent Wildlife Group and their rehomed 9 year old barn owl, Haze to sign people up for boxes for owls, tawny, owl or barn. Numbers of owls have fallen sadly in recent decades. Again the response from the East Kent public was very, very positive. Including when campaigners suggested people might like to sign the RSPB petition online asking the Truss Conservative government to stop and reverse their attack on nature. Along with the Wildlife Trusts, CPRE and many other charities and organisations, RSPB denounced the dumping of 100s of environmental protections on 23rd Sept 2022.
The sixth mass extinction event that we are living through, (as Sir David Attenborough points out), and which has seen some bird species in UK halved over the last 40 years is an issue the public care deeply about. So is the climate crisis which set fire to British homes during this year’s heatwave. In East Kent the public are climate-concerned, they are wised up and these are issues on which many would like to see much less deceptive greenwash and much more genuine investment, in free home insulation to cut energy consumption and bills for example.
