Opportunities for Action

Smart Shopping - (posted August 2024) clothing and shoes production can have a serious impact on the planetary environment. There are 3 key ways we can make more informed purchases: 

1 Check labels - re. country of origin, a good rule to follow is 'the closer to place of purchase the better'.

2 Check fabrics - make a point of purchasing items made from organic cotton, lyocell, hemp, bamboo, or recycled materials (such as recycled plastic) which have less of an environmental impact.

3 Research brands - retailers and brands that invest in sustainability are transparent about the origins of the products they sell. Research or ask brands about the origins of their products.

(wording paraphrased from page 134, 'Circular Fashion' by Peggy Blum ISBN 978-1-78627-887-6)

Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

Global Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice

21-28 September (Posted 31 July 2024)

For details https://climatemilitarism.org/weekofaction

 

Vanguard Investment Company - news and an invite from EQAT, USA 

(Posted 11 June 2024)

Hundreds of people in North Carolina recently sent handwritten postcards to Vanguard, asking it to stop buying bonds funding the dangerous Mountain Valley Pipeline. More than 1,000 Google employees are organized and asking for their retirement plans with Vanguard to be fossil fuel-free. Around 6,000 people have sent messages to Vanguard’s board of directors, calling on them to make sure that Vanguard’s next CEO takes climate change seriously. 

Across this international campaign, we are making sure that Vanguard leadership can’t ignore us. Vanguard customers and residents on the frontlines of its dirty investments alike expect Vanguard to take responsibility for its role in fuelling climate change and environmental injustice.

Here, in Vanguard's backyard, we’ll keep bringing the pressure. We’re preparing for the biggest action yet at Vanguard headquarters in Malvern, PA. On Wednesday, July 3rd in the afternoon, we'll come together from near and far, share stories of the impacts of Vanguard’s investments, and call on Vanguard to do better. We want you to be there with us!

Vanguard is a worldwide organisation and they put regular advertisements out on UK television channels. Check out what campaigning is going on here in the UK to encourage Vanguard to change its investment policy?

 

Hustings for Nature - Devon Wildlife Trust (posted 11 June 2024) organised a well run Zoom hustings on Monday 10 June from 6- 7.30 pm as part of the election campaigning period we are now engaged in until election day on 4 July. All parties apart from Reform were represented. 153 participants were able to pose questions and hear about the different Parties' proposals should they form the next Government on: climate, land, water, nature, planning and development impacts/improvements. You might find the Wildlife Trust in your area is organising a hustings too - might be worth checking it out.

Great Big Green Week - 8 to 16 June - Theme: Swapping (posted 16 May 2024) National Trust magazine (summer issue) Celebrate community action to tackle climate change and protect nature. The theme is 'swapping', whether that's sharing tips or making lifestyle changes. Go to www.greatbiggreenweek.com 

Greener Workplaces (posted 16 May 2024) - National Trust Magazine (Summer 2024) says 'if you'd like to make your workplace greener but aren't sure where to start, we have a tool that can help. Together with WWF and RSPB we've created a step-by-step guide to help you put nature on the agenda in your workplace.' www.saveourwildisles.org.uk/business

Climate and Nature Bill (posted 13 May 2024) - ahead of the 2024 Westminster general election, ZEROHOUR.UK want every MP candidate in the UK to support the Climate and Nature Bill. It will make us:

Better off by ensuring our homes are properly insulated, our energy cleaner, less expensive, more secure.

Healthier by reducing air pollution, encouraging healthier more sustainable food consumption

Happier by protecting our green spaces and wildlife, ensuring everyone has access to nature

More resilient by reducing threats of extreme weather - flooding, erosion, crop failure

 

EQAT (Earth Quaker Action Team, USA) Support Google Employees in their Vanguard Campaign (Posted 22 March 2024)

We’re excited to share that employees at Vanguard’s largest corporate retirement client, Google, are joining this effort. They are organizing to call on Google to live up to its climate commitments by demanding a fossil fuel-free retirement plan from Vanguard. You have a chance now to support them! 

Email Google & Vanguard https://vanguard-sos.com/email-google-and-vanguard/?source=eqat&emci=3e5fc128-ace7-ee11-aaf0-002248223794&emdi=f9b6b0c8-c1e7-ee11-aaf0-00224822379

You can ask Google to do right by its employees, its climate commitments, and the planet as a whole by demanding that Vanguard provide Google employees with a fossil fuel-free 401(k) plan. Along with the many ways we are taking action, pressure from a major institutional client like Google will help push Vanguard to truly invest for a livable future.

Eve Gutman, Media and Research Coordinator, Earth Quaker Action Team

Climate Choir Movement (Posted 11 March 2024)

Jo Flanagan, a co-founder of the Climate Choir Movement, spoke at an online Quaker Arts Network event on Sunday evening, 10 March about the impact of the Climate Choir Movement in helping to change hearts and minds, and uplifting the spirits of the singer/protesters themselves. There are some clips of the choir on Youtube, one is included here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srfFnwIacYY and if you would like to be part of a Climate Choir visit their website https://www.climatechoirmovement.org

WhatsApp Group Invite (Posted 4 March 2024)

A group of around 200 Friends who are engaged in activism to prevent climate and environmental breakdown, communicate regularly and support each other via a WhatsApp group. To join up go to https://chat.whatsapp.com/JAMLlE6AcL1GC8jDRycy1u

 

Call to Help Expand UK's Ancient Rainforests (Posted 9 February 2024)

In the Spring edition of the National Trust magazine, there is an article about the Trust's work with local partnerships to restore the fortunes of the UK rainforests.  The article includes an invitation to help with this work by making a donation on their webpage and finding out more about the work nationaltrust.org.uk/plant-a-tree

Eco Hub in the Community Initiative (Posted 9 February 2024)

In the Friend, 2 February 2024, Sue from Berkhamsted Meeting shared news of the Eco Hub started in her Meeting House. It is free of charge and takes place once a month. A small planning group made up of representatives from 4 groups in the community got together and planned a year's worth of themes (energy, nature, climate change etc) and approached local speakers. A strong partnership with the local council ensured good publicity about the Hub in the council newsletter. They organised to have a children's activity each month. They created a logo, a website and Facebook group. A banner was made to hang over the Meeting House wall from old unwanted material and display stands were made out of free or cheap wood. The group met regularly and communicated daily. The Eco Hub is about to have its third event on the theme of 'Natural Wellbeing' with a wild/awe walk and making a 'Love Is' mural.  They have been delighted with the turnout at each event so far, with lots of families taking part. The aims of the Hub are to share information and ways to source it, with the hope people will act on it, and secondly to build a more connected and resilient and connected community. Some people who come are already eco-conscious but others are coming out of curiosity. There are clothes and toy swaps and free food for those struggling financially. The Hub is a place where people can talk, listen and share. Sue wants to share their initiative with Friends as other Meetings might be able to host a similar initiative. She concludes her article by saying 'It feels like a way to grow.'

Opportunity to become part of the Four Seas Community

(Posted 25 January 2024)

Would you like to join us? We are seeking applicants who wish to live in a peaceful community where we choose to focus on togetherness, spirituality, living in harmony with nature, and being fully aware of collapse risk, readiness, and response. Four Seas is near Helston in Cornwall. I am a Quaker and one of the founders of Four Seas.

Jackie Carpenter - email: jackie@fourseas.org.uk

 

Caring for the World we Love  

(Posted 25 January 2024)

The Quaker Arts Network needs Friends’ help to distribute of their latest Loving Earth book, Caring for the World we Love  designed for " kids of all ages”.

The Loving Earth process, focuses on just one thing we love, and on versions of the question ‘what do love and truth require of us’. It can help people to engage creatively with the environmental crisis find out more and take positive action.  It can be empowering, informative and can help cut through and transform generalised climate anxiety.

The book works as an introduction to the project and is a resource thet can be used with groups of all ages. It can be used either as a conversation-starter or as part of a longer project,  It’s also a good resource to dip into, with questions and practical examples to ponder, and illustrations of some the Loving Earth textile art works made as part of the project.

We hope many Meetings will add this book to their own libraries, and distribute it in other ways, perhaps give copies to children associated with the Meeting, to local libraries and schools, and sell on or give at climate related events, or to passers-by when they hold a climate vigil… etc.  

The book normally retails at £5 (plus postage where relevant) for its 36 beautifully produced pages, and like the other Loving Earth books it’s available from the Quaker Bookshop.

However QAN currently has a SPECIAL OFFER on wholesale orders received by the end of February via the Loving Earth Project website  http://lovingearth-project.uk/shop/  

 *  £2.50 per copy for 10 copies or more

 *  £1.50 per copy for 30 or more. 

(These prices include postage. )

We hope this will enable the book to be shared widely as outreach both for Quakers and for Earthcare, but to achieve this we need your help!  

Linda Murgatroyd

 

CALL TO ACTION - POST COP28 by QUNO's Lindsey Fielder Cook (Posted 12 January 2024)

In 'the Friend' 12 January 2024, Quno's Lindsey Fielder Cook gives her reflections on COP28 in Dubai.  She urges Friends to take the following actions:

Print out a copy of the COP28 Global Stocktake and send it to your MP. Ask them to describe the actions they are taking to build climate-resilient, sustainable and just communities in your region. Ask if your country's NDC is now in line with a 1.5 degree global temperature rise limit. Ask if your national adaptation plan promotes sustainable community resilience in energy, economy and agriculture. Ask if we are reducing fossil fuel extraction and burning, or just talking about expensive geo-engineering techniques that pump emissions in the ground and leave leakage and storage cost nightmares to our children. Ask if we are bearing our fair historical share of financial support, if we integrate 'polluter pays' approaches to ensure those most responsible are held accountable, and if we protect the most vulnerable in our society. Ask if we have progressive or regressive taxation, the former to fund climate action. Quote the scientific finding that 10% of households with the highest per capita emissions contribute up to 45% of global consumption-based household GHG emissions. 

She closes by saying 'Climate change is a spiritual crisis, and it is a wealth crisis. Speak to the profound IPCC cry for help before we 'miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all'. Do not feed the silence.'

VANGUARD - MESSAGE FROM EARTH QUAKER ACTION TEAM - USA (posted 11 January 2024)

Hi Friend,

We know that Vanguard is the world’s largest investor in the fossil fuels polluting frontline communities and causing climate disasters. We also know that Vanguard repeatedly ranks as one of the worst when it comes to using its enormous shareholder power to support action on climate change at the companies in which it invests. But did you know that Vanguard also actively uses its influence to delay policy and regulation for a livable future? 

Vanguard advocates against sustainable finance regulations, like recent rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission that increase investors' access to information on corporations’ carbon emissions. 
Vanguard belongs to industry groups, like the Investment Company Institute, that lobby to weaken key sustainable finance policies.

For this and more, Vanguard received a policy engagement score of D+ from InfluenceMap for its “increasingly obstructive climate policy engagement.”
We need Vanguard to support climate finance policy that would help move us beyond fossil fuels, and we need it to influence its industry associations that are currently opposing ambitious sustainable finance policy.

Months ago, when explaining why Vanguard quit its biggest climate commitment, CEO Tim Buckley said, “Politicians and regulators have a central role to play in setting the ground rules to achieve a just transition to a lower carbon economy.” So, if Vanguard claims policy is the way, why is it thwarting sustainable finance policy? Vanguard can't have it both ways when the stakes are this high.

As people of conscience, we do not accept Vanguard wielding its power in opposition to a liveable climate. Join us in calling for Vanguard leadership to do better, now! We have a post about Vanguard’s harmful policy influence already up on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). Can you share our post, to help spread the word?

Share on Facebook
Share on X


Eve Gutman (she/they) Media and Research Coordinator Earth Quaker Action Team
 

Anti-Boycott Bill - Vote in PARLIAMENT 10 January 2024 (Posted 23 Dec 2023)

A key vote is coming up in parliament on the right to boycott and divest.

This right is important for campaigns on human rights, peace and climate justice. Ask your MP to vote down the anti-boycott bill. https://www.eyewitnessblogs.com/stop-the-anti-boycott-bill/

Loss and Damage Fund - action you can take as COP 28 starts on Thursday, 30 November in Expo City, Dubai.

Rebecca Walker-Woo of QPSW explains the current situation around the Loss and Damage Fund set up to help developing countries suffering the impacts of climate change. https://www.quaker.org.uk/blog/what-next-for-loss-and-damage-at-cop28

If you would like to take action to keep up the pressure on the developing countries to properly finance the Fund, you can write to your MP. There is a link in Rebecca's article to 'Make Polluters Pay' which gives a template for you to use to send an email to your MP, if that would be helpful. 

 

Eco Retrofits - Judith Leary-Joyce, a London Quaker Friend, has produced a guide book to help anyone embarking on a project to retrofit their home. Judith is a long-time supporter of Friends of the Earth, and has campaigned for many years in support of the Quaker concern for sustainability of the Earth. 

The book is now stocked and available in the Friends House bookshop. It is also available via Awesome Books and World of Books. Monies raised from sales are going to Friends of the Earth.

In working to get the message about the importance and the benefits of retrofitting homes 'out there', Judith has also taken part in a Ted talk How you and your builder can save the planet 

Project Climate Vote - a new campaign by Greenpeace - Is anyone else thinking of getting involved with this Greenpeace campaign that is just starting up? The idea is to go knocking on doors to talk about climate issues and encourage people to vote on this issue. They will then offer to share Greenpeace' analysis of the main parties' manifestoes in due course. It's not party political as such. Linda Murgatroyd

Greenpeace say the coming election is our best shot at winning serious, urgent climate action – and they need help to recruit 1 million climate voters across the UK. Right now, 84% of people in the  UK say they are worried about climate change, but  our politicians are acting like voters don’t care. Greenpeace want their campaign to change that. You can join their volunteer welcome call to learn how you can take action. 

www.greenpeace.org.uk

 

Climate Fresk Workshops - were created in 2015 with the aim of raising public awareness about climate change. The workshop works in a game format and lasts about three hours, divided into three distinct phases. The first phase consists in discovering and linking the cards by cause-consequence relationships to create the 'Fresk', as explained in IPCC reports. The second phase is creative: the participants decorate the Fresk and choose a title. The last phase is a debrief enabling a discussion about players' feelings, positions, questions and both individual and collective solutions. (info source - Wikipedia) 

Harriet Martin requested a workshop for her U3A climate group in Birmingham, which Linda Murgatroyd was happy to facilitate. The event was open to the U3A group and anyone in the area who wished to participate. 

Harriet says 'the aim of the 'game' is for each team to place cards in order on the table, finding all the cause and effect relationships and drawing arrows between the cards to illustrate what climate change is all about... It takes at least one and a half hours to play the game and ideally another hour to discuss the groups' solutions. The ideal group size is probably 4-5, giving everyone a chance to explain their choices of where to place cards. It's important that you play the game before attempting to facilitate one... (it's) a very good way to help people grasp the intricacies of the causes and effects of climate change.

To request a Workshop, participate in a Workshop, train to facilitate a Workshop, go to https://climatefresk.org/