Carbon News - Not On Holiday in France, but...

"Europe: 7 out of 91 banks considered too weak to face a crisis," was the headline that made me pick up Le Monde on Monday.

Inside, the reports included one on how the German economy is rallying to due to its strong export sector, and another about how the US senate as of 22 July has currently abandoned the attempt to come up with any legislation to cap US carbon emissions, dropping even the minimum agreed at the Copenhagen summit last December.

Last Wednesday was the final session of our six Carbon Conversations meetings, a course based on finding ways to reduce personal carbon emissions. Six of us sat together at Christine's place in St. Benedict's Street. Christine asked us how doing the course had changed our awareness of Climate Change and what actions we had made and would make in the future having taken part in the conversations. It was a warm, intimate meeting and we were open with one another about what we each felt we could or couldn't do to lower our carbon footprint further.

In the corridor afterwards I asked Erik if calling him a marine biologist was accurate - I was thinking of my recent post Wild In The Summer Garden. (In fact I called him a microbiologist there, what to do?). He said he would probably describe himself as a biological oceanographer.

I was reminded of this just now because I caught sight of a front page article in today's Daily Telegraph about the annual State Of The Climate report, based on the work of 100 scientists around the world and compiled with the help of the Met Office. This is the first report to include the temperature of the oceans as a variable in ascertaining the level of global warming. Not only does the report conclude that the evidence for global warming is 'unequivocal', but Dr. Peter Stott of the Met Office has stated that 'greenhouse gases are the glaringly obvious explanation' for it.

During my involvement with Transition over the past two years, I have focused my efforts largely on the 'social' side. This has come from a feeling that the better we are able to connect with each other and get on as human beings the more chance we'll have to effect positive change in the face of the enormous difficulties we and the planet are confronted by. Sometimes this is really difficult as we come up against barriers and differences which feel insuperable.

Then I read these articles in the papers and feel as if so much is out of my hands; which of course in many ways it is.

So this is why I really appreciate and enjoy things like Erik walking to the station with us after the meeting last Wednesday night, wheeling his bike along and showing us a more scenic back route than the normal one we take down Prince of Wales Road, whilst we spoke about preserving vegetables and cooking.

Tomorrow I'll be Pausing For Reflection (Pattern 4.15).

Reading 'Le Monde'; On the way down to Norwich Station after Carbon Conversations last Wednesday; the light in the middle of the picture is the moon; you can just make out Charlotte and Erik (with his bike)