The way that many residents in the Moorlands heat their homes and get their water hot is set to change significantly over the next decade - if national government plans are to be believed. New gas boiler sales will be banned from 2025, other energy sources such as heat pumps will be encouraged.That is just part of a dramatic shift in the way that we make and use energy over the next few decades. The National Grid already relies on renewables for over 50% of its output on some days and that proportion is only set to rise.
As part of this shift the government and power companies are expecting community-led organisations and individuals to start generating and storing their own power – whether from hydroelectric schemes, solar panels, wind turbines or even their electric vehicles sitting idle. But this change will be immensely complex, involving a whole range of different players. While the direction of travel is clear, the pace of the change and the precise route that journey will take remains painfully unclear.
On Sunday April 3rd Moorlands Climate Action will stage its first Energy Fair at the Foxlowe Arts Centre in Leek. The event, which is free to all, will bring together a number of people and organisations already involved in the first stages of the Great Energy Transition. “When it comes to information on the future of energy generation and use in the Moorlands, we are far closer to Ground Zero than Net Zero,” said Moorlands Climate Action’s Mark Johnson. “There are just far more questions than answers at the moment. We cannot provide all the answers – no-one can – but we can provide some and get the conversation going on the more difficult issues.”
He argued that some of the issues are already affecting people in the Moorlands – planning applications are now coming in for new solar farms and battery storage facilities, for example, yet residents, councillors and officers have almost no knowledge of how, why, and where these might be needed. “In the future, residents may have to upgrade electrical systems in their homes and streets will have to be dug up. This will save people money in the longer term, yet it will involve uncertainty and disruption.”
A range of experts from Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and beyond will be presenting and present at the Energy Fair. The day will be broken up into three main sessions: Community Energy Production, Personal Energy and Use and Home Insulation and Retrofit. “The question of energy efficiency is a crucial one,” said MCA’s Energy group coordinator, Nigel Williams. “With the coming brutal spike in people’s energy bills, it is going to be essential to get information out to people on simple, practical ways in which they can save energy – and money.”
As we begin this new year, our group goes from strength to strength. We have new members joining every month, established projects and an ambitious work programme under development.
Later in this newsletter, you will read about our plans for an Energy Fair in April and HuG 2 in June. Our Youth Engagement team has fantastic plans to provide a week-long festival of events in our local schools, and we are starting to look into the practicalities of one (or more!) Repair Cafes in the Moorlands.
Members recently visited a repair café in Macclesfield to see how it runs and will shortly visit the Buxton café.
Our Nature team are as busy as ever with their various projects - more details later. We plan to take MCA on the road this year - taking our message to community groups across the Moorlands, to learn more about their hopes and fears.
We aim to be the true representative group for the whole of the Moorlands when it comes to the Climate Change and Biodiversity Emergencies.
As we grow, we always need more people to get involved in our projects. I hope you find this newsletter of interest. If you have not yet joined MCA, please do so - membership is £10/£5 per year. We are still mainly meeting via Zoom, but we hope to be able to restart our face to face meetings soon.
We had a fantastic year last year, despite Covid and the challenges that brought us all. Our HuG event was so well supported, and then we welcomed the wonderful Camino-to-COP walkers, followed by our biggest ever demonstration of people power in our Totally-Globally Day of Action - our contribution to the coordinated global action launched during COP 26.
We are still trying to engage with SMDC, but sadly our emails, letters and phone calls go unanswered. That Net Zero deadline of 2030 is not going to change, but the longer the council delays making real changes and investment, the harder that challenge will be for all of us.
Thanks to Nigel Williams for Chairing the group for the last two years, and welcome to Alison McCrea as joint Membership Officer and Mark Johnson as Secretary.
With hope,
Mike Jones, Chair MCA
Here's a long-term perspective on climate change and its influence on human societies. Consider the fate of the Norse settlement of Greenland, established using European farming systems during the relatively warm period that preceded the Little Ice Age, and that of the neighbouring Inuit, who adapted well to an icy environment.
The Norse settlements on this rather marginal land, really only suited to pastoral farming, fishing and some forestry, and named ‘Greenland’ in a rather optimistic form of Viking marketing, nevertheless survived for about 450 years. However, scientific analysis of sediments shows that from the start the land was degraded by deforestation and soil erosion, so that by the time the climate deteriorated, the Norse inhabitants were already struggling and dependent on imports from Iceland and elsewhere in Europe.
By comparison, the Inuit, who had settled another part of the island, coming north from mainland America, had adapted a lifestyle that was independent of farming and forestry, hunted seals and whales, had little need of wood for building or fuel, and had developed revolutionary boats, based on sealskin stretched over whalebone frames. However, it seems that the Norse had little positive interaction with them, did not seem to copy their technologies and generally regarded themselves as superior, describing the Inuit as ‘Skraelings’ or wretches.
The nub of the story is that the Inuit survived the worst privations of the Little Ice Age, while the Norse did not. The detailed descriptions of archaeological excavations of their final settlements make poignant reading. Likely reasons for their failure to adapt and ultimately to survive are described by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse1.
“There were many innovations that might have improved the material conditions of the Norse, such as importing more iron and fewer luxuries….copying from the Inuit or inventing different boats and different hunting techniques. But those innovations could have threatened the power, prestige and narrow interests of the chiefs. In the tightly controlled interdependent society of Norse Greenland, the chiefs were in a position to prevent others from trying out such innovations.
“Thus Norse society’s structure created a conflict between the short-term interests of those in power, and the long-term interests of the society as a whole. Much of what the chiefs and clergy valued proved eventually harmful to the society……..Ultimately, though, the chiefs found themselves without followers. The last right that they obtained for themselves was the privilege of being the last to starve”.
Are we fated to make the same sort of mistake? Certainly some of Diamond’s observations carry echoes for our present times. A key problem is reluctance to make change or move outside our bubbles of perceived normal and rational behaviour. The Norse, after all, had lived in Greenland for 450 years and the ecological decline triggered by their activities may have been too gradual for them to recognise or for everyone to take seriously. The climate change that finished them off would have been well-nigh impossible for them to predict. By comparison, we’re fortunate that science has identified these threats, giving us the opportunity to take action.
Taking place on the 6th November 2021, the Global Day of Action will see millions coming together from all over the world to demand change from leaders at COP26. We need urgent solutions to combat the nature and climate emergency that affects us, the wildlife and the surrounding landscapes that we all love.
The purpose of the Global Day of Action is to unite all climate activists and groups around a common goal: to demand governments and corporations limit global temperatures to 1.5°C and deliver real and just solutions to the climate crisis. This will be a historic moment in history as we give nature a voice. The walk coincides with the World Climate March (a virtual 1.5km or 2000 step) walk for climate justice, representing the 1.5C or close to global temperature rise limit for global warming as established by the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. Our leaders must be reminded of their commitment to this legally binding international treaty.
As world leaders gather for the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Moorlands Climate Action will be staging a walking demonstration around Leek as part of the Global Day of Action. Join residents of the Staffordshire Moorlands on a walking parade in Leek as part of the Global Day of Action on Saturday, November 6th 2021 meeting from 10:30am to design banners (between the Foxlowe Arts Centre and Leek Town Council offices on Stockwell Street) followed by the walk beginning at 11:30am.
Read more: Totally Globally - Global Day of Action - 6th November 2021
“I am on a journey through this world; I see the world as a sacred place and I pass through it with reverence and gratitude, without any desire to possess the world and exploit it for any short-term gain”. Satish Kumar (1)
On Sunday 26th September, we welcomed the wonderful ‘Camino to COP’ walkers into Leek – at the halfway point on their 500-mile journey from London to Glasgow. The Camino Walkers, from XR Faith Bridge, set out on their journey to urge governments to act on the climate emergency and to spread the word along the way about the urgent need to address our climate and ecological emergency.
The effects of climate change are already evident. Natural disasters are more frequent and devastating. These negative impacts are – unjustly – more severely felt by poor people and by poor countries. The Camino Walkers were travelling on foot to Glasgow and to COP 26 asking for Climate Justice and to save the Earth.
COP 26 (or the 26th Conference of the Parties) is the most important global climate change event to take place each year. Leaders from 196 countries meet in Glasgow in November for this major climate conference. This year is crucial because world leaders had agreed to come to Glasgow with definitive plans to keep emissions at a level that would keep global warming to ‘well below 2% and as near to 1.5% as possible’. These are the so-called Paris Targets. Scientists say that cutting emissions drastically this decade is our last chance to come up with plans that can hit those targets and bring climate change under control.
Read more: CAMINO to COP – A 500 Mile Walk for Climate Justice
- Moorlands Global Day of Action
- July-August Spotlight 2021
- Events up to and Including the Great Big Green Weekend
- Pilgrimage Passes through Leek
- RED ALERT at the Great Big Green Week with Moorlands Climate Action
- HuG Festival Review
- SWOT - Moorlands Climate Action
- HûG – Green Arts Festival
- Peak District National Park Authority - Volunteer Rangers Needed
- MCA SWOT
- Parish Assembly
- Demonstration for Support for Climate Action