Pictures at an exhibition

We've mentioned a few times now the exhibition that the Together churches have organised to help people engage with the issues around climate crisis. In fact, I was in a school earlier today and overhead some of the staff talking about the exhibition and how good it was for people to have their work exhibited in the city centre - as it happens, they were mounting work from the school's own children on the same theme at the time. It seems word has spread, which is marvellous! 

Well, they say a picture is worth 1000 words - so here are some snapshots taken during the mounting of the exhibition. 

The exhibition is open all this week from 10am-5pm in St Cuthbert's Church, Lothian Road

Putting the Environment on the Political Agenda

At the end of September, St John's Church launched a campaign to ask candidates for the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2016 to make an environmental issue one of their headline manifesto pledges.

Too often, environmental issues are buried on p.20 of a manifesto, or shelved under a consensus that 'we all agree mitigating climate change and reversing biodiversity decline are important'. A consensus on aims does not preclude passionate debate between parties on methods: on nuclear and renewables, biodiversity and food security, affordable energy and energy efficiency, rewilding and plantation forestry, marine protection and fisheries, active travel, air passenger duty, land-use strategy.

The result is a conspiracy of silence: voters do not see the environment mentioned on politicians'  leaflets amongst welfare, security, health or education; therefore they do not think to name the environment when asked for their top political issues; therefore politicians do not hear that it is important to voters; and the media, taking their agenda from both, do not raise it as a topic of debate.

Yet 88% of the public believe that biodiversity is indispensable for the production of food, fuel and medicines, and 94% believe we have a moral obligation to halt biodiversity loss.* The environment should be a vote-winner, and a way to engage people disenchanted with politics.

The aim of Environment Agenda is simple: to break that conspiracy of silence, by enabling voters, early in the election process, to ask Holyrood candidates to put environmental issues amongst their manifesto headlines.

Since its launch, members of churches in Edinburgh have written over 100 postcards to their local candidates, and Eleanor Harris, co-ordinator of the campaign, has been delivering them. 'Candidates have been delighted to receive postcards,' she writes. 'It gives them a mandate to speak out about issues they already believe is important. St John's is a politically active church with members representing the whole political spectrum, and all have been keen to get their parties involved in the campaign. The church was a good platform to launch Environment Agenda, but I hope it will be taken up much more widely by community and environmental groups.'

Eleanor Harris (left) delivering Environment Agenda postcards to Alison Dickie, SNP candidate for Edinburgh Central.

Sarah Boyack MSP, candidate for Edinburgh Central and Labour spokesperson on the environment, encouraged church members and others to take part in the campaign: "people underestimate the impact of writing to their political representatives. With the upcoming Paris Talks in December Eco-Congregations can really have an impact when they mobilise their members".

The campaign is still in its early days: many constituencies do not yet have selected candidates. If your church, community group or environmental organisation would like to take part, please get in touch with Eleanor at eleanormharris@gmail.com.

Delivering Environment Agenda postcards to Edinburgh Labour candidates: Kezia Dugdale (Eastern), Sarah Boyack (Central), Daniel Johnson (Southern), Cat Headley (Western), Lesley Hinds (Northern and Leith) and Blair Heary (Pentlands).

* Response for Nature, an important policy document launched in October 2015 by wildlife organisations, which you can download here.

Environment Agenda: Edinburgh Candidates

Our Environment Agenda campaign asks candidates for the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016 to make an environmental issue one of their headline manifesto pledges. You can read more about it here. 

You can come into St John's Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh and write postcards to party leaders and your local candidates for us to deliver. You can also tweet the image below to them, or post it on their facebook page.

These are the party leaders:

Ruth Davidson (Con) @ruthdavidsonmsp;  facebook page.
Patrick Harvie (Grn) @patrickharvie;  facebook page.
Kezia Dugdale (Lab) @kdugdalemsp;  facebook page.
Willie Rennie (Lib) @willie_rennie;  facebook page.
Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) @NicolaSturgeon;  facebook page.

Here is a list of Holyrood candidates announced so far in Edinburgh constituencies. If you have lists of candidates in the rest of Scotland, please let us know and we will add them.

Edinburgh Western
Sandy Batho (Con) @sandybatho.
Cat Headley (Lab) @cat_headley;  facebook page.
Toni Guigliano (SNP) @ToniGiugliano;  facebook page.

Edinburgh Eastern
Nick Cook (Con) @CllrNickCook; .
Kezia Dugdale (Lab) @kdugdalemsp;  facebook page.
Ash Denham (SNP) @ashtenRD;  facebook page.

Edinburgh Northern & Leith
Iain McGill (Con) @IainMcGill;  facebook page.
Lesley Hinds (Lab) @LAHinds;  facebook page.
Ben MacPherson (SNP) @BenMacpherson;  facebook page.

Edinburgh Pentlands 
Gordon Lindhurst (Con) facebook page.
Blair Heary (Lab) @BlairHeary.
Gordon Macdonald (SNP) @re_electgordon;  facebook page.

Edinburgh Central
Ruth Davidson (Con) @ruthdavidsonmsp;  facebook page.
Sarah Boyack (Lab) @SarahBoyackMSP;  facebook page.
Alison Dickie (SNP) @AlisonDickie19;  facebook page.

Edinburgh Southern
Miles Briggs (Con) facebook page.
Daniel Johnson (Lab) @D_G_Johnson.
Jim Eadie (SNP) @JimEadie_msp;  facebook page.


The Liberal Democrat and Green Parties have not yet announced complete candidate lists, so we suggest you contact their top Lothians list candidates:

Alison Johnson (Grn) @AlisonJohnstone;  facebook page.
Alex Cole-Hamilton (Lib) @Alex4Central.

A Forest of Hope for Paris 2015

In Paris in December 2015, world leaders will gather to seek a global agreement on how to reduce carbon emissions and reduce the risk of climate change to safe levels.

During September, members and visitors to St John's Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh, are writing prayers and messages of encouragement and hope on paper leaves, to bring a forest of hope into leaf inside our beautiful and historic church.

By 21 September we had over 100 leaves, and you are still welcome to go in and write one to add to the artwork.

This is one of many actions around the world raising awareness and putting pressure on governments to reach a strong climate deal. We would encourage you to find out about other events over the next three months and participate.

In particular, we would encourage you to participate in Scotland's Climate March, which begins at 12 noon on 28 November in the Meadows, and is organised by Stop Climate Chaos Scotland.

Environment Agenda: Holyrood 2016

Today at its annual green fair, St John's Church, Edinburgh, launched Environment Agenda. This campaign asks candidates in the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections to make an environmental issue one of their headline manifesto pledges.

The aim is to get debates about how to tackle climate change and biodiversity decline onto the political agenda.

Sarah Boyack MSP, Shadow Spokesperson for Environmental Justice, wrote in support of the campaign,

"I think people underestimate the impact of writing to their political representatives. If I get around 10 emails I know there's interest in an issue and I'll check it out. If there are hundreds I'll know it's a big campaign and I'll make sure my party takes note. With the upcoming Paris Talks in December Eco-Congregations can really have an impact when they mobilise their members."

At the launch event, congregation members and visitors wrote over 60 postcards to party leaders and their local candidates.
We hope this campaign will be taken up more widely by Eco-Congregations, Scottish environmental groups, and individuals.

To get involved you can:

1. Come in to St John's Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh (open all day) and write postcards.
2. Post the image below to candidates' facebook pages and twitter feeds (#EnvironmentAgenda). Links to party leaders and Edinburgh constituency candidates are given here.
3. If you would like to distribute postcards at an event or to your members, contact eleanormharris@gmail.com.

Posted with Blogsy

The Earth Be Glad Postcard Campaign

I guess most readers of this blog have heard of Amnesty International. It is possible that you have not all heard of Mrs Fawcett. You should have done. She was more responsible than any other single individual for winning the vote in parliamentary elections for women in the UK. (If you want to know more about this, my blog-post “Suffragettes and Suffragists” will not take you long to read. http://georgehharris.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/suffragettes-and-suffragists.html) These two examples are proof enough that campaigns of letter-writing to decision makers and opinion formers can produce results.

That is why a small group of us at St John’s Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh have started a post-card campaign. It is part of our Earth be Glad project.

We are concerned with the environmental crisis, which is now very urgent indeed. The two massive and interlinked problems are climate change and the extinction of species. Most of the sensible decision makers and opinion formers in the UK do know this, but they need support, encouragement, and a bit of pressure to make the revolutionary and transformational changes needed if we are going to have much hope of tackling the crisis. Hence the post cards.

Each card on the picture side has a striking image, with a few words as well (there are several designs to choose from). It is up to the writers to word the messages as they think fit, though we have made some general suggestions, depending on the addressee. It would be nice to think that, over the next few months, government ministers, educators, church leaders, journalists, MPs, CEOs and others will receive so many of them that they notice them, and have strengthened their resolve to respond effectively to the crisis.

The campaign was launched a month ago and is slowly gathering momentum. If any readers of this blog would like to join in, please DM an address to @earthbeglad and we can organise sending you some cards and a suggested address/message list. Perhaps one day you will share a place in history with Mrs Fawcett.